[BtS] Super Spies

[DrJambo]

Trojan Sheep,

One thing I noticed is that the combat 4 and 5 promotions are now a bit wonky. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you've used the enemy heal rate and friendly heal rate as entries for instigator and alchemist promotion lines, respectively?

Anyway, what's happening in-game is that when I give a unit combat 4 or 5 it states a +10% toward one of those spy missions. I didn't have time to fully get the details this morning, but it's quite a quick thing to check. What I'm wondering is will this be fixable so that the combat promotions can remain as they were or will something have to give since there's some overlapping on entries, e.g. changing those extra healing modifications on combat 4 and 5 to something else so it doesn't conflict?

Cheers

 

[Trojan Sheep]

Sorry for the late response, work has been keeping me away from Civ more than I'd like. I had a friend test blue earth for me and they didn't run into the same issue, so I'm not sure what's at work there. As much as I'd hate to suggest it a reinstall up to the latest version does seem like a good direction to go in. If those are the only two "mods" involved you shouldn't be having issues, but if there are left over files from other mods in your custom assets (particularly any python scripts), I could see that causing problems.

Jambo, that's a graphical error only so I wouldn't be too worried, I don't actually override the functionality of healing effects at all, just add to it for spies and change the way it looks for spies. I'll clean it up for 1.2, I haven't checked yet, but it's probably just due to a missing line of code on my part (those promotion effects are supposed to display differently for any unit flagged as a spy).

 

[Gaius Octavius]

This is a very interesting mod. One question: are there any outstanding bugs or issues besides the CTD reported earlier?

Looking forward to the next release.

 

[Quetz]

Any news on an update for this? Really looking forward to Alchemist III, among other things...

 

[skodkim]

Any news on an update for this? Really looking forward to Alchemist III, among other things...

I must admit that I am also (im)patiently awaiting the next release. This sounds like a great piece of work - spies have always seemed a bit "lifeless" to me because they couldnt gain experience, be trained in certain skills etc. Kind of like your airforce in old versions...

Actually I'm more worried about getting CTD's than having others updates. Otherwise I would certainly be giving this a go!!

\Skodkim

 

[DrJambo]

Jambo, that's a graphical error only so I wouldn't be too worried, I don't actually override the functionality of healing effects at all, just add to it for spies and change the way it looks for spies. I'll clean it up for 1.2, I haven't checked yet, but it's probably just due to a missing line of code on my part (those promotion effects are supposed to display differently for any unit flagged as a spy).

Also hoping for an updated here too!

Failing that, can you tell me how to fix this graphical error?

Here's a couple of suggestions:

1. Make Courthouse provide a free DECEPTION1 promotion. Spies are caught all too easily especially with the new security promotion, and giving this free will open up the cool Instigator and Alchemist promotion lines more. This will help with some spy development.

2. Make the Intelligence Agency provide a free LOGISTICS1 promotion.

One other thing, I couldn't get the mainscreen python to work with the BUG mod when I copied and pasted the critical entry into the right place. Is it possible to combine them?

 

[surdanis]

CRAZY IDEA but is it possible to put this into the Next War mod? I've already put the MI-26 Transport Helicopter into the mod b/c it's modular, but I wanna know how I'd merge this in as well. The concept is great, and no idea why BTS didn't have it in the first place!

Hope to hear from someone soon.

update: nm, i guess you said you weren't able to make it modular

 

[surdanis]

tried out the mod. it works great, but I would still like to know how i can merge this mod into Next War. any ideas?

UPDATE:

I've successfully merged Super Spies Mod into Next War (with MI-26 Transport Helicopter added). No apparent bugs yet. Promotions seem to be working fine. Will post with more news soon.

 

[surdanis]

LOL sorry for so many posts. Guess nobody reads these forums. just wanted to say that the mods i stuck together (this one and Expanded Next War by Chiyu plus the MI-26 Transport Helicopter) work great. However, I think Super Spies has some weird AI code b/c now a game on a standard map with 18 players takes about double the time in calculating turns (gets to about 7 seconds and slowly increases as we progress through tech so that I quit after getting to Renaissance it was so slow). But then, I run an AMD laptop, so I'm pretty sure a faster cpu would handle it ok.

Btw, the trick to getting this all to work is just putting all the trash in the right place. the promotions xml was tricky, but i seem to have it working nicely. no overlaps. I mean, once you slap the DLL in place, the promotions work perfectly for spies. Haven't had a problem yet!

I would just like to say to Trojan you are my new favorite modder! This mod has given me the most enjoyment so far b/c of its absolute innovation. Kudos on a job well done and keep up the good work! (Though the transport helo is a close 2nd on my short list of faves)

I pray your next mods are modular xml cuz this crap was a pain in the ass to merge.

P.S. I also await your talked about Assassination abilities. It would be great to be able to see and assassinate GP's and named Units (where the Great General has taken over: maybe this particular assassination would completely destroy it), though I wonder if this should be reserved for Great Spies. Maybe regular spies can perform a so-called "assassination" that destroys one random promotion of a unit. Wow, what a great idea...!

 

[debrooks]

Like it. Can't wait for the next version.

 

[skodkim]

To TrojanSheep

Is this mod about to die or are you just working (qietly) or a new update?

Really, really hope its the latter!

\Skodkim

 

[skodkim]

TrojanSheep, how do you feel if we (I) request that other people work on with the mod, since it looks like you haven't got the time to update it?

\Skodkim

 

[Trojan Sheep]

Sorry for being absent for so long, my work has been keeping me away from modding (and pretty much everything else). I ran into some issues with 1.2, the bug fixes were easy enough to implement, but one of the missions I put in place opened up a huge can of worms that spiraled out of control (allowing missions within friendly borders / targetting non-native units).

I have more time this week and hopefully my schedule will look even better in the near future (I've been essentially doing two jobs for the past 3 months while my work tries to fill my old position), so I'm optimistic to make some headway soon.

 

[skodkim]

So happy to her you're back!

Eagerly avaiting your next release!!

\Skodkim

 

[skodkim]

Another thing: I posted a request for a little change concerning one of the messages that come when espionage missions are conducted against you (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=266003).

The download link for Super Spies 1.1 is down so I don't know if you include these files in your mod, but if you do it would be very nice if you didn't create messages like this one.

If you include the relevant files in the mod and it is possible for you I would like to request that you "fix" this particular problem.

Anyway - nice to hear from you once again! Sound like a king mod!

\Skodkim

 

[Trojan Sheep]

I'll take a look into that, the reason your change didn't work was that the SDK has to feed the message the "city" variable (and currently it is only feeding it the name of the improvement). Determining what city the improvement is near may prove challenging unless there are some preexisting functions for that, but I'll do a little digging.

 

[skodkim]

I'll take a look into that, the reason your change didn't work was that the SDK has to feed the message the "city" variable (and currently it is only feeding it the name of the improvement). Determining what city the improvement is near may prove challenging unless there are some preexisting functions for that, but I'll do a little digging.

It already exists lots of places - that's one of the reasons I find it so annoying that its left ouf of this message.

I bet it's the part that goes something like:

Spoiler :

CvWString szCityName = kTargetPlayer.getCivilizationShortDescription();
CvCity* pClosestCity = GC.getMapINLINE().findCity(getX_INLINE(), getY_INLINE(), eTargetPlayer, kTargetPlayer.getTeam(), true, false);
if (pClosestCity != NULL)
{
szCityName = pClosestCity->getName();

Thanks for looking into it!

\Skodkim

 

[Trojan Sheep]

Cool, I should be able to make it work with that, I'll probably use the same mechanic for assassination/bribery instances (Which are actually going well now that I'm making them a separate mission mechanic as opposed to part of the standard espionage missions).

 

[Shqype]

Trojan Sheep, it looks like you've done a good job on this modcomponent. I remember driving home one day and thinking about how I could expand the espionage system, but you've already taken a significant step in doing that

I never understood the experience mechanic for spies... I always wished they made it easier to see how much experience your spies had, and I wished it wasn't so easy for your spies to always get caught.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with Medieval 2: Total War or not, but the spy mechanic in that game is pretty damn good, and I hope you can improve CIV4 spies to work simularly. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I can take some screenshots for you and better explain it.

 

[Trojan Sheep]

There actually isn't a base line experience mechanic for Spies, this mod adds all of that, normally your spies never improve and are essentially just delivery mechanisms for espionage and nothing more (your chances are based entirely on other things, like overall espionage spent and what not).

I'm always happy to hear suggestions, so if you'd like to give me an overview on some of the key features you found cool about that game's espionage system that'd be awesome.