BUFFY, BUG, BULL and BAT

[Longbowman]

I think that I finally understand the differences between BUFFY, BUG, BULL and BAT. However, I would like to know how many players actually use them (and which one). If you alternate more of them, you can choose more than one option. Feel free to argue why you voted as you did!

 

[Fippy]

I use Bat now, the improved graphics are really nice.
And you get everything from Bug + i think Buffy (like workers stop 1 turn before chopping, Bug alone did not have that).

 

[pob]

BetterBatAI for single player, BUFFY for forum games, BUG for multiplayer.

 

[NihilZero]

I'm a bit surprised that people are using BUG without BULL. BULL has all the cool stuff like making your healing guys go into sentry mode (which is essential).

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I use BUFFY as most of my games are for the Hall of Fame, can't be bothered using something else for the other games.

 

[blunderwonder]

I think i use bug and bull, sometimes its annoying setting that kind of stuff up

I use Bull because it shows better odds, and stops chops at 1 turn left. I use bug because it shows the red fist, when they'll cap, alerts me for growth, I also set regular civ to show city stuff so i can see how many turns till something is finished, and whichever one shows you what buildings a city has when you hover over it, they also have much better F# screens for trades and units etc. I wish bug did more stuff at times, because i cant always remember if people will trade at pleased or are able to be bribed at pleased on someone who is X or whatever, who will or wont plot at pleased or trade techs etc. Sometimes that stuff is only academic anyway but sometimes its nice to know.

If anyone could tell me which mod, and how to do it, id like to know how people get the "dotmap" to show. When planning where cities will go it seems like it is very useful, so i dont accidently miss important tiles

 

[lymond]

I use BUFFY and BUG/BULL as needed...HOF/GOTM or games that are not compatible otherwise. HOwever, I use BAT for all personal games and any forum games with WB saves. I highly recommend to all to use BAT if you can. It has everything, fully geared out, and is up to date.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I play almost exclusively Hall of Fame games, so BUFFY is the only option. Except for Vanilla and Warlords, I use the corresponding HoF mod, since BUFFY only works for BtS games.

孫子武

 

[Lennier]

I'm a bit surprised that people are using BUG without BULL. BULL has all the cool stuff like making your healing guys go into sentry mode (which is essential).

As I recall, BULL has modified dlls, which makes it impossible to play with the Mac version. Just another way they made the Mac version 100% compatible with the Windows version.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Where's the option for "I use them when I'm not in the middle of an RB event?" Those mods are banned there, so I have to temporarily disable BUG and BULL.

 

[Robert FIN]

BUG. BULL was too hard to install, BAT won't let "BAT-less" guys to look at your save files and BUFFY.. well, I haven't tried HOF so not yet.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Where's the option for "I use them when I'm not in the middle of an RB event?" Those mods are banned there, so I have to temporarily disable BUG and BULL.

Seriously??? It's so tedious to check all those screens every turn, no way would I play without one of the Mods

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Seriously??? It's so tedious to check all those screens every turn, no way would I play without one of the Mods

It unbalances the playing field, and there isn't really any need to check every turn. I just do a quick WHEEOH check every 10 turns and a tech-trade check every five. The only problem is unhappiness, but I just whip it away, hire scientists, import luxuries or turn up the culture slider.

 

[Longbowman]

So far it looks like everyone uses BUG (alone or as a part of another mod). However, BULL divides the forum users into two parts. This botheres me - everytime some newbie starts a new forum game, someone immediately tells her something like "Turn huts and events off since they are bad for games comparison." That is fine but playing with or without BULL mod (which contains an unofficial patch) is bad for games comparison, too. I guess that there is not much to do about this schisofrenic situation but it sucks anyway...

 

[NihilZero]

^I don't think it's that big of a deal, really. BUG and BULL give you a few labour-saving conveniences, but that's about it. I was recently playing on an older machine that runs very slow when BUG is installed so I played without it, and it wasn't like I couldn't manage - although I did get surprised by a very sudden WHEOOHRN that I missed! This was in the recent NC Suleiman game.

 

[Izuul]

It unbalances the playing field, and there isn't really any need to check every turn. I just do a quick WHEEOH check every 10 turns and a tech-trade check every five. The only problem is unhappiness, but I just whip it away, hire scientists, import luxuries or turn up the culture slider.

Wow, if you only check WHEOOHRN every 10T you could get attacked without ever knowing somebody was plotting. Also, some tech trades have a 1T window. Once i get Alpha I'm on the tech and resource trade screens pretty much every turn.

 

[Longbowman]

I personally think that it was a mistake to include an unofficial patch into BULL. I understand the reasoning but it leads to the situation that some users hesitate to use this (otherwise very useful) mod. Now people play two different versions of civ4, one of them unofficially patched and the other not...

 

[guspasho]

So what is the difference between all of these? I can never keep them straight. I usually just play unmodded BTS because I could never figure out how to do it. I did once, but reinstalled and it was too much work to figure out what I was using before, switch mods to play RFC, etc.

 

[Dhar Khosis]

I don't use any of them in the basic BtS, although I think they are part of some theme-mods (FFH, Planetfall, Final Frontier plus, MoM) I like to play sometimes.

I don't like a lot of those options, because it just helps exploiting the AI even further - against normal human players it just wouldn't matter.

 

[Longbowman]

So what is the difference between all of these? I can never keep them straight. I usually just play unmodded BTS because I could never figure out how to do it. I did once, but reinstalled and it was too much work to figure out what I was using before, switch mods to play RFC, etc.

I am not a developer of any of these mods but this is what I think these mods are:

BUG changes the user interface of the game such that it is easier to find the right information. For example, it shows the number of cities of every civilization in the scoreboard, but there are many other examples. It shouldn't show anything which is inaccessable in the unmodded game.

BULL extends the information shown when you hover the mouse over something. For example, if you hover the mouse over a city, it shows you all the buildings in this city, but there are other examples. The "problem" is that BULL also contains an unofficial patch which changes some of the game mechanics by correcting several bugs (for example some bug concerning hammers overflow but I don't know the details).

BAT provides a very nice graphics changes but other than that, it is only a combination of BUG and BULL. (I believe that there are no other mods included.)

BUFFY is the mod required for playing "Hall of Fame games" and "Game of the Month" games. It is a combination of BUG and BULL. Other than that, it contains something which changes the global warming system but I don't know the details and I don't understand why this was neccessary. Some forum members also feel that BUFFY is out to date compared to BUG and BULL.