C3X: EXE Mod including Bug Fixes, Stack Bombard, and Much More Release 16

[Flintlock]

So for playing per example the WW 2 in the Pacific scenario with the WW 2 in the Pacific config.ini file, it seems that the loading of two config.ini files (default and scenario) is needed. Isn´t it sufficient, to load only the scenario config.ini file in that case ?

That could work but my intention with the scenario config is that it should only contain things related to its scenario/mod, whereas the default config should be a general baseline that contains everything. (The base config is only really there in case the default INI file is missing.) Some things in the default config are basically just user preferences, like the on/off switch for the city production details. I don't see why that would ever need to be set for a particular scenario, but a player might want to switch it off for whatever reason.

Can I take it for granted that if a Modder (using your patch) were to supply such a config.ini with their modfiles, to ensure that their scenario runs as they intended, this .ini file would be ignored on any machine which is not running your patch (e.g. players who are still running CD-versions of C3C)?
Or conversely, that a Modder who has spent a long time tweaking and balancing their Mod to use the unpatched .exe, could write a C3X_config.ini which would cancel out most/all of your patched-in changes, for those players who are using them?

Yes and yes. I haven't actually tested the first thing you mentioned but I can't imagine the scenario config file could cause a problem for the unpatched executable by its mere presence. It's just a text file after all. As for the second, that's my hope, that modders will create scenario config files tailored to their mods, and include them in the mod download so they can be automatically applied for any player using C3X.

Maybe this is beyond the ability of the mod, but I would like to note that my Civ3 seems insensitive to the actual speed of the computer. There seems to be various delays that are insensitive to things like CPU speed and the use of solid state disks.

Is this on the GOG version and particularly bad after loading a save? If so, I know what you're talking about, it's something that's been mentioned before and that I've seen on my own games. Unfortunately it's probably not something I can solve through the mod. Maybe if I knew what caused it but it's such a strange issue I don't even know where to start looking.

 

[Civinator]

Is this on the GOG version and particularly bad after loading a save? If so, I know what you're talking about, it's something that's been mentioned before and that I've seen on my own games. Unfortunately it's probably not something I can solve through the mod. Maybe if I knew what caused it but it's such a strange issue I don't even know where to start looking.

In the very early years of Civ 3 I noticed a similar problem with the graphics of Civ 3. At that time I had a Nvidia graphics card in my pc (as I have it now, too). I had read, that Civ 3 was developed with an ATi graphics card (but of course after such a lot of years I cannot remember the source any longer). My next pc at that time had an ATi graphics card and the problem disappeared. Only a guess, but may be the problem has its source in the graphics card of the pc ?

 

[Alekseyev_]

Awesome news on the config! It looks very nice.


I came across another thing that might be considered a bug. When mobilising your economy for war, you gain an extra shield on every tile that already produces a shield - as long as you produce a unit considered a military unit by the game. For land and air units, this seems to require the presence of an offensive power. This means that while tanks, infantry and fighters receive the bonus production, artillery, bombers (including stealth bombers) do not. Stealth fighters, which despite being unable to intercept and functionally being a bomber, still have an offensive value, benefit from the extra production. It doesn't seem quite right to me that artillery and bombers don't get a mobilisation bonus if tanks and fighters do.
On water I am not sure, since battleships get the production, while transports (who also have offensive power) do not.

 

[Mithadan]

I am super late to this party, but want to give this a shot forthwith!

Quick question: what's the GOG version of Civ3 Complete? Is it not the version I have, which is the original Vanilla CivIII + Play the World + Conquests, each as separate disks that I bought and installed on top of each other?

 

[vmxa]

It is from Good Old Games, they may have been renamed recently. They sell lots of old dos games, that run using dosbox.

 

[Mithadan]

It is from Good Old Games, they may have been renamed recently. They sell lots of old dos games, that run using dosbox.

Ah, I see. Is the version they sell for download (which is cheap, so it's no big deal if I have to buy it for this mod to work properly) different than an original install that has been overwritten/patched/whatever by the C3Conquest disk and the last patch Firaxis provided for it?

 

[Civinator]

Quick question: what's the GOG version of Civ3 Complete? Is it not the version I have, which is the original Vanilla CivIII + Play the World + Conquests, each as separate disks that I bought and installed on top of each other?

Original Vanilla CivIII + Play the World + Conquests, each as separate disks installed on top of each other are not working for the Flintlock patch/mod as here Civ 3 Complete is needed. This is the normal version that is now available for Civ 3 with GOG or steam and even runs with Win 10. The copy protection of the original Civ 3 CDs is no longer supported by microsoft due to security reasons. The GOG version is better than the steam version as the steam version has a bugged labels text file, playing havoc with the texts of nearly all mods and scenarios. The Gog version is on sale at GOG all few weeks for € 1,29 (or an aeqivalent amount in dollar). The normal price is € 4,99.

 

[Mithadan]

Original Vanilla CivIII + Play the World + Conquests, each as separate disks installed on top of each other are not working for the Flintlock patch/mod as here Civ 3 Complete is needed. This is the normal version that is now available for Civ 3 with GOG or steam and even runs with Win 10. The copy protection of the original Civ 3 CDs is no longer supported by microsoft due to security reasons. The GOG version is better than the steam version as the steam version has a bugged labels text file, playing havoc with the texts of nearly all mods and scenarios. The Gog version is on sale at GOG all few weeks for € 1,29 (or an aeqivalent amount in dollar). The normal price is € 4,99.

Gotcha, thanks! I'm in. Gonna purchase it tonight. Sweet, thanks so much!

 

[vmxa]

I still have the original disk, but the SecuRom validation is not supported as Civinator said. I have GoG and Steam versions and both work fine.

 

[Stew Pid]

Does this mod work with the No Raze Patch and No city Limit?

 

[Stew Pid]

Nevermind I found it.

This is an excellent mod.

 

[Flintlock]

Only a guess, but may be the problem has its source in the graphics card of the pc ?

Could be. At least it seems that the problem is not inside the game itself but comes from how it interacts with Windows, or maybe the graphics drivers, etc. Though in my case, I'm using an AMD card and didn't update drivers or anything between the time when I was experiencing the bug and when it disappeared.

It doesn't seem quite right to me that artillery and bombers don't get a mobilisation bonus if tanks and fighters do.

The rules for bonus production while mobilized are weird but I wouldn't consider changing them to be fixing a bug fix since I don't know if those weird rules are actually what the developers intended. Transports not receiving the bonus feels like a bug to me, I can't imagine any reason why they shouldn't get it. But bombers and artillery are overpowered so excluding them from the mobilization bonus might have been a very weak attempt at balancing them.

Speaking of bugs, I'm looking into the phantom resource bug right now. It's more of a code limitation like the city or leader limits than a bug, but I'm pretty sure I can remove it.

 

[Civinator]

Speaking of bugs, I'm looking into the phantom resource bug right now. It's more of a code limitation like the city or leader limits than a bug, but I'm pretty sure I can remove it.

This would be really great, as it would allow to play with more than a total of 32 strategic and luxury resources in a mod/scenario.

 

[tjs282]

The rules for bonus production while mobilized are weird but I wouldn't consider changing them to be fixing a bug fix since I don't know if those weird rules are actually what the developers intended. Transports not receiving the bonus feels like a bug to me, I can't imagine any reason why they shouldn't get it. But bombers and artillery are overpowered so excluding them from the mobilization bonus might have been a very weak attempt at balancing them.

Looking at the units which get the shield-bonus, I'm thinking it might simply be defined by the AI-Strategy assigned to that unit, rather than the unit's A/D-values.

So all "Land/Air" units with the "Offensive/Defensive" Strategies get the bonus-shields, as do "Sea" units with the "Naval Power" strategy; but "Land/Air" units with the "Bombardment" Strategy and "Sea" units with the "Naval Transport" Strategy do not.

If that's the case, then this would seem to have been deliberately programmed, rather than a bug per se -- and any 'problem' units which 'should' get the bonus, could therefore also be fixed by modding.

(IIRC, to add the Offensive Strategy to Arty units using the Firaxis Editor, they would also need to be given non-zero A/D values, and the "Capture" unit-ability).

But bombers and artillery are overpowered so excluding them from the mobilization bonus might have been a very weak attempt at balancing them.

Exactly, these units can "attack" with zero/minimal risk of loss, so making them even cheaper to produce would likely help the human (much) more than the AI -- as originally programmed, anyway!

 

[justanick]

The risk of losing bombers is actually quite high once sufficient air defence is created. A stack containing 4 battleships shoots down a bomber with 31.699%, a stack of 4 AEGIS Cruisers with 42.825% and a stack with 4 Mobile SAM with 51.775%. Stealth bombers cut it down to 26.497%, but they cost twice as much as radar artillery with similar bombardement power.

 

[Stew Pid]

Could be. At least it seems that the problem is not inside the game itself but comes from how it interacts with Windows, or maybe the graphics drivers, etc. Though in my case, I'm using an AMD card and didn't update drivers or anything between the time when I was experiencing the bug and when it disappeared.

The rules for bonus production while mobilized are weird but I wouldn't consider changing them to be fixing a bug fix since I don't know if those weird rules are actually what the developers intended. Transports not receiving the bonus feels like a bug to me, I can't imagine any reason why they shouldn't get it. But bombers and artillery are overpowered so excluding them from the mobilization bonus might have been a very weak attempt at balancing them.

Speaking of bugs, I'm looking into the phantom resource bug right now. It's more of a code limitation like the city or leader limits than a bug, but I'm pretty sure I can remove it.

Does the patch work with Hotseat mode since its technically partial to multiplayer mode?

 

[Flintlock]

Does the patch work with Hotseat mode since its technically partial to multiplayer mode?

I'm not sure. All the mod features should work as long as it's not an online multiplayer game, i.e., not a case where there are multiple players all running the same game simultaneously and you have to synchronize actions among them. I don't know how hotseat is handled internally, I never actually decoded the game modes.

 

[Alekseyev_]

The rules for bonus production while mobilized are weird but I wouldn't consider changing them to be fixing a bug fix since I don't know if those weird rules are actually what the developers intended. Transports not receiving the bonus feels like a bug to me, I can't imagine any reason why they shouldn't get it. But bombers and artillery are overpowered so excluding them from the mobilization bonus might have been a very weak attempt at balancing them.

I can't start no-Conquests civ 3 anymore, otherwise I would go and test what the situation there was. Bombers were only massively buffed in conquests (given lethal bombard as well as more range (6 to 10), bombard strength from 8 to 12), so I doubt that they changed the mobilisation rules as well to nerf them - in fact I think was a largely forgotten feature.

Looking at the units which get the shield-bonus, I'm thinking it might simply be defined by the AI-Strategy assigned to that unit, rather than the unit's A/D-values.

Bombers and stealth "fighters" both have the same strategy, air bombardement. Only difference is that the SFs have their useless offensive value, which qualifies them for the bonus.
What you say could be the case for transports however, I haven't tested it yet.

 

[Stew Pid]

I'm not sure. All the mod features should work as long as it's not an online multiplayer game, i.e., not a case where there are multiple players all running the same game simultaneously and you have to synchronize actions among them. I don't know how hotseat is handled internally, I never actually decoded the game modes.

I tested in hotseat mode and can confirm the patch works normally.

 

[Flintlock]

I can't start no-Conquests civ 3 anymore, otherwise I would go and test what the situation there was. Bombers were only massively buffed in conquests (given lethal bombard as well as more range (6 to 10), bombard strength from 8 to 12), so I doubt that they changed the mobilisation rules as well to nerf them - in fact I think was a largely forgotten feature.

Good point, I forgot that bombers were much weaker before Conquests.

I went ahead and looked up the criteria for the mobilization bonus in the decompilation. Most of the relevant code is in a function located at 0x4BFEE0 in the GOG executable, which is already named in the Ghidra project on GitHub. The rest of the code, a small but important piece, is located after the call to that function, for whatever reason. Translating the code to English: A unit being built receives the mobilization bonus if its attack strength is greater than zero and neither of the following applies:

1. Its transport capacity is > 0, it does not have the "Transports Only Aircraft" ability, and it does not have the "Transports Only Tactical Missiles" ability
2. It has zero attack, zero defense, zero bombard strength, and does not have the "Nuclear Weapon" ability

So it's clear that the developers deliberately excluded troop transports from the mobilization bonus. That's a bizarre choice IMO, but it's not a bug. And the reason bombers and artillery don't get the bonus while stealth fighters do is due to attack strength. I don't know if they implemented the strength check with that in mind.