C3X: EXE Mod including Bug Fixes, Stack Bombard, and Much More Release 24

[Ozymandias]

It is not only the traffic problem of the blockade of units. There are also AI pathfinding errors of units appearing, that lead to freezes of the game. The release of the mod CCM had an delay of more than one year by these problems.

I'm curious: How did this come about?

Wat should be the solution for the production of units in a city when the tile of the city reaches the tile limit ?

Ideally, the rule would not apply within Cities; otherwise, I quite agree with you.

The battles are not "spreading out" by such a setting, as neighboring tiles are not connected in a C3C battle.

Yes, but if it's the AI's turn, all stacks adjacent to a "target" stack will attack it, in turn.

Additionally in my eyes it is no fun, to handicap the AI even more with such limitations.

I'm not certain whether or not this would be a handicap to the AI: currently, the same (non-) stacking rules apply equally to a human & an AI Civ.

and even more it is no fun, when your game is closed by a freeze triggered by an AI path finding error.

Agreed - But any hypothetical work by Flintlock would (of necessity) address this.

 

[Civinator]

I'm curious: How did this come about?

The freezes were triggered by limitations of entering tiles by different units. The CCM preview thread is full of posts about freezes in the pre-beta test of CCM, but mostly only that other freezes have occured. The detailed posts were at the former SOC site, that is gone long ago. Here is a post with a description of one of the freezes in the CFC CCM preview thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ccm-epic-mod-preview-thread.291104/page-10#post-8066459

 

[Sutsuj]

Sutsuj, I think you see this all from the perspective of a multiplayer game, where many of the problems that strike the AI, can be corrected by the human player, but are staying big problems for the AI civs. I see these problems from the perspective of a single player game, where the problems of the AI must be taken into consideration. So some features of the Flintlock mod may be working in multiplayer games, too, until now the Flintlock mod is a single player mod.

If such stack limits should be so nice, why are you not using the simplest solution for multiplayer games to set a limit for units in a stack between the human players ? If you play your multiplayer games with a mixture of human and AI players, you should not completely ignore the big problems the AI has with such limitations in C3C. The existing traffic problems for the AI triggered by such tile limitations were already posted above. The argument to make the maps much bigger doesn´t solve this problem, at least if you want still to have an interesting playable map for your game....

Hi Civinator,

I am not quite sure why you are arguing so heavily against this idea. I am sure that whatever features Flintlock implements, he will include the option to turn them off like he has with all his other changes, so if you'd prefer not to use it, you wouldn't have to in your games or your CCM mod. Maybe you're worried he'll spend time working on this change rather than one you prefer? I tried to suggest a way to implement the idea effectively without much work on Flintlock's part, but I guess I can still appreciate why you'd have that preference.

I see it from both multiplayer and single-player perspectives. I would enjoy being forced to have multiple small stacks in single-player games, but am unlikely to do so if I just need to tell myself, "this game, I'll play with stacks of size 5."

You yourself said that charm alleviated a need for stack limits. I said this might not apply to multiplayer. Now you seem to say charm and stack limits have nothing to do with each other. I don't follow. Relatedly, I'm not sure why you claim that "the Flintlock mod is a single player mod." It's whatever Flintlock makes it to be. And if his changes affect multi-player, then it's also effectively a multi-player mod.

Anyways, I'm still optimistic about the idea both for AI and humans. Of course I agree with you that this is ultimately all up to our benefactor Flintlock -- thanks again for the work Flintlock!

 

[Civinator]

I am not quite sure why you are arguing so heavily against this idea. I am sure that whatever features Flintlock implements, he will include the option to turn them off like he has with all his other changes, so if you'd prefer not to use it, you wouldn't have to in your games or your CCM mod. Maybe you're worried he'll spend time working on this change rather than one you prefer? I tried to suggest a way to implement the idea effectively without much work on Flintlock's part, but I guess I can still appreciate why you'd have that preference.

Exactly. My posts contain a warning, that here changes that look to be "not much work" could trigger a cornucopia of work, based on my very bad experiences I had with partly absurd conflicts due to tile limitations for units many years ago. The really nasty thing is, that it can last in a game several eras until you run into such a constellation that has the potential to destroy your complete game. Here is the link to another one of the hair-raising problems triggered by the limitation of units moving into a tile, that made it from the CCM prebetatest at the SOC site to the CCM preview thread at CFC. A unit attacked into a tile that was forbidden for that unit: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ccm-epic-mod-preview-thread.291104/page-19#post-8817524

On the other side I only worked with the editor and not by changing the programming, and even with the editor I think I have solved these problems, but the time I had to spend for those fixes was really no fun. I still have a bad feeling with this kind of tile limitation, but of course this feeling could be wrong.
As posted, important is that this option can be disabled in the config file.

 

[register]

I there a way to download older releases? Release 15 freezing a game too often. After successful installation I can't run the game from run.bat as in previous releases, only form conquest.exe

 

[Civinator]

register, in my eyes all versions of the Flintlock mod are "stable" (even the new R16 preview exe). The run bat never worked for me, but this is not necessary. Here are links to my post about it and to Flintlock´s answer:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ard-and-much-more.666881/page-3#post-16048994
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ard-and-much-more.666881/page-3#post-16049068

I always start C3C by shortcuts to different versions of the boosted exes of the Flintlock Mod on my "Taskleiste" (I use the German term, that you are understanding). I still even have an additional shortcut to the C3C exe boosted with the Antal1987 exe on that Taskleiste. This is very comfortable and also needed for working on my very big CCM and RARR mods.

Here you can see a screenshot with 4 working links to 4 different versions of the C3C exe (and one link to the editor) on the "Taskleiste". The Flintlock mod automatically creates an additional version of the "unmodded" exe. If you want to be completely safe, you can create an additional copy of that exe.

If you really need the R14 version, I can make a zip file of it and send it to you attached to a pm - but in my eyes this is really not necessary.

 

[register]

Thanks Civinator for the explanation. I knew how to start a game even when run.bat cased errors, also I'm aware that I can turn on/off things in default.c3x_config.ini. With R15 "unmodded" exe do not work on it's own, I can't start a game.

The thing I have is a freezing game, well advanced game, so it's not happening at the start. I do not have any errors I can refer to and I do not want to go through default.c3x_config.ini and turning on and off options I have and testing which one causing an error.

If you do not mind to send me a previous release R14 that would be great. Actually I was also thinking about R4 because I had it installed for a year or more and never had any problems with it, so that version is stable.

 

[Civinator]

register, I sent you the R14 by a pm. My collection of R-version starts only with R9. For me the starting of C3C with one of the boosted exes or the "Unmodded exe" works fine. May be this is a problem of windows, too. I still use win10.

As I tried to explain some posts above, late game freezes are among the worst things that can happen to a Civ 3 player. Can it be, that your problem could not result from the Flintlock Mod, but from running into one of those tile limitations ? Two other sources for such late game freezes (the housebot bug and the AI trying to load immobile units into ships) are thankfully fixed by the Flintlock mod.

Edit: I just remembered, that we had such an ugly freeze problem with a tank unit in the SOE tests more than a decade, too. So even a mistake in one of the units could trigger such a problem. I remember, that this unit was reworked, but I cannot tell you what was the real problem in that unit.

 

[register]

Ok, I'm going to test it, thank you.

Any one have an access to R4?

 

[Nathiri]

Ok, I'm going to test it, thank you.

Any one have an access to R4?

I have R6, 7, 8, and 11.

 

[register]

Can you send it please.

By the way, it would be good to have in our database older releases to download, just in case.

 

[Erlend Philip Wood]

Can you send it please.

By the way, it would be good to have in our database older releases to download, just in case.

All of this is not necessary. Go to the C3X download page. Open the History tab. There you can download any version you want, from release 3 onwards.

 

[Nathiri]

All of this is not necessary. Go to the C3X download page. Open the History tab. There you can download any version you want, from release 3 onwards.

I thought this was the case, but there was no download button on the Updates tab. I see now its under History.

 

[register]

All of this is not necessary. Go to the C3X download page. Open the History tab. There you can download any version you want, from release 3 onwards.

)) I remember I have used history tab before but convinced myself recently it was not available for download anymore. Many thanks!

 

[Erlend Philip Wood]

Release 15 freezing a game too often.

Many thanks!

You're welcome. Hope you figure out your problem. In my experience, C3X releases 7 through 15 seem completely stable on my system. The only thing I know of that will occasionally cause the game to freeze, is the experimental "disallow_trespassing" function.

 

[register]

You're welcome. Hope you figure out your problem.

I did, thank you. The older releases work perfectly. I have tried R4, 6 and 7 and have no problems whatsoever when running run.bat or unmodded.exe. I did not test it yet in game but I'm optimistic about it.

 

[Meteor Man]

The only thing I know of that will occasionally cause the game to freeze, is the experimental "disallow_trespassing" function.

Do you remember what some of the triggers for that are? I haven't run across any freezes yet while using that functionality.

 

[Erlend Philip Wood]

Do you remember what some of the triggers for that are? I haven't run across any freezes yet while using that functionally.

I don't remember the details, it was a while ago. I tested it when the function was implemented back in Release 8, probably in September 2021. I played a few hundred turns, into the industrial age I think, when the game froze during the AI's turn. By reloading auto-saves and eliminating possibilities, I was able to pinpoint the error to the "disallow_trespassing" function. If I turned it back on, the game would always freeze during that turn, if I turned it off, it would not. So I haven't used it since. It probably happens rarely, since it worked fine for several hundred turns.

 

[Brenshar]

One freeze I've had in R16 is a naval unit that I controlled when it would pass or if I dragged the movement cursor accross some specific parts of the map, seemingly over/besides unexplored tiles, there were about 3 different repeatable instances of that (as in, would happen everytime I attempted it), but was easily avoided by being careful after a reload. All occured at late stages at the game, so I wondered if it was some kind of memory issue somehow.

 

[Chalito]

I’ve had that issue as well and it’s only with Naval units. Only experienced with the latest R16.

Another one is the submarine bug when moving a whole group of naval units and it crosses into an invisible submarine. It’s not a problem moving an individually unit with the arrow keys, but the whole cannot go through it without game turning off.

One other I noticed and I think it’s from R15 is that after you do a group bombard, the button to bombard still remains on the units that still have movement remaining. Once you start moving it disappears.