C3X: EXE Mod including Bug Fixes, Stack Bombard, and Much More Release 17C

[Stew Pid]

Adding a few more requests to the C3X drawing board.

Not sure if this has been asked yet but the ability to modify the rate units are enslaved, and a flag or modifier that makes certain units immune from enslaving would be nice. Next would be the ability to modify the SDI system's percent chance to intercept nuclear weapons. Adding on to that, the capability to have a unit akin to the power of the suitcase nuke in Civ 2 that can have a special flag to bypass the SDI system interception entirely. Lastly if we could have a flag for nuclear weapons or similar devices of destructive power that only damage one tile instead of nine.

 

[Alekseyev_]

Adding a few more requests to the C3X drawing board.

Not sure if this has been asked yet but the ability to modify the rate units are enslaved, and a flag or modifier that makes certain units immune from enslaving would be nice. Next would be the ability to modify the SDI system's percent chance to intercept nuclear weapons. Adding on to that, the capability to have a unit akin to the power of the suitcase nuke in Civ 2 that can have a special flag to bypass the SDI system interception entirely. Lastly if we could have a flag for nuclear weapons or similar devices of destructive power that only damage one tile instead of nine.

IIRC Non-ICBM-nukes, e.g. the ones you can put on a submarine, are already not intercepted. The rest are cool suggestions.

 

[Stew Pid]

One more thing I forgot to add, if there's a way to make invisible units visible when attacking or defending, that would be great, so it doesn't look like your fighting nothing.

 

[Flintlock]

Alright, I'm back. I want to get version 16 finished finally, so this is the last call for any bugs found in the preview version. So far I've got:

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.

Fixed. This was an error in the code I added to correct the ETAs when railroad movement is limited. So a fix for a previous bug caused an even worse bug, which is always annoying. The reason it happens during the late game is that the ETA correction is only necessary (and only runs) for units with a large number of movement points like destroyers.

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.

Not sure about this one. I wasn't able to replicate it with a simple test. It might be the same issue as above, assuming it occurs with limited railroad movement.

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.

Fixed. This is simply a matter of refreshing the interface after stack bombard is finished.

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.

Do you still have this save by any chance? I would appreciate it a lot if you could send it to me since it would make tracking down this issue much, much easier.

 

[Erlend Philip Wood]

Do you still have this save by any chance? I would appreciate it a lot if you could send it to me since it would make tracking down this issue much, much easier.

Wasn't too sure about that, but I found it. I'll send it to you by PM.

 

[Erlend Philip Wood]

Next would be the ability to modify the SDI system's percent chance to intercept nuclear weapons. Adding on to that, the capability to have a unit akin to the power of the suitcase nuke in Civ 2 that can have a special flag to bypass the SDI system interception entirely.

IIRC Non-ICBM-nukes, e.g. the ones you can put on a submarine, are already not intercepted. The rest are cool suggestions.

The manual and the Civilopedia claims that the Strategic Missile Defense will attack ICBMs only, and leave other nukes alone. However, I've tested this, and it isn't true. This is how it works in practice:

Any unit that would cause a nuclear explosion within your national borders will be targeted by the Strategic Missile Defense, with a probability of 75% to get shot down. It doesn't matter how the nuclear explosion is delivered. Land based missiles like ICBMs and Tactical Nukes, and airplanes like the Atomic Bomb in my 2021 EXPANSION mod, may all be shot right out of the sky. It probably applies to land or sea based suicide units too, but I haven't tested this. Outside the national border nothing happens, except if the nuke attacks a tile close to the border, and 1 or more tiles within your territory would be contaminated, that is enough.

 

[Chalito]

Alright, I'm back. ....

Yay, welcome back!!

 

[Civinator]

Yay, welcome back!!

I second this !

 

[Flintlock]

Wasn't too sure about that, but I found it. I'll send it to you by PM.

Thanks. I already explained it to you by PM, but for any one else who's interested: This issue turns out to be very similar to the immobile disembark bug. In that bug, the game froze trying to disembark an immobile unit from a transport. The game loops continuously unloading units while there are any that can be unloaded, but the logic to check if there are any wasn't aware of the immobile flag. So the game got stuck in an endless loop. In the case Erlend discovered, the game gets stuck trying to unload a unit that can't be unloaded because entering the destination tile would be trespassing. The logic to check if there are any disembarkable units of course wasn't aware of the trespassing restriction. This will be fixed for R16 proper.

Yay, welcome back!!

I second this !

Thanks guys. I didn't go anywhere really. I put C3X on the back burner for some time back in June, but I was still checking in on the mod thread every week or two. Also I have been working on the final, i.e. non-preview, version 16. Changes from the preview version include:

1. An option to share visibility among all human players in a hotseat game
2. All the strange, upside-down config options have been made intuitive. That means instead of things like "anarchy length reduction percent" there is now "anarchy length percent", which is normally 100, and if set to 75 means anarchy is 75% of the standard length, and so on. The previous config options still work so this change doesn't break old config files.
3. The modifiable retreat rules now have separate options for land & sea units.
4. Tweaks to the AI escort logic in line with what we were talking about way back when I posted the preview version
5. Various small quality of life improvements and bug fixes

By the way, #1 is something Vaughn commissioned. He's commissioned quite a few mod features since R15 that I never posted publicly since I was waiting until after R16. That includes a lot of extensions to zone of control and defensive bombard (for example they can be performed by air units, can be lethal, and land units can exert ZoC over sea units & vice-versa). Very soon after version 16 is done I'll post a preview version 17 with all of that.

 

[ruby_sauce]

Im very interested and impressed when I read the list of current options. I have a question about this: the instructions suggest that this only works when you start the game. How can you for example implement a building that produces resources when that's something that has to happen in the editor? Does the editor get changed as well, and if so, how?

 

[Lord_Hill]

Yeah , it requires a third party editor which also supports that feature. In this case, @Quintillus's cross platform editor.

Are there in fact any others? I think Stef had one a long time ago, but Quintillus has the only active one at least to my knowledge!

 

[ruby_sauce]

Thanks! I just downloaded quitlillus's editor but I can't spot where I can make buildings a requirement for units, for example. Im guessing I need to do something extra for this?

 

[Lord_Hill]

Sorry, I got mixed up. It's small wonder free improvements that need an editor. Those ones can be configured in the c3x ini file I think. The file is well commented so it should be easy enough to do.

 

[Civinator]

Thanks! I just downloaded quitlillus's editor but I can't spot where I can make buildings a requirement for units, for example. Im guessing I need to do something extra for this?

You need an editor for adding the building, the resources and the unit (that needs the building and/or resource) to the biq. If the building should autoproduce the unit directly, this also can be set by the editor.

You need the Flintlock mod and its configuration file for connecting a building to a not autoproduced unit and for connecting a resource that can be received by a building.

 

[Ceithernach]

Flintlock, this is amazing.

I haven't played Civ3 in years. I tried and disliked the current Civ, pined for Civ3 and reinstalled it to check if I was suffering from nostalgia goggles. Instead I find myself playing more Civ3 than Starfield.
I was out of the loop, so it took a few days to come across references to the "Flintlock Mod".
And I'm stunned. You have fixed bugs I had long accepted would never be fixed, added quality of life changes, and more tools more for Modding.

Fixed science ages, AI using artillery, navigation across land bridges, no trespass are so cool to see in play.
And I can't wait to try out Building requirements for Units, and resource creating buildings.
But first, I have to finish my current game as the Carthaginian Republic
Ceterum autem censeo Romanem delendam esse

 

[timerover51]

Flintlock, this is amazing.

I haven't played Civ3 in years. I tried and disliked the current Civ, pined for Civ3 and reinstalled it to check if I was suffering from nostalgia goggles. Instead I find myself playing more Civ3 than Starfield.
I was out of the loop, so it took a few days to come across references to the "Flintlock Mod".
And I'm stunned. You have fixed bugs I had long accepted would never be fixed, added quality of life changes, and more tools more for Modding.

Fixed science ages, AI using artillery, navigation across land bridges, no trespass are so cool to see in play.
And I can't wait to try out Building requirements for Units, and resource creating buildings.
But first, I have to finish my current game as the Carthaginian Republic
Ceterum autem censeo Romanem delendam esse

Go get them, Carthaginians. Do unto those despicable Romans what they want to do to you. Have you made any Carthaginian War Elephants?

 

[Ceithernach]

It's on, we have Elephants, Numidian Cavalry, a road across Celtic Territory and the Alps. {Yoda Powers giant earth map, with some changes to make it more about Punic Wars than Age of Exploration)
And in proper Punic fashion, we have emptied coffers to buy the services of the 3 G's - Gauls, Germans and Greeks.

Incidentally, the new ability to make buildings a requirement will let me change the Mods Stupas from great elephant every 15 turns, to allowing elephants to be built.
Combined with the fixing of the resource overflow bug, I can put resources to allow building of Spanish barracks in Spain to recruit Scutari, Gallic barracks in France for Gallic Mercs, Numidian and Libyan barracks in North Africa and I can have a truely diverse Punic Army
(Same for Rome and it's auxiliaries, Persia and their Satrapal vassals and so on)

 

[Flintlock]

Flintlock updated C3X with a new update entry:

Release 16

New in this version:
- Barbarian city capture & production (experimental)
- Option to share visibility among all human players in a hotseat game
- Can use charm flag to control PTW-like artillery targeting
- Option to allow land units to bombard aircraft and naval units in cities
- Option to ignore king flag on defense, so kings aren't always last to defend in a stack
- Limit AI artillery units to one escort (w/ offensive artillery AI)
- Harbor/airport city icons indicate unit effects not...

Read the rest of this update entry...



Edit: Remember when version 15 was the biggest ever? This one's twice the size. Here's just the things that have changed since the preview version:

• Option to share visibility among all human players in a hotseat game -- Does pretty much what it says; lets you see what all human players see in hotseat mode. This change affects the interface but not the game logic. In particular, you can't contact other civs through shared visibility, so if you start on a different continent from another human player, you still have to sail the distance before you can trade with the other continent.
• Option to allow land units to bombard aircraft and naval units in cities -- This removes a weird little bombard rule that limits what land artillery can damage for no clear reason. This option does not override the immunity of air units versus bombardment, if that option is activated too.
• Limit AI artillery units to one escort (w/ offensive artillery AI) -- The AI will assign multiple escorts to some units depending on their shield cost, among other things. This usually only applies to transports but it can apply to artillery too under some circumstances. With this change, the AI will never think an artillery unit needs more than one escort.
• Separate land & sea retreat rules
• Disallow useless bombard attacks vs airfields -- Like how the game stops you from bombarding an empty tile, now it will also stop you from bombarding an airfield if the attack wouldn't be allowed to do any damage. The game rules do not allow bombarding aircraft in an airfield or destroying the airfield from underneath them.
• Gray out build city button when too close to another city and min separation has been increased -- This should help reduce player confusion when the minimum city distance is increased. Here's what it looks like, including the tooltip:
  
• Mitigate issue with pathfinding, limited railroad movement, and units with many moves
  
  • Mitigation applies if GCD(road movement rate, railroad limit) > 1
• Fix freeze related to trespassing restriction and AI disembarking
• Rework sub bug fix in order not to interfere with AI pathing vs enemy units -- Here I carved out an exception to the sub bug fix for civs at war. That way, AI pathfinding does not dodge invisible units belonging to civs they're at war with. If the AI accidently paths over those units, it gets stuck in combat like the human player would.
• Re-enable main GUI before showing hotseat AI replay -- This is useful because it lets you see the minimap while the replay is going.
• Prevent music from being reset during hotseat AI replay
• Make config options more intuitive: anarchy length reduction, minimum city separation, AI naval escort cap -- Previously these config values were set up so that setting them to zero would give the standard, unmodified game rules. However that required that the values be deltas off the standard value or even upside-down, like anarchy length reduction. This caused more confusion than it saved, so I reworked these options so they're intuitive. The names of the config options were changed but the old names & unintuitive values will still work, so old config files won't break.
• Update UI after stack bombarding (fixes bombard button not disappearing for multi-move units w/o blitz)
• Fix potential trade net issue in games with a very large number of tiles and resource generating buildings -- I'm not sure if this fixes the "trade net collapse" issue that was reported, but it fixes a bug that might have caused that. The bug would have prevented resource networks from being calculated at all when the sum of map tiles and resource generating buildings equaled 65536 exactly.
• Reduce default ai_build_artillery_ratio from 20 to 16 -- Many people have reported, and I agree, that the AI was forced to build too much artillery. A ratio of 20 means the AI would fill up to 20% of its army with artillery units. Another 20% would be made up of defenders for those units, and on top of that the AI likes to build a lot of city defenders, so it was left with too few offensive units to take advantage of the damage the artillery did.
• Apply AI naval escort limit to carriers and missile transports
• Fix crash caused by previous fix for incorrect ETAs w/ limited railroad movement

I never intended for R16 to be so huge, but I kept slowly adding things to it while putting off actually releasing it. It's been 9 months (!!) since R15. Anyway, like I mentioned before I'll try to post a preview version 17 soon, that way I won't have any unreleased work just languishing on my hard drive. Not sure what I'll do after that, there are still many small issues and suggestions I'd like to address. Also I keep coming back to the idea of adding Lua scripting to the game. I have been chipping away at that job but don't know when it will be done, if ever. Enjoy!

 

[Lord_Hill]

It just keeps getting better and better! Thanks in particular for the barbarian stuff, controllable barbarians that can capture cities like in Civ 1/2 was something I always wanted back in the day, so it's lovely that you made it happen 20 odd years later.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Nice update! There are a lot of new options I can't wait to try out in game.