C3X: EXE Mod including Bug Fixes, Stack Bombard, and Much More Release 23

[Node60]

I don't know how difficult it would be to make unit maintenance vary based on type.

Perhaps it will be easier to use an additional attribute for the unit - "support price increased"? This would be interesting for mercenary units.

 

[Civinator]

@Civinator I had a look at that save. Australia does have a settler on a boat, see pic below. I noticed it when it moved during the interturn. You wouldn't have seen it if the houseboat bug triggered since in that case the game freezes before the unit can move at all. But I don't know why the bug is triggering for you, when I tried it everything worked as expected. With the C3X R8 EXE it made it to the next turn and with the unmodded EXE it froze during the AI's movement phase, as expected. Are you sure you had the mod configured to patch the houseboat bug?

Flintlock, thank you very much for your answer and I´m sorry about taking your time by the following error I made in my secondary folders for testing CCM 2.50 and RARR in my C3C Chronicles installation (to avoid the mix-up, that happened in the Chronicles installation, the folders in my C3C GOG installation are reserved for the upcoming new German version of C3C and its conquests with many new improved graphics and texts in combination with the German version of your great patch, both nearing completion now):

It seems in my Chronicles installation I set a wrong starting link to the R5 version of the exe instead to the R7 exe. When starting the save file with the linked R5 exe and the R7 files, the freeze happened again, but when starting the save file with the R7 exe, the houseboat bug patch worked like charm.

Flintlock one more big thank you very much for the new R8 version of your patch!

Here I am especially interested, how the land/sea intersections will work. This innovation can create new options for my WW2 scenarios, but also to space scenarios, that now can be set much better for clusters of planets.

 

[LordBaal]

Perhaps it will be easier to use an additional attribute for the unit - "support price increased"? This would be interesting for mercenary units.

I thought of this too. I mean, already every unit that requires support cost 1 of gold. So one way of making this would be to put a tag of additional upkeep of -X amount of gold. Easier said than done of course.

 

[Node60]

I thought of this too. I mean, already every unit that requires support cost 1 of gold. So one way of making this would be to put a tag of additional upkeep of -X amount of gold. Easier said than done of course.

Theoretically, there may be several such marks, with different prices. It seems to me that it will be easier to mark them for the necessary units than to determine the price of support for different classes of units.

 

[vmxa]

Sir Flintlock,
Just want to ask, if you have anything that may trigger autosave every 10 turns? I have autosaved off, but I see one in the save folder every ten turns. Well to be truthful, I did not count to see, if it was 10, but it is about that many. Not a huge problem, just scratching my head as to what could be going on.

I am only using your patch, C3x_R6. Thanks

 

[LordBaal]

Oh and third and fourth points of my post back there. If simple requirements can be done, this could open the chance of building requirements for units, like requiring barracks to build spearmen in the early game, or like I asked, having a cap of say 10 horseman, or a single nuke for every uranium source you have.

 

[Flintlock]

Another beautiful breakthrough. In order to "perfume" an improvement, do we need to enter the in game name of said improvement into the " " or is it the civilopedia entry? How many improvements can be "perfumed"? And is it possible to do the same with small wonders and wonders as well?

It's the name, not the civilopedia key. It only works that way since that made it easy for me to test the feature but I could very easily change it. Civinator mentioning his German translation is making me think that 'pedia keys would be better since they don't have to be translated unlike the names. You guys have a preference either way? I could even make it work with either one. Also right now only one improvement can be perfumed. That's something I'll change for the next version, currently improvement perfuming is only in there as a proof of concept kind of thing. Perfume can be applied to wonders great or small. That's a consequence of how the AI works, it considers improvements and units separately but it considers all kinds of improvements, wonders or not, together.

Suggestions for next patch:

Added to the list. Copy-pasting the PTW code wouldn't be practical even if I had it available (I don't have a PTW EXE). The problem is that large blocks of code like that have hundreds of references to other parts of the code and making a block work inside a different executable would require patching all those references. Also about the AI founding one tile off the coast, I've been thinking about improving the AI's city placement in general but haven't looked into it yet. There are so many ways it could be improved, I think optimizing city placement alone would make the AI play half a difficulty level higher.

Perhaps it will be easier to use an additional attribute for the unit - "support price increased"? This would be interesting for mercenary units.

Even if I were to add an attribute, the hard part would be wiring it into the game's unit maintenance calculation.

It seems in my Chronicles installation I set a wrong starting link to the R5 version of the exe instead to the R7 exe. When starting the save file with the linked R5 exe and the R7 files, the freeze happened again, but when starting the save file with the R7 exe, the houseboat bug patch worked like charm.

Ah that explains it. No worries.

Just want to ask, if you have anything that may trigger autosave every 10 turns? I have autosaved off, but I see one in the save folder every ten turns. Well to be truthful, I did not count to see, if it was 10, but it is about that many. Not a huge problem, just scratching my head as to what could be going on.

Strange. I haven't done anything that would cause that, at least not intentionally. And I doubt I did it unintentionally either since nothing in the mod touches anything related to the triggering of autosaves.

 

[Vuldacon]

Flintlock... Just want to congratulate you on all the work and needed adjustments you have done.

Also want to congratulate you on handling ALL the Posts, Messages and probably E-Mails asking if you can adjust many more things that individuals want.

Hat's Off to you

 

[tjs282]

There are so many ways it could be improved, I think optimizing city placement alone would make the AI play half a difficulty level higher.

Agreed!

If you can figure out where the weighting-factors for the AI's settlement-priorities are stored, (I think) the most important thing would be getting the AI to value tiles adjacent to (fresh)water much more highly as potential town-sites, than tiles which 'only' maximise Strat/Lux/Bonus Resources in the potential town-radius (especially where some Strat Res won't even be usable for another 3 ages!).

Secondly, a check to avoid settling on Bonus food-resources, where doing so would result in a town-tile with lower food-output than if the tile was left free to be harvested under the current government (e.g. settling on Hills + Wine would be allowed, since the food-output would still be 2 FPT, but settling on Floodplain/Grassland/Plains + Wheat/Cattle should almost always be avoided).

Lastly, the AI also seems to have a disporoportionate love for Whale-resources, and often places near-useless towns way out on narrow peninsulas (= low shields), apparently just to get a Whale in the outer radius. Could the inner 8 tiles of the BFC (i.e. those immediately available to use after founding) be made (much) more important, with the outer 12 tiles having (much) lower influence on Settlement-priority?

 

[justanick]

Lastly, the AI also seems to have a disproportionate love for Whale-resources, and often places near-useless towns way out on narrow peninsulas (= low shields), apparently just to get a Whale in the outer radius. Could the inner 8 tiles of the BFC (i.e. those immediately available to use after founding) be made (much) more important, with the outer 12 tiles having (much) lower influence on Settlement-priority?

I see the logic in that, but i am not sure, if that is really a good idea. If we strike the "much", then it could still be a good idea. Finding a sensible balance might be hard. There is the risk for changing things for the worse.

 

[Predator145]

I would prefer the actual improvement name instead of the civilopedia entry. Because you can have multiple improvements/wonders/SWs using the same one but do different things. This saves a lot of time modding.

 

[Civinator]

It's the name, not the civilopedia key. It only works that way since that made it easy for me to test the feature but I could very easily change it. Civinator mentioning his German translation is making me think that 'pedia keys would be better since they don't have to be translated unlike the names. You guys have a preference either way? I could even make it work with either one. Also right now only one improvement can be perfumed. That's something I'll change for the next version, currently improvement perfuming is only in there as a proof of concept kind of thing. Perfume can be applied to wonders great or small. That's a consequence of how the AI works, it considers improvements and units separately but it considers all kinds of improvements, wonders or not, together.

C3C has the option to set flavors for each building. In the mod CCM only one flavor exists and is added to all civs in a game: AI flavor. It is set to the buildings marketplace and courthouse, buildings that in my eyes should not be neglected by the AI.

As this flavor can be set to any building, SW and GW, I am wondering, what is the difference between the 'perfume' and the AI-flavor, that can be set to several buildings just yet ? Would the 'perfume' be a reinvention of the wheel ?

I think it is better if the perfume (if this is really an advantage compared to AI flavor) should be tied to the name of the building and not to the pediaicons entry. The reason is, that the city view graphics (in C3C only be used in the epic game) seem to be tied to the pediaicons entries and these graphics can be used for buildings that are completely different from the original buildings of those entries. Per example in CCM 2.50 the pediaicons entry for the UN is used for churches, mosques and so on, as it holds culture specific city view graphics.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

I've been playing the C3C mod called "World 2004" and have noticed a strange bug. Has anyone ever seen locked alliances go to war with each other? What seems to be happening is that one ai will trigger a war with another ai that is supposed to be it's locked alliance member. They war for x number of turns then make peace with each other only to immediately go back to war on the very next turn.

This bug is really ruining my experience and the only thing I can think of that may be triggering the war is when a unit moves onto an airfield that is owned by another player, even if it is a locked alliance member.

I guess a "band aid" fix this problem is remove all locked alliances from the mod but then that would create wars between nations that are supposed to be allies in real life. I'm frustrated.

 

[Civinator]

The land/sea intersections are working very well! Flintlock, one more time you have done a phantastic job !
Suez, Panama, Bosporus and even the Channel in SOE, now the Flintlock patch is coming!

 

[Flintlock]

Alright I'll leave perfuming working by name instead of civilopedia key.

As this flavor can be set to any building, SW and GW, I am wondering, what is the difference between the 'perfume' and the AI-flavor, that can be set to several buildings just yet ? Would the 'perfume' be a reinvention of the wheel ?

Maybe. I'll admit I don't have enough experience with the scenario editor to know how flavors work. You would know better than I do since you maintain two large mods, do you feel flavors already give you enough control over the AI's build choices? Perfuming right now is just an initial implementation, basically a proof of concept, of influencing the AI's build choices. Eventually I plan to extend it to units and ultimately to use it to influence the AI's choices with additional logic instead of just adding a flat value. As an example, I want to make the AI build more ships but only on archipelago-type maps, and I want to try using perfuming to make the AI build more artillery and bombers instead of forcing the ratio (which is a blunt way of doing it).

If you can figure out where the weighting-factors for the AI's settlement-priorities are stored, (I think) the most important thing would be getting the AI to value tiles adjacent to (fresh)water much more highly as potential town-sites, than tiles which 'only' maximise Strat/Lux/Bonus Resources in the potential town-radius (especially where some Strat Res won't even be usable for another 3 ages!).

It would be nice if we could get a big improvement just by editing weights, but again it depends how the code is structured. I think one of the biggest limitations of the AI's city placement is that it doesn't consider how placing a city somewhere will affect the placement of others around it. I often see the AI put its cities in the middle of floodplains with way more food than they can use and no production, and meanwhile the neighboring cities are in the middle of desert/hills/mountains with no food and a bunch of production tiles they'll never be able to use. I doubt editing weights alone could fix that. BTW I agree with what you said about the AI settling around food resources.

Hat's Off to you

Thanks!

 

[Flintlock]

I've been playing the C3C mod called "World 2004" and have noticed a strange bug. Has anyone ever seen locked alliances go to war with each other?

To clarify, does this only happen with C3X or is this a bug in the base game?

the only thing I can think of that may be triggering the war is when a unit moves onto an airfield that is owned by another player

You could check this by watching the AI move in debug mode.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

To clarify, does this only happen with C3X or is this a bug in the base game?

You could check this by watching the AI move in debug mode.

I haven't played the base game in many years. The current version of C3C is the complete version I bought from Gamersgate IIRC. I forgot about debug mode. I'll give that a try, thank you!!

 

[Civinator]

do you feel flavors already give you enough control over the AI's build choices? Perfuming right now is just an initial implementation, basically a proof of concept, of influencing the AI's build choices. Eventually I plan to extend it to units and ultimately to use it to influence the AI's choices with additional logic instead of just adding a flat value. As an example, I want to make the AI build more ships but only on archipelago-type maps, and I want to try using perfuming to make the AI build more artillery and bombers instead of forcing the ratio (which is a blunt way of doing it).

The AI flavor for buildings is better than nothing, but I will not say that this is enough control over the AI build choices. Concerning units, the flavors can only help for researching techs, per example a tech that only allows bombers. A direct influence on building units with flavors in C3C is not possible. For encouraging the AI to build much more ships it is very helpful to make ships very cheap in building costs. I think this is common knowledge in modding C3C since the great scenario AoI by El Justo and Vuldacon.

To clarify, does this only happen with C3X or is this a bug in the base game?

I think this is a bug in the base game. Such situations were reported several times about C3C at CFC. Edit: Per example here is an explanation for this situation (if a member of the alliance has a mutual protection pact with a civ outside the alliance and that civ is attacked by another member of the alliance): Https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/some-questions.462088/#post-11510325

 

[tjs282]

I think this is a bug in the base game. Such situations were reported several times about C3C at CFC. Edit: Per example here is an explanation for this situation (if a member of the alliance has a mutual protection pact with a civ outside the alliance and that civ is attacked by another member of the alliance)

Yes.

Locked Allies may also declare war on each other accidentally, due to the Sub Bug — though that should no longer be a problem if the C3X patch is being used.

The current version of C3C is the complete version I bought from Gamersgate IIRC.

Unless you re-installed from GG recently (i.e. since it was made Steam-compatible), this version may/will not be compatible with C3X.

I got my original installation of C3Complete from GG as well (back in 2013, IIRC), but when it became available on GOG in 2017, I re-purchased it on sale. I had a GOG account already, and at 75% off the list-price of €5, I figured I might as well (a plus was that I wouldn't be tied to Steam, if I'd had to re-install for some reason).

I recently uninstalled the GG-version, and re-installed via GOG, just so that I could use @Flintlock's patch

 

[Arexander]

Does anyone else have an issue with the tile co-ordinates duplicating instead of showing the resource on the tile? Normal tiles show the co-ordinates as advertised, but if the tile has a resource, it duplicates the co-ordinates instead of showing the name of the resource on the tile. Here's a quick example from a new game with CCM2.5, although I first noticed the issue while playing the Tides of Crimson mod, where the new R8 was included in the DL package.