CCM2 Epic Mod

[Civinator]

jlvfr, thank you very much for reporting that error. Without your report, this error would have made it into the next version of CCM.

 

[jlvfr]

Glad to be of help. I've also just noticed that the polish "Heavy Tank" can't be upgraded to anything, not even the "cold war MBTs" mentioned on it's caption.

 

[Civinator]

Glad to be of help. I've also just noticed that the polish "Heavy Tank" can't be upgraded to anything, not even the "cold war MBTs" mentioned on it's caption.

Yes, here you are right again. There are some "mix-ups" between the different heavy tank upgrading chains by a base unit autoproduced by the SW Tank Factory and the upgrade chain by the SW Military Research Center that was added in the last time for balancing reasons to the government Fascism. This is not so easy to fix, as it concerns not only the Polish heavy tank, but other units, too and these units must be picked out in the editor among thousands of unit entries. I am working on this problem.

 

[Ray2]

Hi Civinator. A few things from my current game (sorry if these have been reported already):


1) I have noticed that some naval units stay on top in a stack, despite having worse defence values compared to the other naval units they are grouped with. Some examples.:

- Ancient Naval Explorers stay on top in a stack with Medieval Naval Explorers (all empty).

- Privateers stay on top when stacked with Pirate Frigates, despite having worse defence. (Not great when you send your stack of Pirate Frigates away, and your cost-free (captured) privateers are attacked first.)


2) Longbowmen and Heavy Archers have zone of control, not reported in civilopedia. Also, can you please add Spearmen to the Archers' stealth attack targets (always forget that when I return to CCM).


3) The Great Iron Mine does not give the +25% bonus to production.


4) Shouldn’t upgrading older Camel units to Camel Musketeers require saltpeter? (not that I am complaining as it is now)


Lastly, I ran into a bug in my current game. Basically after finishing the current turn, the game always freezes at a certain point during the interturn. I have reloaded a previous save, 4-5 turns before the current save, and the game freezes again at the same point. I have even waited for a couple of hours, but still nothing.

I have attached my last save before I end the turn. If you find the time to have a look that would be great.

Thanks.

 

[Civinator]

Ray2, thank you very much for your continuing interest in CCM 2.5 and for your great input to that mod.

1) I have noticed that some naval units stay on top in a stack, despite having worse defence values compared to the other naval units they are grouped with. Some examples.:

- Ancient Naval Explorers stay on top in a stack with Medieval Naval Explorers (all empty).

- Privateers stay on top when stacked with Pirate Frigates, despite having worse defence. (Not great when you send your stack of Pirate Frigates away, and your cost-free (captured) privateers are attacked first.)

In both cases this behavior results from the king flags in the later upgraded units, while the autoproduced basic units don´t have that flag. Units with the king flag are the last defenders of a tile. This will change with the next version of CCM that will be connected with the Flintlock mod. Here the option of the Flintlock mod to treat units with the king flag like normal units is enabled.

2) Longbowmen and Heavy Archers have zone of control, not reported in civilopedia.

Yes, this is an error in the CCM 2.5 civilopedia. In CCM 2.6 longbowmen and heavy archers no longer have ZOC.

Also, can you please add Spearmen to the Archers' stealth attack targets (always forget that when I return to CCM).

Such a setting was eliminated short after the CCM pre-beta-testings were starting to avoid an early archer rush. Archers with stealth attack against the only early defender (may be in combination with enslavers) were much too powerful against cities, where the AI defense is only in the state of being formed. Later longbowmen and heavy archers have such a stealth attack against spear- and pike men (as here the cities have some more defense and city walls, that in CCM 2.6 are "perfumed" by the Flintlock mod).

3) The Great Iron Mine does not give the +25% bonus to production.

Yes, this is an error in CCM 2.5. Here accidentally the pollution box instead of the production box was tickled. In CCM 2.6 this is fixed.

4) Shouldn’t upgrading older Camel units to Camel Musketeers require saltpeter? (not that I am complaining as it is now)

As camel units in CCM are only be produced by one SW I didn´t want to give the upgrades of those units more restrictions. But for the settings of camel units in CCM 2.6 at present the last word isn´t spoken. I am reflecting about giving all camel upgrades the same costs as the basic unit to avoid, that some cities will be defended only by camels (without any riders on them), when the civ runs out of money for the upgrading. May be saltpeter could there be added, too.

Lastly, I ran into a bug in my current game. Basically after finishing the current turn, the game always freezes at a certain point during the interturn. I have reloaded a previous save, 4-5 turns before the current save, and the game freezes again at the same point. I have even waited for a couple of hours, but still nothing.

I have attached my last save before I end the turn. If you find the time to have a look that would be great.

Sorry I don´t have the files of CCM 2.5 no longer on my pc to avoid catastrophic mix-ups between CCM 2.5 and CCM 2.6. Therefore I cannot have a look at your save file any longer. May be one of the civers with a present CCM 2.5 installation can do this.

My guess is, that you have run into the houseboat bug (last settler of an otherwise eliminated civ on a boat). If you have installed the GOG version (or the steam version) of Civ 3 Complete, you could install the Flintlock mod, where this bug can be disabled, and start a save file and see if now the game doesn´t freeze any longer. The start of the Flintlock mod can be performed even during a game.

 

[Ray2]

Thank you very much for your replies Civinator.

Such a setting was eliminated short after the CCM pre-beta-testings were starting to avoid an early archer rush. Archers with stealth attack against the only early defender (may be in combination with enslavers) were much too powerful against cities, where the AI defense is only in the state of being formed. Later longbowmen and heavy archers have such a stealth attack against spear- and pike men (as here the cities have some more defense and city walls, that in CCM 2.6 are "perfumed" by the Flintlock mod).

Sorry, I wasn't clear there. I meant to add in the civilopedia description of the Archers that their 'Stealth Attack Targets' include spearmen (and other early spearmen types). Are you saying that spearmen are not Stealth Attack Targets of the plain Archers? Because in my installation... they are. (just checked in the Editor)

Edit: Just checked the other ancient Archer type units: Greek/Roman/Egyptian/etc. archers do not have Stealth Attack against the spearmen types. It's only the plain Archer unit that has it (available to 5 civs). Probably you forgot to remove it from the plain archers?

Sorry I don´t have the files of CCM 2.5 no longer on my pc to avoid catastrophic mix-ups between CCM 2.5 and CCM 2.6. Therefore I cannot have a look at your save file any longer. May be one of the civers with a present CCM 2.5 installation can do this.

My guess is, that you have run into the houseboat bug (last settler of an otherwise eliminated civ on a boat). If you have installed the GOG version (or the steam version) of Civ 3 Complete, you could install the Flintlock mod, where this bug can be disabled, and start a save file and see if now the game doesn´t freeze any longer. The start of the Flintlock mod can be performed even during a game.

No worries Civinator. I will try the Flintlock patch later and I will let you know.

I forgot to mention that this game was generated from a start in the Editor (I wanted to play on a 362x362 size map), however I never had other issues with the same .biq before.

 

[Civinator]

Just checked the other ancient Archer type units: Greek/Roman/Egyptian/etc. archers do not have Stealth Attack against the spearmen types. It's only the plain Archer unit that has it (available to 5 civs). Probably you forgot to remove it from the plain archers?

Yes, this is the error, and it was still in the CCM 2.6 biq. Thank you very much for reporting that error.

 

[kakdelaaa]

Hello, where can I download CCM 2.6??

 

[Civinator]

Hello, where can I download CCM 2.6??

Hi kakdelaaa,

you can download it in the future. At present, as you can see in the posts in this thread, there is still a lot of work to do with CCM 2.6.

 

[need my speed]

Hey Civinator,

This is really, really random - but you know a lot about Civilization III. Would you perhaps know how I can enable using the arrow keys to scroll the map, and disable using the arrow keys to move units?

 

[Civinator]

Hey Civinator,

This is really, really random - but you know a lot about Civilization III. Would you perhaps know how I can enable using the arrow keys to scroll the map, and disable using the arrow keys to move units?

I never use the arrow keys. For me it is much more comfortable, to do both jobs with the mouse.

 

[need my speed]

I never use the arrow keys. For me it is much more comfortable, to do both jobs with the mouse.

Sadly on a laptop with an external monitor that doesn't work - because my mouse goes over the edge of the screen to the other monitor.

 

[Civinator]

In the rare cases, when I have to use a laptop connected to my monitor, I only use the mouse for the game on the monitor and don´t look at the screen of the laptop. Sorry, that here I cannot be of more help for you.

 

[kakdelaaa]

CIVINATOR I admire your mod, good luck to you

 

[Civinator]

CIVINATOR I admire your mod, good luck to you

kakdelaaa, thank you very much for your kind words.

 

[Ray2]

Yes, this is the error, and it was still in the CCM 2.6 biq. Thank you very much for reporting that error.

Good to know. It was annoying watching the French archers targeting my injured Hoplites, instead of the healthy ones, in Sparta (of course it didn’t have walls – wanted it to be historically accurate ).


I think I found the issue for the freeze in the interturn.

First of all I didn't install the Flintlock patch, as I did not eliminate any civs before finishing the turn. Does the houseboat bug occur even if the player is not involved (i.e. AI controlled civ eliminating another civ)?

I remembered this thread, where I encountered a similar issue. So, I decided to use the multiplayer tool. First, I took control of all the civs and there was no freeze in the interturn. However, if in the next turn I take control only of my civ, the game will freeze again.

(Btw, I noticed during the interturn that civs send their merchantships on sea tiles, and they sink in the interturn.)

Then I tried to find the civ responsible for the freeze. I was lucky there because I found it on my 2nd try (it was the Arabs). Here it is good to know the order in which the civs move. You can see it in the Histograph view in game (first moves the last civ - the one to the far-right of the histograph, and they move in order, with the last civ being the one to the far left), or even in the multiplayer tool:

First moves France and the last one (before the player), in order, is India. This is useful to know because I had noticed that the game froze somewhere during the end of the interturn, and before India's turn.

I checked Arabia's units, but I didn't notice anything strange. So I decided to start disbanding units. I disbanded all their naval units, apart from their one Pirate Frigate which could not be disbanded, so I had to suicide it by attacking another ship. Then I controlled only my player, and the game did not freeze in the interturn! So it seems that the game freezes because of an Arabian naval unit.

Arabia, just like several other civs were running big negative gpt (known bug of the normal game), and the game each turn disbands one of their units as a result. So I thought: maybe the game tries to disband Arabia's Pirate Frigate and since it cannot be disbanded the game freezes. I destroyed the P. Frigate and indeed the game did not freeze in the interturn! I don't have time to play anymore now, but if this is the cause of the bug then I think there are 3 ways to resolve it:

1) Make it possible to disband the P. Frigates.
2) Use the multiplayer tool to disband the one that is making the game freeze.
3) Use a tool to disable Preserve Random Seed in the game. I think then, every time you reload, the game will pick a different unit to disband.

@Civinator How can I eliminate the multiplayer tool's interface (the list of civs appearing at the top right of the screen). It stays there even after I stopped using the tool.

 

[Civinator]

Does the houseboat bug occur even if the player is not involved (i.e. AI controlled civ eliminating another civ)?

Yes, unfortunately this bug also happens, when an AI civ eliminates another AI civ.

I checked Arabia's units, but I didn't notice anything strange. So I decided to start disbanding units. I disbanded all their naval units, apart from their one Pirate Frigate which could not be disbanded, so I had to suicide it by attacking another ship. Then I controlled only my player, and the game did not freeze in the interturn! So it seems that the game freezes because of an Arabian naval unit.

Arabia, just like several other civs were running big negative gpt (known bug of the normal game), and the game each turn disbands one of their units as a result. So I thought: maybe the game tries to disband Arabia's Pirate Frigate and since it cannot be disbanded the game freezes. I destroyed the P. Frigate and indeed the game did not freeze in the interturn!

Such a bug was never noticed in the past, what of course doesn´t mean that it cannot occur. As you have modified your CCM 2.5 biq (at least Hellas instead of Greece/Byzantine) even other civers with an CCM 2.5 installation and an installation of the flintlock mod could have problems to start your save file.

I think there are 3 ways to resolve it:

1) Make it possible to disband the P. Frigates.
2) Use the multiplayer tool to disband the one that is making the game freeze.
3) Use a tool to disable Preserve Random Seed in the game. I think then, every time you reload, the game will pick a different unit to disband.

If such an "auto-disband-bug" is really existing (at present the houseboat bug is not excluded yet), in my eyes suggestion 1 is the proper one. I only disabled the disband option to make it sure, that the AI civs use these ships during the game. Suggestions 2 and 3 need additional operations during the game, while suggestion 1 is working without other additional operations. Suggestion 2 also holds the problem of deleting the multiplayer interface and suggestion 3 additionally opens the problem of a "wide front reloading" after every not successful action of the human player (so this setting even at present can be done by every player).

@Civinator How can I eliminate the multiplayer tool's interface (the list of civs appearing at the top right of the screen). It stays there even after I stopped using the tool.

Unfortunately I have not found any solution for eliminating the multiplayer interface after using that tool, but I didn´t invest a lot of time into looking for such an option.

Ray2, thank you very much for all the time you have invested in finding the cause of this bug.

 

[Civinator]

Here you can see a screenshot of my current CCM 2.6 test game. One of the topics I wanted to improve for CCM 2.6 was an even better synchronization of the time scale with the performance of the game. Researching the tech Total War in 1948 in my eyes is not so bad for a game started at 4000 BC. So the scale in years seems to work for CCM in era 1 - era 3. For era 4 of CCM I have to try a new configuration of the time scale (in quarters of a year).

In the screenshot you can see the warmongering Greeks trying to invade my peaceful dictatorship after having eliminated Russia - but here they were confronted with Toni Boscia´s nice Tiger I unit, destroying a Greek MG Bataillon combined with a heavy artillery unit.

Edit: Here another detail of the Greek invasion in this CCM 2.6 test game:

The Greek stack near Moscow holds 6 HMG units, 1 rifleman and 7 heavy artillery WW1 units (the last ones in CCM 2.6 are real land artillery).

 

[Ray2]

My theory about the pirate frigate was too good to be true, wasn’t it?

Well, as it turns out, that wasn’t the cause of the freeze, and my game froze again after 2 turns.

However, I found the real culprit: a Fanatic, who was never upgraded to an Ansar Warrior (typical AI ), and thus he could not be moved. Probably the AI tried to load him on a Clipper (which was found in the same city), and then tried to unload (?) him causing the game to freeze (as Civinator described in the thread I linked in my previous post). When I disbanded all the naval units the AI could not load him anywhere, and this is why the game did not freeze for 2 turns (until…they produced another Clipper).

Fanatics are another type of unit which cannot be disbanded, so I had to load him on a boat and send him to the bottom of the sea (disbanded his boat).

Why my game did not freeze for 2 turns after disbanding only the Arabian pirate frigate? Well, it turns out that in the save game I used to test my... 'p. frigate theory', I had already disbanded a single Arabian naval unit. That unit, coincidentally, happened to be the Clipper in the city where the Fanatic was waiting to be loaded. So, after disbanding it, for the next 2 turns he couldn't be loaded in a boat, until the AI produced another Clipper.

Everything seems fine with my game now (test-played several turns), apart from the fact that I am stuck with the multiplayer tool interface.

Also, I noticed that there are several types of units that cannot be disbanded. So, Civinator, you should not bother modifying these units, as if that was the problem I am sure that we would have many more reports about games that freeze in the interturn.

As you have modified your CCM 2.5 biq (at least Hellas instead of Greece/Byzantine) even other civers with an CCM 2.5 installation and an installation of the flintlock mod could have problems to start your save file.

I only changed various names of Greece (cities, leaders) + I made the Harbour of Carthage requiring a coastal installation (so as to avoid a non-coastal Carthage having auto-produced naval units that can't be moved. Yes, I know that in the normal game this is extremely rare, as seafaring civs almost always start on the coast. But for editor generated starts it is very common, unless if you hand-place the seafaring civs starts on the coast.)

Do you think I would still have problems applying the flintlock patch in my scenario? (I have never tried it yet)

Unfortunately I have not found any solution for eliminating the multiplayer interface after using that tool, but I didn´t invest a lot of time into looking for such an option.

As I understand it, the multiplayer tool essentially converts the save game in a multiplayer mode. So the question is, can a multiplayer save game be 'converted' to a normal save game? If someone knows it would be great. Anyway, it's not a big problem (you can minimize the multiplayer interface on the top right).

 

[Civinator]

However, I found the real culprit: a Fanatic, who was never upgraded to an Ansar Warrior (typical AI ), and thus he could not be moved. Probably the AI tried to load him on a Clipper (which was found in the same city), and then tried to unload (?) him causing the game to freeze (as Civinator described in the thread I linked in my previous post). When I disbanded all the naval units the AI could not load him anywhere, and this is why the game did not freeze for 2 turns (until…they produced another Clipper).

The bug that the AI tries to load an immobile unit into a ship is also fixed by the Flintlock mod.

I only changed various names of Greece (cities, leaders) + I made the Harbour of Carthage requiring a coastal installation (so as to avoid a non-coastal Carthage having auto-produced naval units that can't be moved. Yes, I know that in the normal game this is extremely rare, as seafaring civs almost always start on the coast. But for editor generated starts it is very common, unless if you hand-place the seafaring civs starts on the coast.)

Do you think I would still have problems applying the flintlock patch in my scenario? (I have never tried it yet)

No you should not have any problems by using the Flintlock mod during your game.

As I understand it, the multiplayer tool essentially converts the save game in a multiplayer mode. So the question is, can a multiplayer save game be 'converted' to a normal save game? If someone knows it would be great. Anyway, it's not a big problem (you can minimize the multiplayer interface on the top right).

The best is to restart your game in the turn before your freeze with the Flintlock mod if you are playing with the GoG (or steam) version of Civ 3 Complete, as in this case you don´t have the problem with removing the multiplayer interface.