Civ4 BTS v3.19 Patch

[DanF5771]

It is definitely a bug, although the effect on game play is minor. Sorry about that.

No worries, thanks a lot for the persistent support!
Can you tell us whether the devs' intentions concur with the solution of the UP = remove all non-generic modifiers to achieve the same conversion rate as the build-wealth process?

 

[PieceOfMind]

It is definitely a bug, although the effect on game play is minor. Sorry about that.

Thank you for the confirmation. This probably saved us whole threads worth of debating.

 

[Woody1]

It is definitely a bug, although the effect on game play is minor. Sorry about that.

Uh-huh...
Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

3.19 + BUG update:

Turn 478 and still going!

Not sure how much farther I'm going to get though. I'm getting my butt kicked.

 

[alexman]

Can you tell us whether the devs' intentions concur with the solution of the UP = remove all non-generic modifiers to achieve the same conversion rate as the build-wealth process?

Yes, those were the intentions, but we thought we were cleaning up the UP code...

 

[el_hidalgo]

The 'no cd' feature is my most requested patch; and the most ominous. Except for Stardock's GalCiv games I can't think of any other big PC game that is both 'no cd' and no SecuROM type.
I saw Civ:Complete was DRM-free and thought, "That's the kind of thing game creators do when their company is about to go belly-up and they want to protect their beloved fan base." I hope I'm being paranoid.

Or at least, I hope the creators and programs find a good new home.

Do they really do that? Well Firaxis is owned by Take2, which for sure has seen better days, but the Civ franchise itself always seems to do well. I have to think the main expense in creating video games is labor, and they have essentially an army of unpaid freelancers here, which potentially reduces their costs. Lower costs means it's more feasible to support and update even an aging game. Already a lot of fan-created work has ended up in the official releases.

But in any case I can't see Civ going away any time soon, even if the company does. Someone will just buy the rights to the franchise.

 

[vale]

I'm not sure the code terms to use here but why wasn't the original warlords and BTS code for overflow gold changed just to multiply the gold by:

(General Production Bonuses +1)/(All Production Bonuses +1)

at the last step. By general production bonuses I mean stuff like forge (.25), bureaucracy (.50) etc while all production bonuses includes trait bonuses, resource bonues and military bonuses.

That seems like it would be a very clean change to the code that removes the exploit

 

[TheMeInTeam]

One thing that wasn't touched on in 3.19 that I think could use a look is the capitulation mechanics. I think one of the UP's addressed it in part. Currently vassals are used in calculation of average power, but in a lot of gameplay contexts it doesn't make sense to do that. More than once I've had a situation where deleting my OWN vassal in worldbuilder allows for capitulation, but having it means my target feels it's doing well enough that it won't capitulate. Essentially, in practice it's possible to LOWER the power of the nations at war with a target and have it be MORE likely to capitulate. I think the UP just removed the "war vassals" (the ones under the master trying for caps) from consideration or something.

 

[DanF5771]

@ alexman: Thanks very much for this clarification!!!

@ vale: That is exactly the solution of the UP:

[SIZE="3"]int iLostProduction = std::max(0, iOverflow - iMaxOverflow);
...
iLostProduction *= getBaseYieldRateModifier(YIELD_PRODUCTION);
iLostProduction /= std::max(1, getBaseYieldRateModifier(YIELD_PRODUCTION, getProductionModifier(eTrainUnit)));
int iProductionGold = ((iLostProduction * GC.getDefineINT("MAXED_UNIT_GOLD_PERCENT")) / 100);[/SIZE]

 

[Dom Pedro II]

So is this the absolute, unquestionably final patch for this game? I was certain it was 3.17, but looks like I was wrong...

 

[r_rolo1]

It is definitely a bug, although the effect on game play is minor. Sorry about that.

So, when do we have 3.20 ?

If this is the only issue to be solved it would be easy to let got a 3.19b in a few days , i guess ....

 

[ZachScape]

Do you think they would ever add player-made content in a patch, or is that strictly for Expansion Packs?
Like would they add LoR or RFCE, or even patch official mods to their latest version, like for RFC and FfH.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

alexman: I'm glad to see that the Civ4 team has continued their efforts to provide more and more of the code for modders to be able to make their own changes. That you would release a patch at all so long after a game's release is a testament to the respect your team has for this community. Thank you for all of your hard work.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Do you think they would ever add player-made content in a patch, or is that strictly for Expansion Packs?
Like would they add LoR or RFCE, or even patch official mods to their latest version, like for RFC and FfH.

Considering the patch is already 160 MB in size, I would think that non-essential items like fan content are left to individuals to download themselves.

 

[dalamb]

Solution would be to remove spy specialists, remove buildings like the security beureau especially, since it serves no purpose in a No Espionage game, remove the Intelligence Agency, maybe reduce the cost of the jail if it is deemed to be too weak without the esp bonus, and leave the courthouse alone.

By "leave alone" - do you mean generate nothing, or let this one building generate culture? I'd agree with the other changes you suggest. Would the Great Wall generate GE points (did it do this in Warlords?)

 

[The Almighty dF]

By "leave alone" - do you mean generate nothing, or let this one building generate culture? I'd agree with the other changes you suggest. Would the Great Wall generate GE points (did it do this in Warlords?)

It generated GE, yeah.

 

[phungus420]

Thanks for the confirmation Alexman.

Now I wonder how those creating BULL will handle it. Will they accept the intents of the devs and use that code in BULL, or go with a flat, the default release is the default release plan. Anyway, at least I know BetterAI will have this updated now, with no lengthy debate.

 

[phungus420]

Do you think they would ever add player-made content in a patch, or is that strictly for Expansion Packs?
Like would they add LoR or RFCE, or even patch official mods to their latest version, like for RFC and FfH.

While I'd love to see Firaxis release an "official" Legends of Revolution version (it would mean I could read LoR games in the Succession game forum - which I enjoy reading), releases cost money. And I doubt it would be in Firaxis's overall interests to do so. But here's to hoping Also word of mouth is really useful here. Look at the Rise of Mankind mod, it has over 100,000 downloads, and unlike Fall From Heaven, which is comperably as popular, hasn't had the benifit of exposer as an official release in an expansion pack, or gotten the free media attention in various articles written up about it over time.

 

[arstal]

Do they really do that? Well Firaxis is owned by Take2, which for sure has seen better days, but the Civ franchise itself always seems to do well. I have to think the main expense in creating video games is labor, and they have essentially an army of unpaid freelancers here, which potentially reduces their costs. Lower costs means it's more feasible to support and update even an aging game. Already a lot of fan-created work has ended up in the official releases.

But in any case I can't see Civ going away any time soon, even if the company does. Someone will just buy the rights to the franchise.

Paradox-developed games do the same as Stardock. It's now standard for strategy games to not have copy protection, as strategy gamers tend to have jobs (at least until recently) and are more likely to be able to afford games, so they don't pirate as much.

That's why Stardock does strat games as a corporate strategy- the piracy rates and development costs are lower.

 

[Zubbus]

Absolutely UU/UB tweaks. I am disappointed.