Community Patch for BNW

[Dunkah]

Is it possible we have a clear set of instructions on how to load this?
Is it possible to put them on the front page?

Would love to give it a test run and let you know how it does but can't figure out how to load it.

Can we assume that there is no mods loaded at all at the time of downloading.
Are Whowards Pick n mix mods and CSD available to use with this?

Should I remove the Better UI DLC mod?

 

[Gazebo]

Is it possible we have a clear set of instructions on how to load this?
Is it possible to put them on the front page?

Would love to give it a test run and let you know how it does but can't figure out how to load it.

Can we assume that there is no mods loaded at all at the time of downloading.
Are Whowards Pick n mix mods and CSD available to use with this?

Should I remove the Better UI DLC mod?

Dunkah,
Once v1 is fully out, we'll have instructions. For now, this mod is compatible with all other mods that do not mod the DLL. The exception is Whoward's Combined DLL - those mods (CSD, Civ IV Diplo Features, Whoward's mods, etc.) are compatible, just delete all of the DLLs from those files, leaving the one in the Community Patch as the active one.
G

Edit: I updated the front page. v1 is nearing release, once we combine everything and check it for errors, I'll make a repository for the dll files (or we'll use the existing one created by Gedemon). Since the Gedemon source is largely managed by Whoward, I'll leave it to him to decide. In the meantime, any and all volunteers are welcome to join the team. Experience isn't necessary, but it is helpful!

Also, a huge thanks to everyone thus far. As you can see on the front page, we've ticked a lot of the boxes next to the requests for v1!

 

[whoward69]

Experience isn't necessary ...

... but reading the DLL tutorials should be considered mandatory

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Hi. Sorry for vanishing in the warp for some time (not that i was actually doing anything useful but ...)
I see you've progressed with a number of points. Is there a "beta" of the patch available somewhere? I can't seem to find a download link but there is a "how to install" in the first post. Also, is the source code somewhere, i probably won't touch it myself but it can help to find all the new stuff.

 

[Nutty]

It's on the previous page of posts. #230.

 

[Gazebo]

Hi. Sorry for vanishing in the warp for some time (not that i was actually doing anything useful but ...)
I see you've progressed with a number of points. Is there a "beta" of the patch available somewhere? I can't seem to find a download link but there is a "how to install" in the first post. Also, is the source code somewhere, i probably won't touch it myself but it can help to find all the new stuff.

The source code will be up soon enough, once I'm satisfied with v1. I'll upload a new beta (and post the link on the front page) either tonight (Eastern Time Zone, Murica) or tomorrow afternoon. Currently finishing up chokepoint logic. Wahoo.
G

 

[whoward69]

Take care with choke point cities as while they sound a great idea, they may ultimately make it easier for the human player.

Civ A (medium strength) builds a city at a choke point
Civ B (high strength) objects to Civ A building a city nearby so declares war and sends an army to the new city
Unfortunately the AI has no tactics to deal with a choke point, so Civ B's army takes heavy losses and retreats
The player says "thank you very much" and walks all over Civ B (who no longer has a viable army)

At the very least, the AI needs to able to assess the strength of a choke-point city and NOT attack it

 

[Gazebo]

Take care with choke point cities as while they sound a great idea, they may ultimately make it easier for the human player.

Civ A (medium strength) builds a city at a choke point
Civ B (high strength) objects to Civ A building a city nearby so declares war and sends an army to the new city
Unfortunately the AI has no tactics to deal with a choke point, so Civ B's army takes heavy losses and retreats
The player says "thank you very much" and walks all over Civ B (who no longer has a viable army)

At the very least, the AI needs to able to assess the strength of a choke-point city and NOT attack it

Indeed. The AI isn't too obsessed by them, but it at least knows what choke-points are now.

I expanded the latter algorithm as well – whereas the AI used to only look at the six hexes around a city to assess its potential for attack, it now looks at the entire set of hexes the city can work (or more if using your expanded mod, Whoward).

G

 

[Gazebo]

I completed some major optimizations today with regards to settler site locations - they function really well now. I've also been playing around with leader traits - as always, files can be disabled by appending a '_' to the file's name. You can also disable most features in the CommunityOptions.sql file.

I've also been working on the AI's military and tactical performance. A slog, but things seem to be getting better, not worse, so that's good. Take a look!

The new version can be found here: Community Patch v1

The source code can be found here: Source Code v1

Have fun, and report back.
G

 

[Wodhann]

I have three questions:

Is it possible, through DLL, to make player handling more flexible? As in, increasing possible number of players/city-states and making them more easily editable?

Additionally, with a greater number of players to play with, would it be possible to have more flexibility when it comes to creating different kinds of players, such like ones that have "city-based elements" but function differently than normal civilizations (and are not city-states)? Like having players with cities without territory, cities that randomly spawn and such. Yes, I am asking this specifically having that barbarian mod I suggested some forum pages ago in mind - which specifically, is about making barbarian "camps" that denote different tribes and fight each other.

And with also that mod in mind, would it be possible to enable "cities/camps that spawn on water"? Or other similar elements that would otherwise not be able to.


Yes, these are some heavy changes, but I must inquire, especially considering me and Nutty are trying to steer away from non-compatibility if possible.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Well... The trait changes certainly are interesting.

+1 production +1 food for unimproved jungles for Brazil? Why should you even construct anything on the jungles now? They're as good as upgraded regular tiles after unlocking techs like Fertiliser or Civil Service. That's completely broken. I don't even know if Brazilwood's will be a good choice anymore - get +1 culture per jungle and an university and enjoy your +3food +1production +2 science +1 culture tiles. No effort required either.

+1 food from farms for China? Well, it is fitting to make them good at population growth but was there really a need to give them something this huge? Their UB I find very overrated but I have to admit it's good thanks to it's simplicity, the UA is nice, the UU is one of the best... Why then?
And why are you sticking +yield on such a basic type of tile improvement? That's always going to result in brokenness.

+3 gold per connected city for Rome is okay and small enough. It's nearly insignificant compared to the changes other civs have gotten but it's actually why it's fine - in fact this change is pretty much the only thing I can call "reasonable". That and +15% GP generation for Murica I guess.

+4 science for trade routes with other Civs for... Songhai? Seriously? It makes almost as much historical sense as sticking a science bonus to Zulu. It's also way too huge. In most cases Askia will be a better scientist than Neby - he'll also be better at Culture (Mosque), gold (UA) and will have better units (UA).

+25% attack strength to Japan? What? Is this even serious? Do I even need to elaborate on why this is completely broken?

Receive 50% more trade routes for Carthage? The wording is certainly strange but I'm going to assume they get 50% more available TR in which case... Why steal from Venice's UA and make it less unique?
In the case it actually means other civs are 50% more likely to send TR to you it's worthless.

Ottomans get now +50% attack strength against cities and cover promotion... Isn't that a bit much? I don't really like it but I guess it's fine compared to the other changes.

Indonesian +2 prod +1 gold per Plantation - that certainly is a weird one too. While it's not unimproved jungles it's overpowered and too reliant on your starting tiles.

+3 science +3 production for France's GWAM specialists? That's broken and it also forces Napoleon to always get guilds ASAP. Do we really need to force a civ to go exactly the same route every game? Makes no historical nor logical sense neither but it's a minor issue here.


Huns now also get +1 Culture, and +1 Faith per Pasture. Why are you making them even more reliant on receiving those tiles? +1 production was fine, making them rely on Pastures too much is not only bad for them but it also won't be fun for anyone.



Overall I find the changes way too drastic. They either force the civs too much to build/get certain things or they make them too dependent on the tiles they start with. A civ shouldn't completely rely on their starting location to be able to do something.

Well, sometimes you're sticking +yields on things that are too common. I don't think giving any +tile yield to farms/mines/trading posts/whatever of any civ is a wise design choice. It's always going to be overpowered no matter what you do and that's because you can get a Farm/Mine/whatever almost anywhere.

There are other issues due to those changes, for instance Songhai - Askia gets more science from Petra/Colossus than he does from the Great Library, effectively obsoleting the wonder - and that's not even mentioning the fact that in most cases he'll get more science from this part of his UA than Nebuchadnezzar from his starting GS. Nebuchadnezzar also loses some city yield (+1food/production which will become +2 later) because when using a tile with an Academy it doesn't have a Farm/Mine/Pasture/whatever. Neby also doesn't have anything else in his UA.

Yeah, Askia can be alone on his continent and may be unable to use this part of the UA - that also is one of the reasons why most of those changes are bad. They depend too much on the tiles you start with and because of their completely overpowered values a lucky civ which got exactly the tiles it wanted is going to become nearly unstoppable.

Your starting location already determines a lot - those new UA's make your luck have way too much impact on the game.


In my opinion UA should perhaps encourage some play types but they shouldn't force you into them. They also shouldn't be overly dependent on your starting locations.

I'm sorry but I'm not even going to try playing with those changes. I don't really like any of them (except for the +3 gold for Rome. I like it - encourages wide play, isn't completely broken, is almost always usable, doesn't depend on the tiles you start with in most maps. I'd personally make it like +2 gold +1 culture to represent the spread of Roman culture but it's fine as it is).

 

[Gazebo]

Well... The trait changes certainly are interesting.

Overall I find the changes way too drastic. They either force the civs too much to build/get certain things or they make them too dependent on the tiles they start with. A civ shouldn't completely rely on their starting location to be able to do something.

There are other issues due to those changes, for instance Songhai - Askia gets more science from Petra/Colossus than he does from the Great Library, effectively obsoleting the wonder - and that's not even mentioning the fact that in most cases he'll get more science from this part of his UA than Nebuchadnezzar from his starting GS. Nebuchadnezzar also loses some city yield (+1food/production which will become +2 later) because when using a tile with an Academy it doesn't have a Farm/Mine/Pasture/whatever. Neby also doesn't have anything else in his UA.

In my opinion UA should perhaps encourage some play types but they shouldn't force you into them. They also shouldn't be overly dependent on your starting locations.

I'm sorry but I'm not even going to try playing with those changes. I don't really like any of them (except for the +3 gold for Rome. I like it - encourages wide play, isn't completely broken, is almost always usable, doesn't depend on the tiles you start with in most maps. I'd personally make it like +2 gold +1 culture to represent the spread of Roman culture but it's fine as it is).

The traits, as with any of the other balance changes I've mentioned, are proofs of concept. I'm playing around with them to see which work with the dll and which don't. (I had to add support for Askia's science bonus, for example.) they aren't all serious traits.

Simply experiments, nothing more. Sure, I'm happy to include optional ones in the final mod, but these are by no means tested or balanced.


Wodhann, the problem with that request is that you would have to write an additional AI cycle specifically for hybrid civs. It would be an enormous task, and would probably cause errors with the existing cycles.

G

 

[whoward69]

Simply experiments, nothing more.

To avoid future confusion, all test and sample code should be moved into their own mod (eg "Community Patch Testing and Samples") which would "depend on" the main "Community Patch" mod.

include optional ones in the final mod

Again, IMHO, these should be in a separate mod that depends on the main "Community Patch" mod.

 

[mystikx21]

^ Concur with whoward there. Unless those changes require significant adjustments to code, they should be part of a "separate" project. It's definitely advisable to test things to see what is now possible or what was possible before, and to have example code as a show home project, but balance changes always piss people off just as easily as they interest people. It's better to avoid the feature creep on the basic mechanical mod so as not to distract people.

The gold for Roman city connections and GP bonus for America are the only ones there that sound that interesting (although I actually like the current Glory of Rome effect for wide and the weak point is the ballista in my opinion. They need a Forum UB or something like that instead of straight classical military. Legions should be enough early).

I could see some kind of jungle bonus for Brazil as that's the main weakness is the jungle start, but not that crazy. Whatever bonus would be added, make it so it only shows up on "improved jungle" whatever it is. That would be a big help to that idea.

 

[Wodhann]

Wait, why is this patch adding traits for civilizations now?

Also whoward, some pages ago we were talking about multiplayer, and gazebo said if anyone knows if it's possible or not to make this patch allow/ease things for multiplayer mods, it would be you. Thoughts?

 

[whoward69]

multiplayer mods

Civ 5 does not support mods in multiplayer, so no.

 

[whoward69]

Wait, why is this patch adding traits for civilizations now?

Read Gazebo's reply - it isn't. There just happen to be some EXAMPLES in the TEST sub-directory that have been used for, guess what, TESTING

 

[JFD]

Read Gazebo's reply - it isn't. There just happen to be some EXAMPLES in the TEST sub-directory that have been used for, guess what, TESTING

But what is it testing? These changes are not made possible by the patch, and are additions that could be done without, for the most part.

 

[mystikx21]

The bonus science on trade routes effects I think had to have a function added as a test, to see what can be added as a yield to trade routes most likely, via trait or influence or what not.

Most of the others do not look that way though, agreed.

It's possible there's reason to test more basic changes as this progresses to make sure nothing gets broken, or to see if there can now be a simpler way to add something.

This is again why it should be mostly a separate project. Something like "here's a bunch of stuff you can do with mods to this game", including stuff that was enabled by the dll.

 

[Wodhann]

Read Gazebo's reply - it isn't. There just happen to be some EXAMPLES in the TEST sub-directory that have been used for, guess what, TESTING

Chill dude. Wasn't trying to rustle your jimmies, just asking a question. My confusion behind it is well explained by the previous posters.

Wodhann, the problem with that request is that you would have to write an additional AI cycle specifically for hybrid civs. It would be an enormous task, and would probably cause errors with the existing cycles.

What do you mean by hybrid civs? And excuse my ignorance about what an AI cycle is, but couldn't the new AI cycle be done in a copy>paste>modify manner? For the example of my suggested mod, it wouldn't really require many AI changes anyway.