Couple of quick questions

[modmyciv]

Hello folks,

Back tinkering with Fantasy Mod and...

>>> I've lost my Walls graphics - the city graphics never changes to show them and all city sizes can build them. I suspect it has something to do with the Bombard defense on Keeps which I removed. Walls have same defense value as cities still. What trigger their use and removal from the building list?

>>> Is Bombard cumulative? I wanted to give Castle a higher value once and it didn't work. On here somewhere is a thread about it but it was ages ago.

>>> How can I remove a unit from the tree so you can't build them at later tech levels? No upgrade available I just want them to vanish without trace from the build list.

>>> The AI cheats - I see it using amphibious attack on units that don't have it - a glitch or something I've missed?

>>> The LM terrain has a shadow effect on the map which is out of alignment, can this be fixed?

Thanks all

 

[Bluemofia]

Hello folks,

Back tinkering with Fantasy Mod and...

>>> I've lost my Walls graphics - the city graphics never changes to show them and all city sizes can build them. I suspect it has something to do with the Bombard defense on Keeps which I removed. Walls have same defense value as cities still. What trigger their use and removal from the building list?

Bombard defense values are what triggers the wall graphics.

>>> Is Bombard cumulative? I wanted to give Castle a higher value once and it didn't work. On here somewhere is a thread about it but it was ages ago.

I don't think Bombard is cumulative, but instead it uses the highest value one.

>>> How can I remove a unit from the tree so you can't build them at later tech levels? No upgrade available I just want them to vanish without trace from the build list.

Not possible to obsolete units. You have to have them upgrade to something to remove from the list. What you can do, is disable the "upgrade" checkbox so the human player can't upgrade, but I think the AI can cheat around that and upgrade anyways.

Also, if there is an earlier form of it, that does have the upgrade checked, it can upgrade to the new unit without a problem.
Ex:
Rifleman -> Infantry (no upgrade checked) -> Mech Infantry

Any unupgraded riflemen can upgrade straight to Mech Infantry, while Infantry cannot upgrade to Mech Infantry.

>>> The AI cheats - I see it using amphibious attack on units that don't have it - a glitch or something I've missed?

I've seen it sporadically as well. It's super uncommon, but I think this happens if they have amphibious units mixed in the same transport as non-amphibious.

>>> The LM terrain has a shadow effect on the map which is out of alignment, can this be fixed?

You'll have to go fiddle with the graphics to do so. I'm not good at it, as I'm still learning how the terrain graphics display, so I can't offer much advice on exactly how to fix it.

 

[Blue Monkey]

>>> The LM terrain has a shadow effect on the map which is out of alignment, can this be fixed?

Definitely. But without visuals to work from it's extremely difficult to offer good specific advice.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

How can I remove a unit from the tree so you can't build them at later tech levels? No upgrade available I just want them to vanish without trace from the build list.

You need a unit that doesn’t require any resources to become available with a technology. The unit must be available in the build menu at this point but then you need to mark it as a king unit.
Make the unit/s you want to become obsolete upgrade to that king unit without adding the upgrade button.
Setting the cost of the king unit to max will prevent the AI from being able to upgrade to them if; as Bluemofia said, the AI doesn’t need the button to be able to upgrade. You can use one of the custom editors to set an over max cost to the king unit if it’s necessary.

This will effectively make whatever unit/s you want obsolete with a technology. You can use this method repeatedly throughout you mod.

 

[Bluemofia]

You need a unit that doesn’t require any resources to become available with a technology. The unit must be available in the build menu at this point but then you need to mark it as a king unit.
Make the unit/s you want to become obsolete upgrade to that king unit without adding the upgrade button.
Setting the cost of the king unit to max will prevent the AI from being able to upgrade to them if; as Bluemofia said, the AI doesn’t need the button to be able to upgrade. You can use one of the custom editors to set an over max cost to the king unit if it’s necessary.

This will effectively make whatever unit/s you want obsolete with a technology. You can use this method repeatedly throughout you mod.

From what I understand, the method you described where you upgrade from a unit to a king unit doesn't actually make it obsolete, as the king unit cannot be built, so thus the original unit that upgrades to the king will be built instead.

Basically, the logic is that the game allows you to build the most advanced unit in the upgrade chain, but if you can't build it (ex: King, no resource, your civ doesn't have access to it, don't have the tech) then it moves down the list for the next one. An exception exists for units marked with "Golden Age", as those will always be able to be built, even when a more advanced unit is available until you actually trigger your golden age.

Ex: Chinese Rider upgrades to the Cavalry, but if China hasn't gotten a golden age by the time they research military tradition, they can build both the Cavalry and the Rider. Riders built at this point however, can upgrade to Cavalry as well. The moment they get a golden age however, they cease being able to build the Rider.

I'm out of town so I can't re-confirm this, as it's been maybe 10 years since I tested this specific scenario out, but I'm around 95% confident that this was what happened.

 

[Wolfhart]

From what I understand, the method you described where you upgrade from a unit to a king unit doesn't actually make it obsolete, as the king unit cannot be built, so thus the original unit that upgrades to the king will be built instead.

Basically, the logic is that the game allows you to build the most advanced unit in the upgrade chain, but if you can't build it (ex: King, no resource, your civ doesn't have access to it, don't have the tech) then it moves down the list for the next one.

I can confirm this from recent experience; a buildable unit that upgrades to king unit will continue to be buildable also when the king unit becomes available and then upgradable to the king unit.

I did not know about the Golden Age units though! Thank you, it's been more than sixteen years since I started playing Civ3 and there's still new things to learn!

 

[Oni Ryuu]

My apologies, you’re right.

I should have remembered before I started typing.

 

[Jorsalfare]

An exception exists for units marked with "Golden Age", as those will always be able to be built, even when a more advanced unit is available until you actually trigger your golden age.

Ex: Chinese Rider upgrades to the Cavalry, but if China hasn't gotten a golden age by the time they research military tradition, they can build both the Cavalry and the Rider. Riders built at this point however, can upgrade to Cavalry as well. The moment they get a golden age however, they cease being able to build the Rider.

I'm out of town so I can't re-confirm this, as it's been maybe 10 years since I tested this specific scenario out, but I'm around 95% confident that this was what happened.

You are absolutely right regarding the Golden Age-triggering units.
I have sometimes experienced that the game switches production from an obsoleted golden age-triggering unit to the next one in the upgrade chain, so I have to switch it back manually. I can't say for sure, but I believe this happenes as a result of a "refresh event" - like discovering a new technology, gaining access to a new resource or border-expansion.

 

[Blue Monkey]

I vaguely remember an old discussion about auto-producing units, then later making the building obsolete. Don't know if that's any help.

 

[modmyciv]

Cheers.

I have my walls back. I gave them a Bombard Defense of 5. Now you can't build Keep (value 35 City defense is set at 40) if the population goes over 6. Something to do with Bombard values I am sure.

Will play with values..

Still can't figure a way to remove units cleanly.

About tp upgrade to Win10 - will my old copy of Civ III be happy?

If I even finish this mod I will post it here for the twelve other people who still play it

 

[Nathiri]

Cheers.

I have my walls back. I gave them a Bombard Defense of 5. Now you can't build Keep (value 35 City defense is set at 40) if the population goes over 6. Something to do with Bombard values I am sure.

Will play with values..

Still can't figure a way to remove units cleanly.

About tp upgrade to Win10 - will my old copy of Civ III be happy?

If I even finish this mod I will post it here for the twelve other people who still play it

I think you are referring to the number of modders. There is more civ3 players than that. I play with more than that on Multiplayer alone.

 

[modmyciv]

I knew I had been here before, found the old thread
here

Seems increasing Bombard Defense after Walls is tricky.

 

[Bluemofia]

Cheers.

I have my walls back. I gave them a Bombard Defense of 5. Now you can't build Keep (value 35 City defense is set at 40) if the population goes over 6. Something to do with Bombard values I am sure.

Bombard values are what the game uses to realize that this is a wall, and walls are obsoleted at size 2 cities.

Also, from personal experience, bombard defense values attached to Great Wonders allow the GW to be destroyed via bombardment.

In general it is better to use defense values rather than bombard, as increased defense can functionally do the same thing as bombard defense. I am not sure if bombard defense only applies for bombarding units, but not for unit that directly attack the city, but regardless, it is what the game uses to assign base game wall properties to an improvement.

 

[modmyciv]

Check.

Got an interesting new one - AI puts starting positions right next to each other half the time! Not seen this before.

Edited to add: I think this is to do with food - I've reduced the grasslands to one food (make early game more involved), so starting points cluster around the Flood Plains and bonus food resources. I suspect.

 

[Civinator]

Check.

Got an interesting new one - AI puts starting positions right next to each other half the time! Not seen this before.

Edited to add: I think this is to do with food - I've reduced the grasslands to one food (make early game more involved), so starting points cluster around the Flood Plains and bonus food resources. I suspect.

This is a common problem in many mods. Per example 'The Balancer Reloaded' was haunted by this problem and even in the betatesting of my mod CCM2 on a 229x229 tile map this problem was reported. It seems,when the AI has not enough room to find proper starting locations in the distance, that is set in the register Worldsize => distance between civs, it will place the civs that couldn´t been placed in the proper distance in very close starting locations to other civs.

Settings that helped against that problem are to reduce the starting distance between civs and/or to create more terrain that can be settled.

 

[wuhjah]

Funny that this came up. I just ran into this problem the other week when I was playtesting. Since that incident I haven't seen it again. Anyone have some good suggestions for world sizes?
I'm looking at:
Tiny - 12 civs
Small - 16
Standard - 20
Large - 24
Huge - 31

 

[WildWeazel]

I believe that you could achieve something like unit obsolescence by having the unit upgrade to (but without the upgrade unit ability checked) something useless that requires the obsolescence tech and no resources. If you give it no combat ability and no AI strategies, both the human and AI players should be smart enough to not bother building it.