Crazy Spatz's Alpha Centauri Mod

[Spatzimaus]

With the latest version 0.24, when I load a map I get the errors:
"unable to load texture [assets\UI\Art\Notification\NotificationIconsFreeSocialPolicy.dds]"
"unable to load texture [assets\UI\Art\Notification\NotificationIconsFreeSocialPolicyGlow2.dds]"
"unable to load texture [assets\UI\Art\Notification\NotificationIconsFreeGreatPerson.dds]"
"unable to load texture [assets\UI\Art\Notification\NotificationIconsFreeGreatPersonGlow2.dds]".
As a result I can't click on the policy button in the top right corner, or the policy notification in the bottom right corner and cannot advance to the next turn.

I've done nothing to those notifications, so I have no idea why it'd have problems. And it worked fine when I ran the game an hour ago. Try clearing your cache and restarting, it might just be some strange conflict with a mod you'd loaded previously. (I'm assuming you're not using any other mods at the same time you're running mine. If you are, it's likely that the two aren't compatible.)

The AI has stopped picking policies again, just staying on 1 policy which is the SMAC starting one

Which era are you starting in? I specifically watched for this in this morning's test, and the AI had no problems. I'd started in both the Ancient and Industrial eras, and it seemed to work fine in both. (It's sad, really; this whole mess could be avoided if the devs understood that the concept of "integer" includes negative values. All of this is a horribly complicated workaround to create negative-happiness buildings.)

I'm really tempted to just force it; once the AI has enough culture for its first policy, I'll hard-code it to pick either Tradition or Liberty (since the AI considers those two trees to be mutually exclusive and will never take both). That should jump-start the system, but it's sloppy.

 

[dinobot386]

Ancient era, Emperor difficulty

what exactly did you change in your policy other than what it names the leader?

 

[Spatzimaus]

what exactly did you change in your policy other than what it names the leader?

I only made two changes to policies since the last version:
1> The cost equation
2> When the game gives you the SMAC Start policy, it also disables the policy branch that it's located in.

#2 might be the problem, but it's strange because it SHOULDN'T be. I changed it to True, and it looks like the game is picking policies again, but it's acting a bit strangely, so I'll continue testing.

Anyway, I'm coding up a 2-stage override right now to help with this. If the AI has more than twice the culture needed to take a policy, I'll basically force it to take eligible one. And if it thinks no policies are eligible, I'll force it to pretend that Tradition and Liberty are, and unlock one of those two (picked randomly). I think of this as "cultural laxative"; once the AI gets unblocked and has a few options, it seems to progress just fine.

In a test game I just ran, starting in the Nanotech era, the AIs got stuck a bit on the first turn, with every AI claiming that there were no eligible policies. So half got Tradition, and half got Liberty.
But then they started picking policies just fine (including ones outside of the tree I'd just unlocked, like Rationalism, so it's clearly not just a temporary fix). I also like this because it gets around the 1/turn limit for late-era starts; when you start in a later era you might have 5-6 free policies, and now the AI will effectively gain 2 per turn (one picked this way, one picked the normal way). So even if the problem goes away, I think I'll leave this bit of code in place.


Also, I finally figured out how to do those top-of-screen text notifications, so the game now notifies you when a nuke gets intercepted, a spore tower is killed for pearls, and so on. Kinda nice to have; no need to keep FireTuner open just to get the basic messages, although I'll leave all of the numbers stuff in there.

So what this means is that if I can confirm that the problem is fixed, I'll release v.0.24andahalf, either tomorrow night or Monday, with a few of the extra features I've been working on.

 

[dinobot386]

An unrelated request, could you possibly include screenshots of the models you'll be using for each unit?

Im particuarally interested in the ranger, troll, and chiron locusts

 

[Spatzimaus]

An unrelated request, could you possibly include screenshots of the models you'll be using for each unit?

I'm particularly interested in the ranger, troll, and chiron locusts

Well, the Chiron Locusts will use the exact same Chiron Locusts model from Civ4, from this thread. That one's easy. (It's also in the Planetfall mod, like the other psi units.)

For the units that I have stuff for, I just scavenged the Civ4 modding forum for publicly available units. So all of these are lower in resolution than Civ5 is capable of.

For the Ranger, I'm not happy with it, but for now I was going to start with a conversion of the Civ4 Area 51 Infantry. I'll recolor it first, of course.

For the Troll, I have nothing. What I wanted was a Shadowrun-style Troll with a minigun, but I don't have a good model for that yet.

The other units that I don't currently have a good model for are the Assault Powersuit, Bolo (although for that one I'm just going to use a scaled-up Ironclad), Gravship (scaled-up flying Battleship), Mobile Shield, Former, Orbital Death Ray, and Subspace Generator.

Basically, there are about a dozen units for which I have GOOD unit models to work with, a few iffy ones, and then the aforementioned ones that I've got nothing for. Even if I intend to make REAL models later on, I'd at least like some distinctive placeholders in place ASAP, hence all the Civ4 conversions. If anyone wants to make some custom 3D models, though, I'd be all for that...

 

[dinobot386]

The ranger just needs to look more like a rugged wilderness trooper instead of a lab gaurd

full black suit with a red face lens would be cool

Also, I dont see why orbital units WOULD need a model, given that they are orbital, maybe a crosshair on the tile to indicate where its aiming, and a effect from when it fires, but honestly it would make more sence to me if it wasent really visable as opposed to seeing an orbital weapon that looks like its only 100 feet off the ground

Oh, and when your done with this mod, what are your future plans? The breakout event made me think of the possibilty of and alien invasion event that could be tacked on with a sepreate mod dedicated entirley to the event, that is assuming it woulden't conflict with this mod of course

 

[Spatzimaus]

Oh, and when your done with this mod, what are your future plans?

Tropical beach, supermodels in bikinis, cold drinks with little umbrellas. The usual.

More seriously, the obvious next step would be a real SMAC scenario, with SMAC's leaders and the addition of Fungus to the map. This is not a small amount of work; for one thing, I'd want to add UUs and UBs for the various factions. And while I doubt I could make a true SMAC-style unit system, I might be able to get quite a bit closer than what we've got now.

Beyond that, like I said a few posts back, I've been toying for a long time with the idea of a third mod, something that applies the principles I developed for the future mod to the earlier eras, something beyond just basic balance. Like adding pirates/privateers with a mechanism similar to the breakout, or adding a War Weariness system. That sort of stuff. Although really, that sort of mod would probably best wait until after the DLL is out.

Also, I figure I'll spend more time playing other games. I'd like to finish my world in Minecraft, for instance...

 

[Darsnan]

Not a bad concept, although I think global catastrophes are more likely to have some sort of negative name. Less pretty flowers, more "World War".

I was thinking of the marketing tack here as well, and less of the realism aspect - i.e. gotta get your hooks into the people, which I think the name and concept does.

But I realized what was bugging me most about this: The Breakout is not supposed to be the centerpiece of this mod. I don't want to name the mod after it, because it's not supposed to be that important; it's just a transition. You go from one set of rules for barbarians to a different set of rules, with significant effect on the players.

OK, then how about just using the year that your mod starts, like "2142AD". Someone thumbing thru mods on Steam is going to see the mod name and immediately recognize that its a future based mod. Then via the mod notes you can jump in with your spiel about what the mod is about.

Or if you want to be less specific and more general about the starting timeframe, "The Future Unleashed". Or "Future Journeys".

Also, because the game/ mod can be played in large/ multitude/ diverse environments, then "All the Myriad Futures" or "Futures, Unlimited", a la infering there are a multitude of potential futures, depending on the direction the player takes with the game.

D

 

[Sjru]

Yes, unfortunately, all updates to this mod break saves. I had to check off the "affects save games" flag on the mod because of all the various things it's done to the database. Generally, UI mods are the only ones that don't invalidate old saves.
So if the crashes are too much for you, you can try the next version as soon as it's released (aiming for tomorrow), but if people are having stable games then they'll often hold off updating until they complete their current games.

Hello there, I'm confused: I recently downloaded and updated your mod, however I was able to load my previous save perfectly, with no additional hindrances. I did something wrong?

BTW, as usual, I keep having crashes every 2-4 turns (with that save), I'll show you the logs (on spoiler):

Spoiler :

xml.log
------------------------------
[7049.796] **** Validating Game Database *****
[7050.875] Performing Localization Checks
[7050.875] Checking Tag Format...
[7050.875] Note: Tags must only use [A-Z_] characters, start with 'TXT_KEY_', and be under 128 characters long.
[7050.875] In table Language_en_US...
[7050.875] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_PANGAI-HIHIFO) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.875] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_TOFOA-KOLOUA) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.890] In table Language_FR_FR...
[7050.890] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_PANGAI-HIHIFO) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.890] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_TOFOA-KOLOUA) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.906] In table Language_DE_DE...
[7050.906] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_PANGAI-HIHIFO) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.906] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_TOFOA-KOLOUA) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.921] In table Language_IT_IT...
[7050.921] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_PANGAI-HIHIFO) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.921] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_TOFOA-KOLOUA) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.937] In table Language_ES_ES...
[7050.937] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_PANGAI-HIHIFO) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.937] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_TOFOA-KOLOUA) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.953] In table Language_PL_PL...
[7050.953] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_PANGAI-HIHIFO) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.968] Tag (TXT_KEY_CITY_NAME_TOFOA-KOLOUA) contains invalid character (-)
[7050.968] Validating UnitGameplay
[7050.968] Number of selection sounds doesn't match number of units.
[7050.968] Validating Notifications
[7050.968] **** VALIDATION FAILED *****
[7050.968] Validation Took 1.183203 seconds
[7051.671] **** Validating Prefetch Process *****
[7051.671] **** Validation Success *****
[7051.671] SetGlobalActionInfo

DATABASE.LOG

[6895.859] constraint failed
[6895.859] While executing - 'INSERT INTO ArtDefine_StrategicView(StrategicViewType, TileType, Asset) VALUES(?,?,?)'
[6912.156] Validating Foreign Key Constraints...
[6912.156] Invalid Reference on ArtDefine_Landmarks.LayoutHandler - "SPECIAL" does not exist in ArtDefine_LandmarkTypes
[6912.156] Invalid Reference on ArtDefine_Landmarks.LayoutHandler - "SPECIAL" does not exist in ArtDefine_LandmarkTypes
[6912.156] Invalid Reference on ArtDefine_Landmarks.LayoutHandler - "SPECIAL" does not exist in ArtDefine_LandmarkTypes
[6913.156] Failed Validation.
[6913.859] 
-- SQLite Memory Statistics --
Memory Usage:
		[Cur]		[Max]
Malloc:		299136		2359896
PageCache:	4267		4274
LookAside:	45		1840
Scratch:	0		1

Static Buffer Overflows:
		[TooLarge]	[NoSpace]
PageCache:	0		0
Scratch:	0		0

Largest Allocations:
Malloc:		65280
PageCache:	1160
Scratch:	5128

Prepared Statements:
Current:		5
------------------------------
[7049.796] Validating Foreign Key Constraints...
[7049.812] Invalid Reference on ArtDefine_Landmarks.LayoutHandler - "SPECIAL" does not exist in ArtDefine_LandmarkTypes
[7049.812] Invalid Reference on ArtDefine_Landmarks.LayoutHandler - "SPECIAL" does not exist in ArtDefine_LandmarkTypes
[7049.812] Invalid Reference on ArtDefine_Landmarks.LayoutHandler - "SPECIAL" does not exist in ArtDefine_LandmarkTypes
[7050.546] Invalid Reference on Units.SpecialCargo - "SPECIALUNIT_FIGHTER_SPECIALUNIT_MISSILE" does not exist in SpecialUnits
[7050.875] Failed Validation.
[7051.671] 
-- SQLite Memory Statistics --
Memory Usage:
		[Cur]		[Max]
Malloc:		391872		2359896
PageCache:	4186		4982
LookAside:	1160		2983
Scratch:	0		1

Static Buffer Overflows:
		[TooLarge]	[NoSpace]
PageCache:	0		1490600
Scratch:	0		0

Largest Allocations:
Malloc:		65280
PageCache:	1160
Scratch:	6376

Prepared Statements:

That's all.
BTW, is there a way to have more logs? Currently I see more AI related logs than anything (And they don't show useful info).

Should I create another game? Is there something there that could be causing those crashes?

 

[Spatzimaus]

Hello there, I'm confused: I recently downloaded and updated your mod, however I was able to load my previous save perfectly, with no additional hindrances. I did something wrong?

I'm not sure. It SHOULDN'T let you load up the old game successfully; try to do so and it should crash right away, just from the checksums not matching up. A new game shouldn't have this problem.

BTW, as usual, I keep having crashes every 2-4 turns (with that save), I'll show you the logs

Nearly every vailidation error in there are from things outside my mod. It looks like your Polynesia DLC is causing most of the problems. The only one tied to my mod is the SpecialUnit one, and that SHOULD have worked.

BTW, is there a way to have more logs? Currently I see more AI related logs than anything (And they don't show useful info).

Just FireTuner, which has the debug outputs I added. Other than that, there's not a whole lot that isn't on the level you're describing.

 

[Sjru]

I'm not sure. It SHOULDN'T let you load up the old game successfully; try to do so and it should crash right away, just from the checksums not matching up. A new game shouldn't have this problem.

Weird. I've checked and all the changes you made are applied on my savefile. Dunno what happened. Maybe because I've overwritten the mod files with the patch? Or perhaps because I didn't delete the cache?.
Also the crashes stoped for a good 60 turns. So I honestly have no idea what's going on.

Nearly every vailidation error in there are from things outside my mod. It looks like your Polynesia DLC is causing most of the problems. The only one tied to my mod is the SpecialUnit one, and that SHOULD have worked

Can those errors be the cause of my crashes?

Just FireTuner, which has the debug outputs I added. Other than that, there's not a whole lot that isn't on the level you're describing.

Where I can download that?

 

[Spatzimaus]

Or perhaps because I didn't delete the cache?

This might be part of it. Given how I constantly tweak things, I never deal with the cache because I always have to start a new game.

Also the crashes stopped for a good 60 turns. So I honestly have no idea what's going on.

That usually means the trigger is something specific in the gameplay. For instance, the AI might have been trying to replace a certain trading post with a mine, but then the AI hit a tech that made the trading post have a higher yield, so now it doesn't WANT to replace it. Or maybe it was trying to use a unit that was missing an animation, and now that unit has been killed or upgraded into something else.

Can those errors be the cause of my crashes?

I honestly don't know. I don't use DLC, so I just don't know how it interacts with the core game. Given that the devs MADE that DLC, and those validation errors must be coming up for every single person that bought it, I'd think it likely that it's not a real problem.

Where I can download that?

FireTuner is one of the four components to the SDK, alongside ModBuddy, Nexus, and the WorldBuilder. So if you have those, then you should have FireTuner. If you DON'T have those, go get 'em. Go into Steam, go to your Library, and the little tab that says "All Games", pull it down to "Tools (36)". Most of the way down the list is the Civ5 SDK. Install it; it'll probably ask you to install a few Microsoft programming things, and you'll have to say yes if you want to use it.

The only other thing you have to do to get FireTuner to work is go into your config.ini file and change "EnableTuner=0" to a 1. At that point, loading FireTuner up while you play will give all sorts of useful debugging outputs. It also allows for cheating (meaning debugging): the ability to place units, change how much damage and XP each unit has, place resources, grant techs, grant gold and culture, etc., and once you're familiar with it you can enter any Lua command into it to execute commands. For obvious reasons, I heavily use this last part as I'm developing.

 

[Sjru]

This might be part of it. Given how I constantly tweak things, I never deal with the cache because I always have to start a new gam

But if I was able to load my save from this mod previous patch then it may tell that there's a way around the incompatible saves?

Why you just don't delete the checksum check? If it's incompatible it would crash anyway, and if it's compatible it would allow you to load your save.

BTW: I got a hang (not crash), the rarest log told something like this:

[30809.391] WRN: A resource bundle lookup returned a result from the root locale (not an error).

That was the reason for the hang?

 

[Spatzimaus]

But if I was able to load my save from this mod previous patch then it may tell that there's a way around the incompatible saves?

No, it just means that in your particular combination of game settings, map layout, computer hardware, etc., it was close enough to the previous version that it wasn't killed by the discrepancies in array sizes and addressing and such.

That's what the "affects save games" flag on mods means; it's not just about crashing, it's about how the database is laid out. If you don't check it, then not only would you have a lot of crashes, but there'd be a good chance that things would change that WOULDN'T crash things, and that can lead to far worse corruptions.
So no, I'm not going to disable that. The only mods that won't have that flag checked are pure UI mods, and this is definitely not one of those.

As for that hang you described, I've never seen that. No idea what causes it.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Okay, I'm going to try to get a patched 24A version out tonight. It'll fix the no-policy issue in two different ways, so that even if I break this in the future it'll still keep the AI from getting locked up by policy changes. And there will be a couple other minor changes, like the text popups when a nuke gets intercepted, so everyone who's playing with #24 should switch to the new version.

-----------

As always, I'm still looking for feedback on all of the other things we've talked about; I'm not Microsoft, I can't steal information from your computers for "market research", so you need to tell me these things. The list, as usual:
> Are there any units you find you never use? (Psi units, Ranger/Troll/Doppelganger, Powersuit units?) And if so, then why not?
Example: "I don't make Mindworms, because they're just too SLOW, and don't pack enough punch to be worth using when I could be using Skimmers or Vertols instead. Also, the fact that I can upgrade my existing units to Skimmers/Vertols when all psi units have to be made from scratch is a big downside."
> Are any of the future wonders "must-haves", or are there any that just aren't worth the effort to build? (While this can also include National Wonders, I also understand that these'd have slightly different criteria for "must have".)
> For an Ancient-Era start, what are the turn numbers when you A) Enter a new era, and B) research the final tech in the previous era? (If you're starting in a later era, these values don't help nearly as much, but I'll take them for those starts too.)
> Is there any specific point in the game where you have major Happiness problems whatever you do, or where you have a huge Happiness surplus? (Industrial or later only, please)
> Is there any specific point in the game where you see major imbalances in gold, culture, production, et cetera? (Again, Industrial or later only)
> In each era, how many turns does it take to gain technologies through straight research? Once you get to the medieval era is it ever above 15 turns per tech or below 5 turns? (Assuming Standard game speed.)
> In the course of a game, how many technologies do you gain through tech-stealing National Wonders, such as the KGB?
> Is there any strategic resource that is just too rare or too plentiful? While this can obviously depend on a lot of other factors, like map types and sizes, I'm trying to avoid crippling shortages since those invariably favor the human player. So if you find that there are only three Uranium deposits in the entire world, that's a problem I can fix.

Some of you have given this feedback before, and for that I'm thankful, but 150-200 people downloaded each the last two versions and I've only heard from maybe a half-dozen folks. So I'd like to get comments from a few more if possible, because I'm trying to do one last major balance pass before v.1.0.

 

[Sjru]

Hello there, I've stumbed upon a bug:
First of all, I'm on renaissance and a city suddenly for it luxury resource demand picks Neutronium, which is way on the future era.
(pic on spoiler.)

Spoiler :

Randcall.log returned this:

489, 95778, 8, 2603634619, 1033a1c0, sync, Picking random Luxury for City to demand.
489, 95779, 2, 4051639512, 1033a1c0, sync, Picking random Luxury for City to demand.
489, 95779, 0, 3036235825, 1033a1c0, sync, Picking random Luxury for City to demand.
489, 95779, 7, 1225317142, 1033a1c0, sync, Picking random Luxury for City to demand.

Second, I've crashed when I hitted the print screen button, (that's a game bug I think).

Last I've found this on database.log

[28470.953] Invalid Reference on Units.SpecialCargo - "SPECIALUNIT_FIGHTER_SPECIALUNIT_MISSILE" does not exist in SpecialUnits

Since the update only this reference is left, which is good, I think, since I haven't crashes since 100 turns (until now).
That's all.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Hello there, I've stumbed upon a bug:
First of all, I'm on renaissance and a city suddenly for it luxury resource demand picks Neutronium, which is way on the future era.

If you go into the city screen, you'll notice that it's actually demanding something other than Neutronium. There's a Lua override in my mod, where if a city demands a luxury that has a tech prerequisite (meaning Neutronium), then it'll immediately pick again. (If, by sheer chance, it picked Neutronium again, then it'd wait a turn and pick again, ad nauseum.) Eventually I'll change it to actually check to see if the player has that tech before rejecting the Neutronium, but until then it's just doing it this way.

As far as I can tell, without DLL access I have no way to prevent the game from picking the luxury in the first place, but I CAN ensure that this error has no long-term consequences.

I'll try to add a text message in this next version that tells you what resource it's now demanding.

 

[dinobot386]

When will 0.24A be up?

 

[Spatzimaus]

When it's ready!

Actually, that's not true. It's ready now, I think. The problem is that I'm playing a test game to verify that it all works, and you can't have it until I'm done. Not because I'm being petty, but because I have a lot of debug statements in there that are slowing things down, and I'll need to rebuild the mod to remove those before uploading it. Since doing so would prevent me from loading my current game (incompatible savegames and all that), I'm not going to do it until I'm done with the important parts of this game.

In case you didn't know, I live on the west coast, so my idea of "tonight" might be a bit later than everyone else's; it's only 8:30pm, and I'm usually up until 2ish. So figure two or three more hours, until I get past the parts I care about; I'm in the late Nuclear right now, and it'll be over by the Fusion most likely.
For anyone interested, I'm running a game on King, as America, where I specifically don't take the Piety branch, and yet I'm still trying to do well on Happiness and Culture. I'll tell you, it's been HARD staying above zero on happiness, even despite the fact that I haven't been in a single war yet. (I'm massing Modern Armor right now for an amphibious assault on Askia.) To be fair, though, it WAS an Industrial start on a Small Continents map, but I'm trying to see if a peaceful builder strategy works for a civ that doesn't have some sort of infrastructure bonus trait or useful UB.
So right now it's a 4-civ race, as Askia conquered Rome and Siam conquered the Aztecs, while Greece had the largest starting continent and has been on a building spree. Fun game, though.

 

[dinobot386]

That actually reminds me, I ran a game with piety the other day, and it dident just make happiness easier to deal with, it became almost a non issue. For the most part I was getting 30-40 happiness, with my "angry" times being at about 19 positive happiness. And I was making around 200-300 gpt, and about 500 in a golden age. Aztecs, ancient era start, 400 turns or so into the game