Crazy Spatz's Alpha Centauri Mod

dinobot386 · Sep 10, 2011

It still wont properly load, here are the log files

Spoiler :

Spatzimaus · Sep 10, 2011

Okay, there's one issue in those logs. See the part where it says "ERA_FUTURE" is invalid for FreeStartEra? That's a bug for the Sewer System, where it was setting it to be given to any game starting in the Future era (but I'd removed the Future Era in the Content mod).

Thing is, that's from the Balance mod, v1.06. While it wasn't causing anything to stop working, I removed that particular entry in 1.08, so if you're seeing that, it means you're still using the 1.06 version of the Balance mod, or at least the game still thinks you are. If you'd installed 1.08, and started a new game, then the only way it'd do this is if you never fully installed 1.08 (or never fully removed 1.06 beforehand). And if you haven't installed 1.08, then there's no reason it'd suddenly stop working now, after a month of 1.06.

dinobot386 · Sep 10, 2011

Im still getting errors, and the content mod stopped loading buildings again, ive resolved to just delete both the cache and the mods folders, so there should be nothing left to conflict with your mod when i reinstall it

Edit: Ok, just did that, loaded the game with only your mods and its working just fine now (although the heroic epic still says its old effect in the description instead of saying +10 XP), my guess is that there was some leftover parts of previous versions of your mods somewhere that were messing up the loading process

Spatzimaus · Sep 11, 2011

dinobot386 said:
(although the heroic epic still says its old effect in the description instead of saying +10 XP),

That's not a bug; I just never got around to editing its help text. And the +10 XP is in addition to the custom promotion, so it shouldn't be TOO bad to remember, but I'll fix the text in the next version. (I wanted the XP because the AI is terrible at taking advantage of free promotions, but it seems to at least acknowledge XP-producers.)

Spatzimaus · Sep 11, 2011

Sharing time! Design notes for the Mythology mod, now that the board's back up.

After a lot of rearranging, here's what I've got for the religious techs for the Mythology mod. I've attached some screenshots; they're already a little out of date (like how Currency now depends on Civil Service, and I've moved a couple buildings/wonders to religious techs), but it should give a rough idea. You'll notice that the Ancient went from 2 columns (plus Agriculture) to 3, the Classical from 1 to 3, and the Medieval from 2 to 3. In the process of doing this, I finally fixed that bug in the core game that caused tech arrows to get screwed up, so hooray for the mother of invention.

The "starburst" icons at the religious techs indicate changes in the underlying rules; I'll list them below. The idea is that foci will be put into three categories: Primary (your main god's big one), Secondary (your main god's weaker one), and Minor (all those other gods you pick up along the way). Within each category, you have a level cap and a growth rate, expressed as a percentage, that determines how fast your religious buildings upgrade themselves.

Every player starts with a special Policy that reduces Happiness by 3, Happiness per luxury by 1 (so only 3 instead of 4), makes population unhappiness be 1.5 instead of 1.2, reduces Science, Gold, and Production by 25%, and Food by 10%. This policy also shifts a few existing bonuses around; Palaces, Monuments and Temples produce 1 less Culture and generate 1/2/3 Favor (depending on pantheon), a Colosseum produces 1 less Happiness and 2/4/6 Favor, and the Great Improvements (Academy, Manufactory, etc.) produce 1 less of their yield and generate 1/2/3 Favor when worked.
This policy is what will slow down the mythological eras to an acceptable pace, but the numbers are obviously going to be tuned. The Enlightenment will be when you finally get rid of this policy and can progress at your full rates.

ANCIENT ERA:
Mysticism: Primary Level = 1*, Primary Growth = 50
* - While normal cities start at level 0 (no bonus) and have to grow to level 1 (Shrine), your capital immediately gains a Shrine in your primary as soon as you research this tech.
Spirituality: Secondary Level = 1, Secondary Growth = 25
Mythology: Minor Level = 1, Minor Growth = 25. I've also moved the Heroic Epic here.

CLASSICAL ERA:
Priesthood: Primary Level +1, Primary Growth +25
Polytheism: Primary, Secondary, and Minor Growth all +25
Hierarchy: In your capital, Primary and Secondary Level caps increase by 1. I've also moved the Temple (and its UBs) here.
Shamanism: Secondary Level +1, Secondary Growth +25, unlocks a promotion that gives a bonus against Myth units.
Rituals: Minor Level +1. I've also moved the Oracle here.
Conversion: Primary and Secondary Growth +25, unlock a promotion that gives a bonus against followers of any other pantheon.

MEDIEVAL ERA:
Heresy: Minor Growth +25, and in your capital the Minor Level caps increase by 1. This also unlocks the Crusade project, which makes your units generate Favor from battle more quickly.
Monotheism: Primary Level +1. I've also moved the Hagia Sophia here.
Apostasy: Primary Growth +25, but Minor Growth -25. I've also moved the Garden here. This tech also adds the Enlightenment project, which ends the mythological era and removes the penalties you start with.
Iconoclasm: Secondary Level +1, but Minor Level -1. I've also moved Notre Dame here. This tech will also add the Inquisition national wonder, which gives your normal units a bonus against every civilization that hasn't gone Enlightened yet and against every Myth unit.

RENAISSANCE ERA:
Deism: PrimaryGrowth -50, Secondary Growth -25. I've also moved the Sistine Chapel here. (There'll be something else as well, but those penalties are more or less just to force you to go Enlightened if you haven't by this point.)

-------------

So what this means in practice is this. Let's say you pick Hades (Death/Wealth).

At Mythology, you'll get your first Shrine of Death in your capital. Any new cities you found won't get that Shrine until they accumulate 100 Favor. Now, a Monument generates 1/2/3 per turn; Greeks are the baseline pantheon so it's 2 per turn for a Palace, 2 per turn for a Monument, 2 per turn for a Temple, and 4 per turn for a Colosseum. They also get 4 Favor per Priest, but since you need a Shrine to get priest slots that doesn't help here.
But the 50 growth rate you start with at Mythology means that for every 2 Favor you generate, only 1 goes towards Primary building growth within each city. (You still get the full +2 towards unlocking new gods, Heroes, etc.) You'll also get Favor from battles nearby, which'll invariably favor your fringe cities, and every city generates a minimum of 1 Favor per turn towards every focus, but it'll take a while to get a Shrine in cities other than your capital. And you won't get the Wealth part of Hades' foci, or the effects of any Minor gods, until you unlock the techs for those. (Spirituality and Mythology, respectively.)

Fast-forward an era. By the mid-Classical (having just researched Priesthood, Polytheism, and Shamanism), your Primary and Secondary will both cap at level 2, with 100% growth for Primary and 75% for Secondary, and Minor gods cap at level 1 with 50% growth.
If a city generates 20 Favor per turn (say, a Monument (2), Temple (2), Colosseum (4), and three Priests (4 per) in various Shrines), then it'd add 20 towards upgrading your Death buildings, 15 towards upgrading Wealth buildings, and 10 towards upgrading any Minor gods' temples. And that's 10 PER, so if you're following three minor gods at that point, each gets +10. 100 Favor within a focus unlocks the Shrine (1), 300 for a Church (2), 600 for a Cathedral (3), and 1000 for a Basilica (4, capital only). Obviously, those last two are off-limits for now. But this means that at those rates, it won't take long to get all your new gods up to at least a Shrine in that city.

The very beginning of the Medieval is really the golden age for mythology: by the time you research Monotheism and Heresy, your Primary focus cap is 3 (4 in your capital, which unlocks the super-deluxe god powers and such; a Basilica gives Wonder-level bonuses, but can only ever appear in the capital.) and 125% growth, Secondary focus cap is 2 (3 in the capital) and 100% growth, and Minor focus cap is 2 (3 in the capital) and 75% growth. With the amount of Favor you'll be generating, you should have a large number of level 2 and 3 effects, as long as you aren't trying to expand quickly (since every city starts its Favor growth from 0) or losing wars (conquered cities start at 0, even if you recapture them later).

After Monotheism, though, it's all downhill into the Dark Ages. Iconoclasm, for instance, adds 1 to Secondary level (meaning you can get another level 4 building in your capital, for a second Wonder-level effect), but decreases Minor level back down to 1(2 in capital), which makes those minor gods you've picked up less useful; in fact, they might even be giving more penalties than bonuses. Likewise, Apostasy makes your Primary growth even higher (guaranteeing a level 3 Cathedral for your primary god in every city) but stunts Minor growth even further.

-----------------

There's the basic idea; I've got the Lua for nearly all of that coded up already, so this week I'll be trying it out in practice. One thing to note is the pantheon difference: Priest Favor requires explicitly religious buildings, so it's mostly generated in your largest cities and starts off slowly, while Battle Favor is mostly in your frontier cities and Building favor is more evenly distributed. So your playstyle will make a big difference in which pantheon is best for you (and then there's the choice of primary god, of course).

Elderon · Sep 11, 2011

Hey, I'm intrigued to see the Mythology ideas and look forward to being able to test a Beta version of it (well, I guess you don't do Betas, but you know what I mean).

One quick question though: do you plan to finish the graphic content for the SMAC content? I don't remember seeing a version that included the completed comment but I've also been busy and haven't had a chance to read through each post in detail. Sorry if you've already mentioned this before.

Spatzimaus · Sep 11, 2011

Elderon said:
Hey, I'm intrigued to see the Mythology ideas and look forward to being able to test a Beta version of it (well, I guess you don't do Betas, but you know what I mean).

It's ALL beta, really; I wouldn't call the SMAC mod "done" yet, because of the graphical issues. I just don't release alphas to the public; you'll get the Mythology mod once the important bits are in place and it's at least remotely playable.

I'm hoping to have that done by next weekend; like I said, I've got a LOT of the Lua written already. But enough of the concepts are complex enough that it'll take much more time for you, the players who DIDN'T design the system, to get the hang of what I'm trying to accomplish, so once I get it out to you, it might be several weeks before a revised version is released. I fully expect to spend a LOT of time explaining these concepts over and over again; the SMAC mod, at least, was all about "passive" content that didn't require any long explanations. (Really, the only "active" mechanism added was the Breakout, and look at how many posts have explained that one.)

One quick question though: do you plan to finish the graphic content for the SMAC content?

I do, but I can understand your reason for asking as I haven't added anything in that area within the past month. There are four basic slowdowns on that:
1> It's a steep learning curve. The units created so far have been those that needed no complex animations, mainly mechanized vehicles and such. Most of the rest are humanoid units, things that need a bit more conversion work. This takes time.
2> It's just not as much fun. Now, I'm not saying that creating 84 sets of building-related text keys and 91 deity-related sets of keys is "fun", per se, but it's at least something new. The SMAC mod is mature enough that there's very little left to add, and that takes some of the fun out of working on it. Obviously I WILL finish it, but I'm splitting my time now.
3> In the process of creating the Mythology mod, I've been standardizing a lot of my Lua constructions, so that they can be used for multiple content mods. This'll improve the SMAC mod in minor ways, but it means that a lot of time in the past week or so has been spent on "overhead" time copying things back and forth. (I'll have four separate ModBuddy windows open at once. It gets a little confusing.) That process is nearly done.
4> My goal is to have the Mythology mod out as quickly as possible for people to see, then I can sit back and work on the SMAC unit models while people give feedback on all of the new Mythology content. While many people seem to be PLAYING my SMAC mod, few give feedback, so I need to give it time to accumulate between versions. Whereas the Mythology mod is new enough and complex enough that I expect a lot of people (i.e., everyone who's not me) to have questions, comments, and occasionally suggestions. (Note: "scrap the whole thing" is not a valid suggestion.)

Also, there are some real-life issues that have cut into my playing time; some medical, some job-related, some family-related. So I just don't have as much time to spend on modding as I had previously, and that's slowed things down quite a bit.

nathanglevy · Sep 12, 2011

Hi Spatz! Get ready... This is going to be weird...

I started a new game with version 1.08, played as Egypt this time. Around turn 400 I had to stop playing so I saved the game on steam-cloud (as usual). I continued playing on my other PC, and when I loaded, everything seemed to break - The National wonders the mod added acted weird, disappearing and appearing every other turn, the social policies didn't add happiness correctly, some cities started building something called "dream inhibitor" or something that caused -10 unhappiness (what on earth is that??), and then, here's the kicker - The next turn, every civ that had a nuke launched it at me. Like a MASSIVE DoW, only really horrible. I took something like 8 nukes in one turn. I suddenly found myself with 55 unhappiness, with my entire empire in an uproar. After this happened, I did NOT save. But now, the save game isn't working properly anymore on either of my PCs. Both of them have 1.08 of the mod+balance, I've made sure of this. What on earth just happened??...

Spatzimaus · Sep 12, 2011

nathanglevy said:
Hi Spatz! Get ready... This is going to be weird...

Okay, I've seen what you've described before. It happened to me a couple weeks ago. You'll see messages that you've lost all of the building-produced resources, and then you'll get a message that you've earned them back. It's doing this because the ID for the cities that produced them changed between your two sessions, and so the module-saved information doesn't match the current info. You'll also get cities trying to build national wonders that you already have, or buildings that aren't normally buildable (like the Dream Twister -10 that you saw). AIs forget who they're friends with, and so on.

What is happening is that savegame thinks that the mod has changed between your two play sessions, so all of the transient variables (build queues, diplomatic relations) are in slightly different locations than they were before. I get this often when I make small tweaks to the code; it might at first appear to not affect saved games, but then things like you describe start happening.

In your case, what likely happened is that when you started the game on the first night, your cache still had bits of 1.07 in it; not enough to cause noticeable problems on the spot, but nevertheless it wasn't truly 1.08, no matter what the savegame thinks. But when you saved the game and logged out after the first night it cleared those obsolete bits out of the cache, once and for all. In your second play session you were playing with the true 1.08, and so the game's memory addresses were a little bit off, hence the problems.

Obviously, clearing the cache is the simplest solution for this. And when you install a new version of the mod, make sure to delete the old version in its entirety so that it won't leave any bits that conflict with the new one. If you still see this sort of thing happening then, it COULD just be a corrupted file in your base game; tell Steam to verify your game files, and see what comes up.

some cities started building something called "dream inhibitor" or something that caused -10 unhappiness (what on earth is that??)

The Dream Twister is a T23 (late Nanotech Era) world wonder that adds -10 Happiness to every empire other than yours; by that point in the game every empire should have a massive surplus of Happiness, so -10 won't cripple them, but WILL slow down golden ages. To do this, it places an unbuildable building (BUILDING_MINUS_10, lableled as "Dream Twister Effect") in each capital other than yours, through a Lua routine. Since that building has no tech prerequisite, if it DOES somehow get into a build queue (like through the bug mentioned above) it'll be a one turn build that costs you unhappiness.

Scrambles · Sep 13, 2011

Been playing the mod for a few days now, excellent work. Wanted to give some feedback/comments/questions:

Is there a compatibility problem with the quick combat option? It says so on the first post but just double checking since strategic view seems to work fine... and the slow combat is a pain once fighters/bombers arrive.

Neutronium does not seem to be affected by the double strategic resource bonus from the autocracy social tree. Is this intended/correct?

Is there a real-world starting locations Earth map that you would recommend for use with the mod? Or can we not use custom maps because of the new resources?

A number of the new units seem to have no unit model at all (for example the Gravtank, Bolo & Gravship), from your comments in the first post I figured there would be placeholders, am I missing something? This also applies to 'explosion' effects for the subspace generator and planet buster. I understand that the art side of the mod is incomplete so this is not criticism, just curious. I'm playing on quite low graphics settings if that sheds any light on the matter.

Any idea if the mod would the mod be compatible with the R.E.D. modpack?

I had a quick scan to see if I could find answers so I apologize if some of these points have been covered in previous posts.

Spatzimaus · Sep 13, 2011

Scrambles said:
Is there a compatibility problem with the quick combat option? It says so on the first post but just double checking since strategic view seems to work fine... and the slow combat is a pain once fighters/bombers arrive.

Yes, it's incompatible with both Quick Combat and Strategic View. Strategic View doesn't actually work fine, but you won't immediately notice the problem because the way it breaks won't come up right away.

In both cases, what breaks are all of the combat-triggered special abilities that require the RunCombatSim or EndCombatSim events. These include:
> Nuke interception of any kind
> Psi units' ability to adjust their power to better match the unit they're fighting
> The Critical Strike ability of the Ranger
> The Spontaneous Healing ability of the Troll and some Psi units
> The Synthesis (promotion-stealing) ability of the Doppelganger
> The area-effect damage of the Quantum Missile
> The damage reduction of all Titan units, including Spore Towers
> The 100/150/200 gold you get for killing a Spore Tower
and a couple other things I can't remember off the top of my head. So if you're using strategic view or quick combat, most of the game will still work correctly, and it won't cause any crashes, but all of the above will break.

Neutronium does not seem to be affected by the double strategic resource bonus from the autocracy social tree. Is this intended/correct?

Not intended, but not avoidable. The game automatically classifies any resource that adds Happiness as a Luxury, no matter what classification you gave it in the XML. I had to override this for the strategic list in the top panel, but all of the other strategic-related bits of the game won't view Neutronium correctly and there's nothing I can do about that without removing its happiness.

This is something that should be fairly quick to fix once the DLL is released Soon(TM).

Is there a real-world starting locations Earth map that you would recommend for use with the mod? Or can we not use custom maps because of the new resources?

You can use any map or map script that doesn't either directly place resources on the map or override the default resource spawn tables. Unfortunately, most of them do exactly those things, so most of the TSL Earth maps simply won't work with this mod; it'll still play, but the resource distributions will be wrong and there will be no deposits of Omnicytes, Dilithium, or Neutronium.

Now, I've slowly been working on taking one of the existing Earth maps and adjusting it for this mod, and when it's done I'll include it in the Player Pack for folks who want to try and use this mod on Earth. But that'll only be a single map; any other scenario map still won't work. This is an unfortunate consequence of any mod that alters resource distributions.

A number of the new units seem to have no unit model at all (for example the Gravtank, Bolo & Gravship),

That's a problem. Those are units whose models I've included with the mod, so if you're not seeing them, then one of two things must be true:
1> You've got corrupted files, either in the modpack or in your core game.
or, more likely,
2> You're using some other mod that also adjusts the unit graphics file, like R.E.D., to where it'll be overriding my artdefines files with those of the other mod. Exactly how it'll break will depend on load order, but either way only one of the two mods will have its effect.

This also applies to 'explosion' effects for the subspace generator and planet buster.

That's a totally separate issue. All weapon effects are somehow tied to unit combat classes, so it knows how to make a weapon go boom for a unit of type Armor, but change that unit to Titan and it stops working. Other modders have noted the same problem, and no one claims to have found a solution, so it might stay this way for the forseeable future. On the bright side, this speeds combat up nicely, since there are no attack animations to take up time.

Any idea if the mod would the mod be compatible with the R.E.D. modpack?

It isn't. See above.

Bottom line, because of how the game is constructed, most large-scale mods are inherently incompatible with most other mods. XML/SQL conflicts are rare, but if two mods want to edit the same bit of UI, or edit the resources on the map, or edit the artwork for units, those mods will be incompatible. So, this mod is incompatible with most others; a few, like InfoAddict work with it, and City-State Diplomacy MIGHT work, but most of the other big ones don't. I'm working now to make it a bit more compatible with Thal's balance mods, but RED is hopelessly conflicting.

CivOasis · Sep 13, 2011

YNAEMP works with this mod, for anyone who plays TSL (its what I use)

dinobot386 · Sep 13, 2011

CivOasis said:
YNAEMP works with this mod, for anyone who plays TSL (its what I use)

That works now? I've been scavenging the map from it into a senario, since it origianally wouldent work

Sneaks · Sep 13, 2011

Spatz, if you're at all interested I made some CityView changes for Thal recently that really clean up the UI aesthetically and userfriendliness wise.

I recently .rared up the files, and loaded them here:
http://www.box.net/shared/gx1nsl9moz3shv4tlqca

The Language file includes the text updates for the focus areas and the Specialist Building header, so those can be extracted. The rest I am sure you can glean relatively easily how to translate over effectively.

Spatzimaus · Sep 14, 2011

Sneaks said:
Spatz, if you're at all interested I made some CityView changes for Thal recently that really clean up the UI aesthetically and userfriendliness wise.

One of the things I want to do in the near future is start to make my mod a bit more compatible with other mods, especially in terms of the UI. Ideally, I'd be able to strip out any unnecessary UI changes and let people use whatever UI mods they want; unfortunately, a lot of the small changes I've made to the UI have been because the core game's files are just broken and/or half-completed. (Especially in the tech tree.) So the best outcome would be if some of my changes would get rolled into, say, the Unofficial Patch and then I can stop modifying the files myself. Then, people could feel free to use the UI changes you described, without conflicting with my content.

Unfortunately, at the moment I'm doing a pretty severe overhaul to the UI to make the Mythology mod work. (Adding a new yield does that.) So at least for that mod, I'm not going to be able to avoid incompatibilities, and so I'll look at integrating some of your changes there. But I'd at least like to avoid modifying any new UI elements in the Alpha Centauri mod if I can avoid it.

Sneaks · Sep 14, 2011

Totally got you there. Eventually I may attempt to redo the entire CityView system with ContextPtrs by essentially hiding the currently used Instances and building new, near identical ones in its stead. Of course this would mean double computations every time a city was opened.

Scrambles · Sep 15, 2011

Thanks for the reply, very helpful and informative. I'll re-download and install the mod to see if it fixes the models, I've already removed all other mods and it didn't seem to fix it. A couple more quick ones before I get back to my current game...

Does setting strategic resources to abundant in the mod work the same as before?

Would a 'no breakout' option in game set-up be out of the question? I love the idea and it works very well but it would be nice to have the option to leave it out for say, digital era starts.

Spatzimaus · Sep 15, 2011

Scrambles said:
Does setting strategic resources to abundant in the mod work the same as before?

Yes, unless you're using a map with pre-set resource locations. But since there aren't any of those compatible with my mod at all (yet), this shouldn't be an issue. Abundant and Sparse are built into the tables in AssignStartingPlots, and when I modified that file I made sure to include my three new resources in that logic.

Would a 'no breakout' option in game set-up be out of the question? I love the idea and it works very well but it would be nice to have the option to leave it out for say, digital era starts.

It already is.

There are four hidden rules for the Breakout. Well, "hidden" in the sense that I don't explicitly tell them in-game, but I've mentioned these on the boards before.
1> If you set the game to "No Barbarians" it cuts Psi unit spawn rates (including the number created at Breakout) in half.
2> If you set the game to "Raging Barbarians" it doubles Psi unit spawn rates (including the number at Breakout).
3> If you start a game in the Digital Era or later, there is no space race and no Breakout event, because everyone will already have Centauri Ecology. This is why that tech is in the Nuclear Era, despite requiring one spaceship part from the Digital; someone who starts in the Digital or later will be given the tech automatically, and since the Barbarians will already have the tech, the Breakout trigger will never start. (I was very careful to code it this way. If you ARE seeing a Breakout with a Digital start, then it's a bug I need to fix.)
4> There is a short window (20 turns, I think, although it might be 30) after the start of ANY game, where Psi units won't spawn, to give you time to look around a bit and plant your settlers in safety. Obviously, this only affects starts in the Digital or later. (This was necessary for the AI more than anything else; even though the AIs started with 4 settlers, most would only settle 2-3 cities, because mindworms would kill their other settlers.)
So if you start in the Digital, then Spore Towers will begin appearing after 20-30 turns, and will begin to generate units normally, but there won't be the massive Mind Worm flood corresponding to the Breakout. I was trying to mimic the SMAC game's rules for this, to where a Digital start is similar to how a game of SMAC would progress.

Nitro2985 · Sep 16, 2011

Many of the units don't have icons in the strategic view. I would be mighty greatful if they could get some to make playing in that view feasible late game.

CivOasis said:
YNAEMP works with this mod, for anyone who plays TSL (its what I use)

The game will load but no new resources will spawn.

Spatzimaus · Sep 16, 2011

Nitro2985 said:
Many of the units don't have icons in the strategic view. I would be mighty greatful if they could get some to make playing in that view feasible late game.

As I said in the bold text in the very first post, and reiterated just a few posts ago, this mod is not compatible with Strategic View or Quick Combat. It's not the icons that are the problem, it's that none of the special combat-related unit abilities will work.

This mod will not be compatible with Strategic View until someone (the devs, or one of us post-DLL release) adds combat trigger events that aren't UI-oriented. Until that time, no Strategic View.

Crazy Spatz's Alpha Centauri Mod

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