CRpSuite: FAQ's and player help stories

[planetfall]

This is a companion thread to main thread
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=52902

The main thread is for:
1. new releases
2. requests for changes, or enhancements, in the Suite.

This thread is primarily for:
1. Questions about the suite you would like answered
2. Comments and suggestions for improving the FAQ's
3. accumulating use cases, examples of how using CRpSuite will improve game play.

Since this is the beginning of the thread, let's start with:

1. What questions about the Suite do you think should be included in FAQ's.
2. Any examples of how you use CRpSuite that we can publish in the FAQ's.

FAQ format will migrate to web form but initially be just in a spreadsheet until we get a better grasp of what you would like included in the FAQ's.

Target for first FAQ is Feb 15th, so start providing your questions.

PF

ps short poll also included, please let us know your preference for FAQ delivery.

 

[socralynnek]

To 1: List all the thousand hotkeys that Dianthus has built in ;-)

To 2: Managing happiness and the available trades with CrpMapStat, which is the main thing I use it for.

 

[planetfall]

Another question requested to be included in a PM was: how to easily find CRpSuite applications. It takes too much time to search under programs.

Keep the questions and ideas coming. Again, goal is to have FAQ available after 2.15.05

PF

 

[MOTH]

I'm not sure exactly where these falls into the FAQ, but:

Application: MapStat
Topic: Keyboard Short-cuts: "J" or Jump

Q: Can I jump directly to a city in the game?
Q: Why does Jump only go to my capitol?

A:
Jump to City: From Happiness Tab with a city highlighted you can us the J key to Jump to the city in the actual game. If you are on a laptop you might need to turn on/off the 'mapped' number pad (via Num Lock or some such combo) for this to Jump the city. If the number pad is not present then Jump will typically jump to your capitol.

Application: Rings
Topic: Spoiler Info

Q: Why can't I view the whole map when I load a Save with Spoiler info turned off?
Q: Why can't I view all resources when I load a Save with Spoiler info turned off?

A: A mystical means is used to determine if you were about to 'cheat' and the Crp Suite will not help you in this regard. Its not possible to view spoiler info about GOTM (game of the month) save files. A similiar method is also applied in the case of MP (multiplayer) save files to limit cheating. If you feel that you are not cheating and that something is wrongfully preventing you from viewing the spoiler info then feel free to post in the CrpSuite Utility Support Thread (include the sav file please).

 

[planetfall]

I'm not sure exactly where these falls into the FAQ, but:


Application: Rings
Topic: Spoiler Info.

Thanks for the suggestion for checking about reading of GOTM and spoiler testing before
publish FAQ's.

PF

 

[Herrs]

I've just discovered Crpsuit and it appears to be a really useful app for Civ3. I have some questions though:

1: Is there any kind of guide for Crpsuit?
2: When i use the Flipcalculator I get to different probabilities, like 5.123%......10.23245%. I guess one is the prob. of flipping next turn, but what is the other?
3: When I use Crpsuit I use multitasking (with xp) betwen Crp and Civ3 but the result is that Crp closes down now and than. Why is that? Is that the proper way to do it?

Thx

 

[Dianthus]

1: Is there any kind of guide for Crpsuit?

Not yet. planetfall is in the middle of writing one, hence the reason for this thread.

2: When i use the Flipcalculator I get to different probabilities, like 5.123%......10.23245%. I guess one is the prob. of flipping next turn, but what is the other?

By default the flipping calculations avoid using any spoiler information (I.e. stuff you can't possibly know from within Civ itself). When doing this it calculates a lower/upper bound, which is what these 2 figures are. The "real" flipping probability is somewhere between those figures. You can get accurate figures by changing the option on the preferences form, but you shouldn't use this except in personal games. I.e. not in the HoF or GOTM or MP games unless agreed on.

3: When I use Crpsuit I use multitasking (with xp) betwen Crp and Civ3 but the result is that Crp closes down now and than. Why is that? Is that the proper way to do it?

CRpMapStat is designed to run at the same time as Civ3. This should work just fine. Maybe you're running low on memory? How much have you got?

 

[Herrs]

Yea it might be the memory, I only got 128...

By default the flipping calculations avoid using any spoiler information (I.e. stuff you can't possibly know from within Civ itself). When doing this it calculates a lower/upper bound, which is what these 2 figures are. The "real" flipping probability is somewhere between those figures. You can get accurate figures by changing the option on the preferences form, but you shouldn't use this except in personal games. I.e. not in the HoF or GOTM or MP games unless agreed on.

I see, there's no way of calculate the exact probability without spoiler info in my case... But what kind of info might that be? I know were my rivals capital is and all his other cities, and you can see wich cultural level the cities have on their boundaries.

 

[Dianthus]

Yea it might be the memory, I only got 128...

That's pretty low. That might well be it. Memory is pretty cheap now... .

I see, there's no way of calculate the exact probability without spoiler info in my case... But what kind of info might that be? I know were my rivals capital is and all his other cities, and you can see wich cultural level the cities have on their boundaries.

There are 3 things which cause the lower/upper bound to be different. I'm just listing them all for completeness, I know some of them don't apply to you!

1. Local culture - If the other civ built more culture in the city than you have so far then there is a *2 on the upper bound. The only time I don't apply this is if the city has always belonged to you.
2. Rounding of overall culture - I "simulate" obtaining the other civs overall culture by counting the pixels on the culture histogram as :
   
   
   (Your Culture * Other Civ Pixels ) / Your Pixels
   ​
   and round differently (up/down) for the lower/upper bound.
3. Other civs capital position not known. In this case I use the limits of the distance ratio (I.e. 4 for lower bound, 0.25 for upper bound)

If you're interested the formula I use is as specified by annares in the first post of his Flip Calc Thread

So, I guess only 1 & 2 apply to you, and 2 doesn't normally make much difference. You might be able to make an informed guess about #1. I.e. do you know what the cultural influence of the city was before you captured it? If so that gives you an idea of the amount of culture the other civ had.

 

[socralynnek]

I guess this is a good topic for the FAQ : What do the number in Flipping mean?

BTW, if you have investigated a city before you capture it, you might know the exact culture of the city. Is there a way to read that from the save file, s.t. CRPMapStat gives exact calculations?

 

[Dianthus]

I've had a number of people over in the HoF having problems with the "Jump to City" functionality, and it seems to be solved by turning on the NumLock key. @planetfall, could you add this to the FAQ? Something like:

Q: Why does "Jump to City" always jump to my capital?
A: CRpMapStat jumps to the capital, then presses the numeric keypad arrow keys to move to the city. This doesn't seem to work if NumLock is off. Turn it on and try again!

 

[Turner]

As far as 'finding' MapStat, etc, I just have them pinned to my start menu. Makes it real easy to find.

I'm wondering if a batch file could be written to start Civ3, then start MapStat. Not sure how command line batch files work, but I'm not sure if it would start Civ3, wait for it to finish, then move on to mapstat.

D - how hard would it be to write a 'control panel' program, that would start Civ3 and any other CrpSuite programs you wanted to run?

 

[planetfall]

Turner 727,

Interesting idea. The solution detailed in the faq's will be to have the following icons available to player during game:

1- C3C/PTW/C3
2- Editor
3- Mapstat
4- rings
5- Stats
6- viewer (optional)
7- Explorer, i.e. File Manager
8- browser

This way with one click the player can get the application desired launched.
Mapstat is usually loaded, but not always. Rings is usually important during early builds and tends to be started/exited and restarted several times. You don't want it up all the time so if you want to see Mapstat again, you can alt tab and don't get a different program. Stats is usually loaded during military campaigns.

File manager is available so you can prune your save file list. Browser is needed to review lastest CF info, naturally.

Current plans are to initially release the FAQ's in files. Later we will convert to web pages. File formats to be made available:

1-- Excel [ for those who have this software ]
2-- StarOffice/OpenOffice [for those who don't want to buy spreadsheet]
3-- text file.

Comments on formats, If you have suggestions or ideas now is the time to speak up. It is easiest to include your ideas from the start rather than trying to add later.

Flat text file
This will be an export from the spreadsheet master file. It will have all the data but will not be as easy to navigate. Do not expect players who compare the spreadsheet file format and the flat text file to return to the text file.

Spreadsheet
These files will have tabbed categories to FAQ's and hyperlinks within the sheets for easy navigation.

Architecture of sheet FAQ's
Tabs:
A-Welcome; to the FAQ's and links to CRpSuite web site and CF forum and how to provide suggestions for new FAQ's to be included

B- Getting started; installation of suite, upgrading suite, configuring suite, setting up program switching, setting up icon launchers

C-CRpStats; menu help, preference help
D-CRpMapStat; menu help, preference help
E-CRpRings; menu help, preference help
F-CRpviewer; menu help, preference help

G- Problem Solution; list of typical game problems and illustration of how to use CRpSuite to speed up game play

H- Details; this will be the storage location for the actual FAQ details data

Except for the welcome and details sheets, each sheet will have titles on so column labels are always visible. Rows will be the individual FAQ's. Columns are:
Col A -- FAQ number, numbering is tab based so each tab has a different list of FAQ's.
Column B-- Task Description-question, a short synopsis of the question
Column C-- a hyperlink to the answers.

When you click on the hyperlink, you'll
1. navigate to the answer range
2. titles will be on for the range; row 1 will be a hyperlink to return to original FAQ, row 2 will be a label repeating the question
3. rows 3+ will provide the details of the answer. The spreadsheets have a limit to the number of characters displayed in each cell so progression will be reading from the top down.

Again, any feedback on our plans for the FAQ's? Anything else to be included?
How about ideas for GameProblem/Solution FAQ area?

Thanks

PF

 

[planetfall]

Opps, forgot to mention. Probably after the initial release, we'll add a feature to sort FAQ's by number or by question. Spreadsheet users are familar with this function, but we'll make it easier for new sheet users.

 

[planetfall]

Free version of spreadsheet works just as well as Excel. If you don't have the openoffice software yet, you can download it at:

http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.4/index.html

This version 1.1.4 shares the code base with StarOffice version 7. Later this year we will upgrade the spreadsheet to version 8 as it has the same number of rows as Excel.

Again, scheduled release for FAQ's is Feb 15th. If you don't have Excel, you are strongly encouraged to pre-install OpenOffice so you can use the hyperlinked help file as soon as it comes out.

PF

 

[Moonsinger]

D - how hard would it be to write a 'control panel' program, that would start Civ3 and any other CrpSuite programs you wanted to run?

That's very easy to do. If there is a high demand for it and no one else want to do it, I will cook up something for you. Please note that I said "if"; therefore, it isn't a promise written on stone. Seriously, it's very easy to do; however, if I'm going to do it, it will be a full blow application launcher which is another can of worms that I try to avoid.

 

[Denniz]

I'm wondering if a batch file could be written to start Civ3, then start MapStat. Not sure how command line batch files work, but I'm not sure if it would start Civ3, wait for it to finish, then move on to mapstat.

Command files a pretty easy on NT/XP. (I'm not sure this works for Win 9X). Assuming you installed everything to the default folders on the C drive, like I did, then the attached zip has one for each flavor of civ. Just unzip them to your desktop and double-click to run.

The basic windows command is "start":

start /d<Path to EXE Here> /i /b <EXE Name Here>

I just copied & pasted the info in red from the programs' shortcuts.

/d = path
/i = to adopt environment
/b = don't open another dos window​

type: "Start /?" at a dos prompt to see the full syntax.

Sample code from StartCivPTW.cmd:

start /d"C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Civ3PTW" /i /b Civilization3X.exe
start /d"C:\Program Files\CFC Dianthus\CIVReplay\" /i /b CRpMapStat.exe
exit
​

 

[Turner]

Awesome! I like the simplicity of that. I'm gonna try that, as it will save me steps!

I do like the functionality of an app launcher for it. But i also like having alternative methods to getting it done.

 

[planetfall]

Making good progress. 21 FAQ's completed. Are we missing a question you, or new users, might have? Here is the current question list:


GETTING STARTED
Start 1 Installing first time
Start 2 Upgrading from previous version
Start 3 Configuring for rapid launch
Start 4 Switching between game and Mapstat manually
Start 5 Switching between game and Mapstat automatically

CRPMAPSTAT
Stat1_menu.open [pre] Where does file open start? [/pre]
Stat2_menu.openrecent [pre] Where does open recent read from? [/pre]
Stat3_menu.pref [pre] What are the preferences I can set? [/pre]
Stat4_dirs [pre] What are directory related preferences? [/pre]
Stat5_notifications [pre] What do notification options do? [/pre]

Stat6_spoiler [pre] What does spoiler preferences mean? [/pre]
Stat7_territory [pre] What's on territory tab? [/pre]
Stat8_terrain [pre] What's on terrain tab? [/pre]
Stat9_culture [pre] What's on culture tab? [/pre]
Stat10_pollution [pre] What's on pollution tab? [/pre]

Stat11_happiness [pre] What's on happiness tab? [/pre]
Stat12_trading [pre] What's on trading tab? [/pre]
Stat13_flipping [pre] What's on flipping tab? [/pre]
Stat14_civinfo [pre] What on civ info tab? [/pre]
Stat15_resources [pre] What's on resources tab? [/pre]

Stat16_jumptocity [pre] Why isn't jump to city working properly? [/pre]

Thanks for reviewing and offering additional questions.

PF

 

[planetfall]

Getting close, after complete FAQ for Rings, we'll work on publishing FAQ's.

Here's what I have for a list of questions for Rings? Am I missing anything?

How do I open a file?
What does this change
How do I navigate?
What is FOW?
What does grid alpha, etc mean?
What is show x/y?
What's the idea behind ring distances?
What are spoiler options?
How can this utility be used during game play?
Why doesn't spoiler turned off show the entire world?

PF