Dawn of Civilized Discussion - An Off Topic Lounge Thread

I tend to stay away from Reddit, can you tell me what it's about?
 
Essentially, 42 random civs (most mods) are placed on a massive world map, on deity setting, and with the human "player" sealed safely away behind ice the AI battles itself. The various nations have attracted fanbase-like support though, and it's well narrated. It's a nice subreddit, although we've been a few weeks without an instalment now due to the instability of the save file - hence various imitators on different maps have cropped up, such as my British one on r/CivAIGames.
 
Oh, that sounds cool. I love emergent stories.
 
Time to revive this thread, if only because I need an excuse to tell my story to the world. I just ended the most frustrating Counterstrike game of my entire life:

CSGO, Inferno, Competitive, we are Terrorists at first. Things were already starting out bad: Someone says "Go B", and literally the only people going B are me and the bombcarrier, the rest of the "team" is running off doing their own thing and of course getting killed one by one. Needless to say we lost that round, as well as the following four. Nobody communicates, nobody works together, from the third round on half the team starts trolling, as in throwing nades at teammates, dropping the bomb in that one spot where it's irretrievable (HOW HAVE THEY NOT FIXED THIS YET IT'S BEEN AROUND FOREVER AND INFERNO IS LIKE ONE OF THE MOST PLAYED MAPS) and so on. I am starting to detect a pattern (apart from the enemy team just reks us over and over again): Most of the team runs second mid to apartment every single round, so I form a plan in my head...

As luck would have it, I spawned with the bomb the following round. I ran to the house in middle and stayed put. Just as expected my "teammates" all went second mid and got picked off one by one, but I didn't care about those jerks, they were merely the distraction. Then I heard what I was hoping for: Steps from banana, running past me outside. I expected the enemies to grow bold, just all rushing in for the kill on where they think their victims are instead of keeping the bombsites secure, and apparently that was what was happening. There was still one teammate alive, and friendly as I am informed him that an enemy is coming from behind, not that I was expecting him to act on that information. I sneaked out of the building and then legged it to B site via Banana. Just as expected it was clear, giving me opportunity to plant the bomb. Sometime during my run my last "teammate" died on the other side of the map, but I didn't care, he fulfilled his purpose as distraction for my masterplan, and I managed to plant the bomb, which is more than we ever achieved in the entire game before. I was euphoric at first, before reminding myself that now I had the undivided attention of the four remaining Counter-Terrorists who undoubtedly were on their way already, and had to think quick. Lacking better options I hid in Ruins, and Fortuna once again smiled upon me by making the enemies arrogant, allowing me to pick one off who was on his own before I sprayed two others dead who thankfully were standing in a straight line, one of which was defusing. It's now me and one remaining CT to my right with the bomb ticking ever faster, we shoot at each other for a bit before I run out of ammo in both my P90 and my sidearm, so I pack out my knife and charge him. Naturally he killed me, but it was too late: Not two seconds later the bomb went KABOOM with him on top, earning me (and my ungrateful "team") our first victory.

That was literally the only good memory I have of this game. We won the following round as well before our losing streak picked up back where it was, and then my Internet provider decided to screw me, disconnecting me. It wasn't until the last round before teamswitch until I finally reconnected, and of course we were still only at two victories. Anyhow, for once my "team" decides to get their act together and decide on a strategy, if you can call "all rush B" a strategy that is, and even follow through on it! Of course they were all idiots so I was the only one getting things done and killing the two CTs on B, but I certainly won't complain about the free cannon fodder. By the time I'm planting the bomb it's only me, one fellow terrorist and one CT left. My mate dies, making this a one on one. Fortunately I saw on the radar where my mate died and concluded that the last enemy could only come from one direction, Banana, so I hid behind Ruins and played the waiting game. I had all the advantage in that situation: I know where the enemy is going to come from, my enemy doesn't know where the bomb is or where I am hiding, and time is on my side. I literally only have to wait until I hear the sound of defusing, then come around the corner and clinch the win with my AK. The only thing I need is silence...

Sounds easy, right? Nothing could go wrong?

...

Yeah, except with friends like these...

One of my teammates decides to be a little too helpful by giving me instructions over voicechat, causing the following dialog to ensue: (Again, I really really really need silence in order to concentrate and locate the last remaining enemy)

He: "Banana."
I: "I know."
He: "He is coming from Banana."
I: "I know!"
He: "He is coming from Banana!"
I: "Shut up!"
He: "**** YOU! NOOB-" And he starts cussing me out and I really don't have time or patience for this so I have no choice but to quickly go to the scoreboard and mute him, and OF COURSE that is the moment the CT arrives to defuse. Panicking I come around the corner, see him, aim at him, fire...

"Bomb has been defused. Counter-Terrorists win."

That. Little. Brat. If that stupid teenager would have just kept his mouth shut I would have been two seconds faster and had saved the round. Even two miliseconds would have been enough. Even if my second shot had missed and the CT killed me, he wouldn't have had time to start defusing again. Because this was the last round before halftime that moment that burned itself in my brain was being displayed for ten full seconds, the image of me with my crosshair on the CT's head while he was sitting atop the bomb.

I spent the first round of the second half raging, then my ISP started trolling again and disconnected me. By the time I was about to reconnect we had already lost the match 2:16.

Aaaaaand that about sums it up. Needless to say I am in a terrible mood right now.
 
Continuing my aspiration to usurp revive this thread, let me tell you all that I found the season 5 finale of My Little Pony disappointing. I had such high hopes for Starlight Glimmer as a villain, and her role as leader of a pseudo-Stalinist cult in the season opener will always have a special place in my heart, but this finale failed in every way to follow up on that. I had hoped all the time travel that was alluded to and downright spoiled in Friendship Games would be used to alter history in such a way that in an alternate timeline all of Equestria had become an egalitarian utopia dystopia with her in charge, but no, she just wanted petty revenge without caring about the long term consequences or taking over the world. I mean, I of course loved all the throwbacks to previous villains, but I would have oh so adored seeing a pseudo-communist Equestria.

There are three more things standing out as particularly disappointing:
1. Starlight's "tragic" backstory. Like, seriously? Your friend leaves and that makes you go full Stalinist and later willing to destroy all of Equestria to get back at the pony who destroyed your little dystopia? You know there are letters? Trains? You could have gone and visited? Also why in Tartarus when you are shown to be skilled enough in magic to go toe-to-toe hoof-to-hoof with a freaking Alicorn Princess and have in-depth knowledge of magical theory and history have you not been accepted in Celestia's school for gifted unicorns as well it just makes no sense! This could have been so easily saved if she was the one getting her cutie mark before her friend and getting sent off to magic boarding school with him staying behind, but no, instead we have a huge gaping plot hole and the most ridiculous reason for becoming evil in the entire show. Even Midnight Sparkle had a better justification!
2. Starlight's instant redemption, just add friendship. The climax could be basically summarized as
"IF I CAN'T HAVE FRIENDS EVERYONE DIES!"
"But but but I could give you friends!"
"OMG I'm so sorry can you ever forgive me?"
"Sure, let's be friends!"
Followed, of course, by a song about friendship, grouphugs, and an admittedly absolutely adorable final frame. All of which Sunset Shimmer, who arguably was less worse as she at least didn't practically destroy all of existence, only got after she had to go through a full movie's worth of ostracizing and saved the world herself. And Starlight just goes instantly from omnicidal maniac to apparently member of the mane cast, no big heroic feats of redemption required. Btw, regarding Sunset Shimmer...
3. No Sunset Shimmer. Freaking Flash Sentry got a cameo back in Season 4, two times! Every single big or small villain of the entire show (They even added a dystopia for Flim and Flam for crying out loud!) got their limelight this finale, but not even so much as a single mention at the end of Sunny, even though the end of Friendship Games is set directly after the end of this episode. I had sincerely hoped she would be referenced at least in some shape or form this season after she became an instant fan favorite in Rainbow Rocks, but nooooooooo, I just can't have nice things. Would it have been too much to ask for Twilight to write in the magic book from time to time in the background? They did hide Starlight in several episodes throughout the season after all and such last minute detail changes, even if they hadn't expected Rainbow Rocks to be such a success, aren't unprecedented as Derpy in the second half of the very first season has already shown.

TL;DR: HASBRO SUCKS SHOW RUINED FOREVER I'M LEAVING THE FANDOM!!!!!11111111

Okay no, after Sunset it would be definitely unfair to deny the possibility of Starlight becoming a good character just because her redemption was beyond ludicrous, I am not that blind to obvious parallels. I am still fully expecting the next season to be overall brilliant considering the show's past track record of excellency in every field, but that doesn't mean I can't be bitter about the few bad apples.

I did nevertheless still enjoy quite a bit of the finale, especially the scenes when Starlight was actually clever. My favorite one has got to be the one when she changes the past by convincing the colts that bullying is bad and everything would be so much better in a world where everypony was equal. I loved seeing Twilight stumbling over her words there, caught up between having to correct the timeline and making a fool out of herself by saying Starlight is wrong when she tells them they should stop bullying Fluttershy, pure comedy gold.
 
Oh, Starlight. I thought she was great in Teen Titans.
 
Oh, Starlight. I thought she was great in Teen Titans.

She was great as Pony-Stalin too, before she went off the deep end.
 
At this point I'm ready to call Leoreth a wizard, because magic is the only explanation as to how anybody could get anything done with Visual Studio.

It all started with that one tiny little change in that one tiny little file in that one tiny little Git update. While I am reasonably sure I could have simply merged it with my own modmod by just copy pasting the entire DLL, I figured this is as good a time as any to try my hand at SDK modding again (I already tried it two years ago for another mod and never got anywhere) and just recreate that simple change (removing a redundant NUMIDIAN) myself as a starting point, especially since there's probably some stuff that I inadvertently broke with my civics overhaul that needs to be recoded.

The thing is, there's like half a dozen different guides on this site alone on how to set up an IDE and I wasn't sure which to follow, especially since all of them refer to software that seems pretty outdated. Microsoft isn't helping either as apparently I couldn't just download Visual Studio Express 2008 or 2010, I have to download literally all versions of the past decade including the current one. I actually had to cancel the first installation and start over because it stuck, which according to Google seems to be a common problem. Once everything finally seemed to be in order it took me hours to properly navigate them, as of course nothing created a desktop shortcut, so I had to search Program Files, and of course they aren't named Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 or 2015, instead they are called Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0, 10.0, 12.0 and 14.0. Yeah good luck guessing which is which! Even after finding the right folder for the right version, you have to navigate like three levels of folders until you finally find something you can actually run, and of course they all have a dozen different .exe files each!

Now, when I finally found out how to actually run the one program I wanted in the first place, VS2008, as apparently all guides on this site were written for it, I could actually start following the instructions in those guides. Still, something just plain wasn't working as it should (as in files that shouldn't exist did exist) so I gave up and retired for yesterday.

Today I tried another guide, from Asaf, which was a lot more helpful than whatever I was following before, and actually allowed me to successfully compile the DLL of BtS. Woohoo! Now to try the same thing with the DLL of DoC aaaaaaaaaaaaand it can't open the .sln file because it was created in a higher version. (Checking the Modmodding Q&A thread reminded me that Leoreth uses VS2010 so that explains that.) Not to worry, pretty much all guides also mentioned that with some minor edits they also applies to VS2010. So I navigated the folder architecture again, located the correct version, aaaaaaaaaaand apparently I can't run VS2010 because of some license stuff. Which is strange, considering both 2008 and 2015 work without a hitch and it's all free anyway, but googling the issue revealed that apparently it's a pretty common bug and just broken because Microsoft doesn't give a damn about me. All of the suggested fixes were more trouble than they're worth, so I decided to instead just try the most up to date version, 2015. I mean, it has to be backwards compatible and because it's the newest it has to be the best, most advanced version, right? Haha. Ha. Ha. Hahahahahah agowergboaregbaogbag *unintelligible gibberish as he breaks down sobbing*

And that has been my weekend so far. The last weekend before semester start no less. Lovely. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wallow in my own misery and filth while I rethink my life.
 
Yeah, the fact that none of the guides on this site are for a version of Visual Studio you can easily download is a big issue with trying to do anything with the DLL.
 
Do you actually need my SLN file? It should be possible to create a new project/solution, and afaik the guide is set up for you to do so.
 
Well, Imp. Knoedel, over the years - five years or so - I believe I've tried it thrice, and it's exactly as you say. I have given up on ever modding the DLL. I'd need someone with me to show me the process step by step on this PC, I suppose, because eh... Magic.
 
Do you actually need my SLN file? It should be possible to create a new project/solution, and afaik the guide is set up for you to do so.

... Fiiiiiine I'll try again tomorrow.

Well, Imp. Knoedel, over the years - five years or so - I believe I've tried it thrice, and it's exactly as you say. I have given up on ever modding the DLL. I'd need someone with me to show me the process step by step on this PC, I suppose, because eh... Magic.

Well you know what they say, friendship is magic. :mischief:
 
And he starts cussing me out and I really don't have time or patience for this so I have no choice but to quickly go to the scoreboard and mute him, and OF COURSE that is the moment the CT arrives to defuse.

Why do the cussing even exists? :undecide:
 
Do you actually need my SLN file? It should be possible to create a new project/solution, and afaik the guide is set up for you to do so.

At least Asaf's guide doesn't seem to mention a way around it. I guess I'll try the one in the modiki again.
 
Alright, so I tried following the guide in the Modiki (this one to be exact) and ran into the same problem as before: At the end of "Setting up the Project" it says:

Click -Project- -Add Existing Item…-. The "Add Existing Item – CvGameCoreDLL" window will open. This folder will contain all of the source code files, the Boost-1.32.0 folder, and the Python24 folder. Select everything (use Ctrl-A) and click -Add-. You only want to add: all *.h files, all (2) *.inl files, all *.cpp files and the both subfolders. If you followed the instructions so far (i.e. deleted all unneeded files) CTRL+A will give you exactly this. If you – for whatever reason – kept some of the unneeded files, you need to deselect them manually.

But that is not true:

Spoiler :
attachment.php


That's like half a dozen files that shouldn't exist (well the Makefile should exist, but curiously enough it isn't mentioned as one of the files I need to add) according to the guide, which I followed both the day before yesterday in my initial attempt and just now, both with the same result. It stands to reason that those .vcproj, .sln etc. files were created sometime during the paragraph above the quoted section, because I made sure they weren't there before.

Now what am I supposed to do? Delete those files again? Add them? Ignore them and just pretend they aren't there?

Friday I picked option D "ragequit and put a curse on Microsoft", but now I will try option C.
 

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I stumbled upon this.

It seems that you are complicating your life by trying to follow different tutorials at the same time.

Asaf's guide is a comprehensive review and has all the links you need to have. For example, his tutorial has a link to the installer of MS VS 2008 EE which points to the correct program to be downloaded and installed. It still works, I installed it recently. It has the link to MS Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 and to all the source files and special files needed.

Apparently, you successfully compiled a BtS dll which is very good. All you needed to do at this stage was to replace all the .cpp, .h and .inl files that were modified by DoC and then re-build the dll (a simple build would not have done the work).

Oh, one more thing: I never succedeed in using the auto-built wizzard to create files for you. Somehow, opening the sln file (or was it the .vcproj file - both downloaded from Asaf's tutorial) from within VS is simply more efficient.
 
Apparently, you successfully compiled a BtS dll which is very good. All you needed to do at this stage was to replace all the .cpp, .h, .inl and .rc files that were modified by DoC and then re-build the dll (a simple build would not have done the work).

Oh I already have the toolkit and the Microsoft Platform SDK and a dozen different versions of Visual Studio with half of them not working, that's not the problem. The problem I've been working on since I've successfully compiled a BtS DLL yesterday is trying to do the same with the DoC DLL, and you might just have given me the solution to that.

Back in a bit. (One or two hours tops including lunch break)

O3aioEPt4kWYYoKT96P7DQ2.gif


Edit: What about the Boost-1.32.0 and Python24 folders? In Asaf's guide they aren't included but in the wiki they are. In DoC's folder they are both present as well, though I don't know if they are any different from their counterparts in BtS.
 
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