Development Thread

[EmperorFool]

Agreed.
+X eaten food
would make more sense there, as it adds to consumption.

I finally made this change as I totally forgot about it. I dropped the sign (+) but am not sure about that. For angry population the value shown is always the total number of angry population; a sign makes no sense. For unhealthiness the net rate when negative adds to the food eaten by your population, so a plus sign makes sense.

I dropped the sign from both because one with a sign and one without looks weird. Take a look and let me know what you think. Obviously I'm nit-picking at this point, but I want it to be polished. As it is the net food rate shows a sign while the the production rate does not, yet they are both added to the "stored" value each turn so a sign makes sense. indeed.

I think you should color the +x/-x for angrypop/spoiledfood [red in the hovers] too.

Hmm, I'll have to try it out and see how it looks. I agree it would make good/bad more clear since they are opposite what the sign would normally indicate, but I don't want the hover text to become too colorful and hard to read.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

nvm, I understand now, no sign is ok too.

@stack promotions:
The upgrade paths are no trees were every level x promotion implies x-1 promotions that lead there, so simply don't hide implied promotions.

 

[EmperorFool]

The upgrade paths are no trees were every level x promotion implies x-1 promotions that lead there, so simply don't hide implied promotions.

I read "simply don't hide implied promotions" to mean case 4: Don't hide implied promotions when stacks are selected. Is that what you meant?

By implied I mean the simple PromoN implies PromoN-1 and not the more complicated tree of prerequisites. Therefore Shock and Cover would not imply C1, only C2 would imply C1.

 

[DaveMcW]

Spoiler :

I finally added something I've wanted for a long while, and it turned out to be relatively easy. As usual it took longer to tweak the position of the elements and add the options than it did to create the initial feature.

When you have a stack of units selected you will see all of the promotions possessed by at least one unit in the stack. When more than one unit possesses a promotion you will see how many on a circle overlay similar to the Foreign Advisor's RESOURCES tab.

I had been planning to merge in the feature someone else created that hides promotions that are implied by other promotions, but I'm not sure how to reconcile it with this feature for stacks.

For example you have two units selected with these promotions: C1C2 and C1. Normally you'd show 2xC1 and 1xC2. When hiding implied promotions I see four options:

1. Hide C1 because it is implied by C2
2. Subtract the one C1 implied by C2 and show 1xC1 instead of 2xC1
3. Only hide promotions whose counts drop to zero from rule #2.
4. Don't hide implied promotions when stacks are selected.

Option #3 requires further explanation. Since C1 is only implied by one unit but two units have it, it would show as 2xC1. If the second unit also had C2 then the 2xC1 becomes 0xC1 and would be completely hidden showing only 2xC1.

My gut says that it's too confusing to merge these options and I should hide implied promotions only when a single unit is selected. However, the promotion list in the info pane gets really long only for large stacks.

Please reply in the Development thread.

I like #3

 

[EmperorFool]

I like #3

So the example above, C1C2 and C1, would show as 2xC1 and 1xC2. If the second unit got C2 it would change to simply 2xC2. Maybe I'll make that a separate option. Actually, it will have to be a separate option anyway because the other place implied promotions will be hidden is in BULL.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

I mean don't hide implied promotions ever, including but not limited to when stacks are selected.
In worldbuilder you can give promotions even if the unit doesn't have the prerequisites. Mods can change promotion paths in ways you might not be able to predict - even though we can should be able to assume that C4 will always require C3 which will always require C2,.. you'd still be special casing Combat, Drill, Medic, Guerilla, Woodsman, City Raider, City Darrison, Barrage, Flanking, Navigation, Range and Interception.

 

[EmperorFool]

I see no harm in having an option for the 99% of players that play unaltered games. As with everything else, you can always turn it off. BTW, I won't special case anything; instead I'll look for promotion keys that end with numbers. If one ends with N and another one with the exact prefix up to N ends in N-1, I'll consider the the latter to be implied by the former.

Where this feature will really be helpful is to minimize the number of units in the stack hover that wrap to a second line, reducing the number of units you can see before they disappear off the top of the screen.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

Well if you want to include that functionality, option #2 sounds like the obvious choice.

 

[EmperorFool]

Here is how the options would look for the example units: C1C2 and C1:

1. 1xC2. Confusing and just wrong as it hides the C1 unit entirely. Dunno why I had this option.
2. 1xC1, 1xC2. Subtracts the one implied C1.
3. 2xC1, 1xC2. Doesn't have any effect unless all C1s are implied.

If the second unit gains C2, the display changes to 2xC2 for all options. I think #1 is invalid, but I can see the case for #2 and #3. Unless someone can present a strong case to remove one I'll make both options possible as a drop-down.

Implied Promotions: Show | Subtract | Hide​

The "Hide" option isn't very descriptive. Another phrasing:

Hide Implied Promotions: Never | Subtract | When Complete​

Any other suggestions?

 

[Fimbulvetr]

Hide Implied Promotions: Never | Subtract | When Complete​

Any other suggestions?

No other suggestions, that's probably already as descriptive as it can get. To understand that third option most people will still have to read the hover text but I doubt that's avoidable here.

default Never?..
Yeah I know But please not #3

 

[EmperorFool]

Perhaps

Implied Promotions: Show All | Subtract | Hide When Complete​

Yes, they'll no doubt need to read the hover text. Show All will probably be the default on this one since both #2 and #3 will be misleading unless you know ahead of time what's happening.

 

[Afforess]

I see no harm in having an option for the 99% of players that play unaltered games.

I can't think of any mods that change it so that your idea wouldn't work... it would be confusing to have Combat II require anything other than Combat I.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

I admit it was a weak argument. Still the first thought I'd have when I see a unit with only C4 but not C1-C3 is that someone messed with this unit in worldbuilder, so it would still be Show All for me.

 

[ruff_hi]

Implied Promotions: Show | Subtract | Hide​

what about ...

Implied Promotions: Yes | No | Maybe​

 

[EmperorFool]

@Ruff:

 

[EmperorFool]

A quick addition to the spoiled food fix, I added the bad food icon (red bread) to Actual Effects to denote any additional starvation that will occur. Starvation is strictly a negative net food rate:

net food rate = production - (consumption + spoilage)​

As with the spoilage (eaten food icon), a positive number is bad and signifies the extra amount of food that will be subtracted from the city's food store each turn. I added it because sometimes in a high food city I'm willing to put up with a little spoilage as long as it doesn't drop my net food rate to negative which will cause starvation eventually. Now I won't have to check the city's current net food rate to know if 2 extra spoiled food will cause starvation.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

And you also added the Events with Images modcomp. Do you have pictures and xml for this too or should I just use the one by Arian?

Seems I can't even dl the pictures by Arian because "The file you are trying to access is temporarily unavailable."... Megaupload is sh*t. Getting them now. Megauplod still sucks.

 

[EmperorFool]

I added it for Lemon Merchant. She probably has the images if you want to add them.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

I got the images, no sweat, and maybe they really are too big for BULL svn to just include them; I was just thinking maybe you should add the required assets to Optional Assets, just in case clueless people compile their own dll with that flag on and get crashes when they try to load the game with and xml file that is missing the required tag.

 

[EmperorFool]

Good point. I still would like to verify what things we can turn on by default. For example, if I enable this feature and use the new schema, you don't need to add the <EventArt> tag to any events. So it seems I can make this feature permanent without affecting save game compatibility. However, the tag is written in the write() function--I just don't know exactly when the Info objects are written into a saved game and when they aren't.