Dune Wars Mod

[davidlallen]

The grid terrain is definitely good. I think when keldath makes a 1.2, he can just include the new terrain texture directory, right?

I am a little concerned about the different changes to the dll. Johny Smith and keldath had created some merge of RevolutionDCM and WOC. You had done some AI changes which I believe were used in the 1.1 release. Now you have a new dll, that makes at least three different ones. Is your dll based on the 1.1 release, plus the changes suggested by Maniac? Or does yours have a different starting point?

I think it would be a good idea to get the "All Terrain AI Changes" pulled out into one place and then integrated into something, such as Better AI or BUG. This would prevent the possibility of changes getting lost and needing to be re-integrated. What is the best way to make that happen?

 

[Deliverator]

Looks awesome! But what is about teeth?

I'm planning to texture the mouth and teeth on. I want to get that circles-of-teeth-fading-into-blackness look. Actually, texturing from scratch isn't my strongest area, but I'm quite good at blending together bits from different sources. Come to think of it, maybe a screengrab of the Sarlaac from the original Return of the Jedi could be a starting point...

In the future I'll probably change the mesh so that it has a bit of a throat - that's likely to look better than just texturing on a black hole...

 

[koma13]

Is your dll based on the 1.1 release, plus the changes suggested by Maniac? Or does yours have a different starting point?

I started with 1.1 sdk sources and added maniacs stuff. Keldath will join that with his own changes for a new release.

I think it would be a good idea to get the "All Terrain AI Changes" pulled out into one place and then integrated into something, such as Better AI or BUG. This would prevent the possibility of changes getting lost and needing to be re-integrated. What is the best way to make that happen?

This is a good question. I dont know how Keldath creates the CvGameCoreDll, I don't think he will build it everytime from scratch. I started with sdk ~3 month ago, it's definitely harder for me to keep track of changes in comparison to python files (I hate that code blocks editor).

@Deliverator
sounds good, that 3d thing is a total mystery to me.

Btw, am I the only one having trouble with new terrain and unit shadows?

 

[keldath]

hey guys,

Deliverator,
the worm looks amazing, its so cool man!

koma13,
thanks for the patch dear buddy.

davidlallen and koma,

dont you worry about the sdk "versions", it doesnt matter where koma dds the changes, as long as they are tagged, i can keep track and update .
its all under control.

for your own knowledge, for now im still using revdcm 2.00 + johnys unit stats'.
later i will move to another version of the sdk made by johny.

dont worry about that.


koma,
is it possible to contact maniac so he can do the part you havnt added?
perhaps ill ask him.

good day people.

 

[davidlallen]

Today's post is about unit variety in the early game, up to turn 200. After a couple of games, I find I never build anything except maula mortars and light hovers. I compared this to vanilla. The number of units available is about the same, slightly less in Dune Wars because research is slower due to lower food. But the amount of rock / paper / scissors decisions is much larger in vanilla.

In vanilla:

Spearman 4/1, +100% mounted, cost 35
Chariot 4/2, +100% axeman, no defensive, cost 30
Archer 3/1, +50% city defense, first strike, cost 25
Horse Archer 6/2, no defensive, +50% catapult, first strike, requires horse, cost 50
Axeman 5/1, +50% melee, requires bronze, cost 35
Swordsman 6/1, +10% city, requires iron, cost 40
Catapult 5/1, bombards, cost 50
War Elephant 8/1, +50% mounted, no defensive, requires ivory, cost 60
Crossbowman 6/1, +50% melee, first strike, requires iron, cost 60
Pikeman 6/1, +100% mounted, requires iron, replaces spearman, cost 60
Longbowman 6/1, +25% city def, first strike, replaces archer, cost 60
Maceman 8/1, +50% melee, requires iron, replaces axeman, cost 70

There are four distinct unit types: horse (fast, no defensive bonus), anti-horse, archer (city defense, first strike), and melee. Each one comes in two strengths, with some slight variations. There are several units which do not fit the exact pattern such as horse archer and war elephant.

In Dune Wars:

Roller 4/2, +75% rover, cost 30
Infantry 3/1, +50% city defense, first strike, cost 25
Grenade Trooper 5/1, +60% mortar, does collateral, requires soostone, cost 50
Sand Rover 5/1, +50% infantry, requires soostone, cost 35
Light Hover 6/3, cost 40
Strider 5/1, +40% grenade trooper, requires ore, cost 70
Maula Mortar 8/1, bombards, cost 65
Harbringer 6/1, +15% city, requires spice, cost 40
Incendiary Trooper 7/1, +20% quad, requires crystal, cost 70
Light Thopter 7/1, air unit, cost 100
Quad 6/2, +50% infantry, +50% rover, requires ore or soostone, cost 70
Sand APC 8/4, cost 90

In many games, I do not find soostone. Since the rovers cannot go on the hover transport, I never build them. There are only two unit types, really, infantry and rovers. There is very little to distinguish between the members of the two types. I can't find any reason to build anything but mortars for bombard, and light hovers for everything else.

I don't have a perfect solution, but what do you think about this:

Roller 4/2, +50% infantry, no defensive, cost 30
Infantry 3/1, +50% city defense, first strike, cost 25
Grenade Trooper 5/1, +50% rover, does collateral, requires soostone, cost 50
Sand Rover 6/2, +50% infantry, no defensive, requires soostone, cost 55
Light Hover 6/3, -50% city, +50% rover, no defensive, cost 40
Strider 6/1, +100% mortar, requires ore, cost 70
Maula Mortar 8/1, bombards, cost 65
Harbringer 6/1, +50% city defense, first strike, requires spice, cost 40
Incendiary Trooper 7/1, +100% rover, +15% city attack, requires crystal, cost 70
Light Thopter 7/1, air unit, cost 100
Quad 8/2, +50% infantry, no defensive, requires ore or soostone, cost 70
Sand APC 8/3, -50% city, no defensive, cost 90

 

[koma13]

I don't have a perfect solution, but what do you think about this:

Roller 4/2, +50% infantry, no defensive, cost 30

I would like to get rid of that rollers and rovers. They break atmosphere imho, always remind me of Alpha Centauri. I think we should stick with infantry, artillery, transporters, thopters, rockets/nukes, spies and maybe hovers. I also want to point out that sometimes less is more, means if we don't get enough units out of these categories, we should reduce unit types...

Infantry 3/1, +50% city defense, first strike, cost 25

Archer, ok

Grenade Trooper 5/1, +50% rover, does collateral, requires soostone, cost 50

Is it the axeman? It's strange to give it a 50% rover bonus because rovers have 50% infantry, which would negate both bonuses.

Sand Rover 6/2, +50% infantry, no defensive, requires soostone, cost 55

It's still too weak when compared to light hover. Its slower, 40% more expensive and needs that soostone resource.

Light Hover 6/3, -50% city, +50% rover, no defensive, cost 40

'No defensive' is an advancement, at least you have to build now additional defense units. But it's too cheap, compare it to sand rover and grenade trooper.

Strider 6/1, +100% mortar, requires ore, cost 70

+100% mortar is a reason to build it. But maybe 50% is enough too.

Maula Mortar 8/1, bombards, cost 65

I like the name. It's dune's elephant.

Harbringer 6/1, +50% city defense, first strike, requires spice, cost 40

I'm not sure abouth the requirement, will there be any houses that don't have access to spice? And I would make it more expensive (50), .

Incendiary Trooper 7/1, +100% rover, +15% city attack, requires crystal, cost 70

Hmm, crossbowman. Too expensive.

Light Thopter 7/1, air unit, cost 100

I would add thopters much earlier. They can replace rovers.
Thopters are what people expect in a dune mod. We should add them from the very beginning. Deliverator will make a nice unit model.

 

[davidlallen]

This is good feedback and the basis for a good discussion.

My original problem is getting bored around turn 150-200. The only useful units I can build are mortars and light hovers. The defender will build either infantry or rollers but it doesn't make any difference. Vanilla gameplay in this turn range has tradeoffs between horse and archer and swordsman, etc.

Moving thopters much earlier is an interesting idea. Simply removing rovers does not help the lack of diversity, but putting thopters in as earlier all-terrain units may help. That means DOMAIN_SEA, bCanMoveAllTerrain. Big thopters can also operate as transports. We could leave carryalls as air units.

It's strange to give it (Grenade Trooper) a 50% rover bonus because rovers have 50% infantry, which would negate both bonuses.

You are right. I was aiming for rock - paper - scissors and I got rock - paper - paper.

I wrote some python to write out a spreadsheet showing how many of each unit is owned by each civ, over time. For example, I can see the civs starting out with a few soldiers, then building infantry, and the number of soldiers eventually drops to zero.

With the original units (version 1.1 or patch 1.1.2) I can see the AI's do what I do, which is spam light hovers and maula mortars while ignoring the other units. They do build some defensive infantry, which I sometimes skip.

Unfortunately when I put in these new proposed units and run, there is no improvement. A bit less light hovers. I saw 1-2 striders being built. I am not sure yet if this is due to required techs not researched yet, required resources not available yet, or something else. I have to capture those details into the spreadsheets also and do a few more runs.

Does somebody want to take a crack at proposing a set of all-terrain thopter units which would replace the roller units?

(EDIT: Today the thopter is an air unit that requires a base. Normally, this would not work for an attacker on an archipelago map because your city is too far away from the front. I remember seeing discussion somewhere of an outpost or airbase improvement which can be built that would enable you to rebase an air unit. You would begin an assault by building a "foothold" base on your target's island, rebase your air units there, and then attack. If the enemy destroyed your outpost, your air units would rebase or possibly could be captured. If the AI can use the outpost as an airbase -- which seems doubtful -- it may be interesting to consider this.)

(EDIT: Maybe we could just scratch out "roller" and write "thopter" on the existing units. If we consider these as cavalry, then the spearman becomes something like "maula anti-air".)

 

[Deliverator]

I would add thopters much earlier. They can replace rovers.
Thopters are what people expect in a dune mod. We should add them from the very beginning. Deliverator will make a nice unit model.

Agreed and yes I will!

Not sure how they should function though. Presuming the AI uses Aircraft Carriers in vanilla is there a way they could be used? Perhaps there could be a Mobile Thopter Depot or something... I can't remember from the book but it would feel strange if they could just fly indefinitely without refuelling. The forward airbase idea sounds good.

By the way the worm has teeth you'll be pleased to know - courtesy of the Sarlacc...

Just need to polish off the sound and death animation.

 

[The_J]

The worm looks definitly great .

 

[keldath]

hey guys,

thanks for the unit feedback, its very important!

ill use it wisely.



the worm...well ...whats left to say...its amazing.
a Sarlacc....where in the world did you find this model...hehe...perhaps will get to see a boba fet get blown out

awesome work.


ill be a bit busy guys in the next days, so my modding will go abit slower,
i saw patch 3/19 was released....
this will probably will be a lot of work for me.........................................

 

[davidlallen]

I have not investigated too much, but it looks like 3.19 will break many mods. I do not plan to upgrade for a while. I don't see there is too much benefit for people already using Better AI.

 

[davidlallen]

I thought a little bit about using thopters instead of rovers. But this is not a small change. In order to do this I think we need to rewrite the tech tree at the same time. I was not very successful in designing a tech tree for Fury Road; it works, but players complain it is too small. Today Dune Wars has a big tech tree with a lot of units, even if the difference between this and vanilla is very small.

I did play a 250 turn game on a small map at Prince level which went well. I did not actually win, but it felt right. I did the usual technique of beelining the Oracle and getting Imperialism, then beelining hovering. I attacked around turn 180 and wiped out two other players; one had died early. (Perhaps worm damage.) But the last guy was a distance away and my invasion fleet got wiped out by raiding light hovers. I guess I could still win if I rebuilt my forces and made a second invasion a little more carefully.

The game was using the standard version 1.1 units, not my modifications above. But I did change the hover units. I made the transport defensive only, and gave the light hover no defensive bonus, cannot capture cities, and -50% city attack or defense. I also raised its cost from 40 to 60. I was hoping this would cut down on spam. I put one or two light hovers with each transport stack. The enemy had multiple stacks of 2-3 light hovers which he used effectively to harrass (and often, kill) my transport stacks. So I had to be careful to land the transports as soon as possible.

I autoplayed two games with this hover mod, and it does not seem to be completely successful. Certain civs still spam light hovers. Only certain civs seem to spam them, but those civs seem to always spam. Atreides and Tlielaxu always spam hovers and Gesserit also seems to spam them. Looking into the economics screens for these civs, they appear to have zero support cost for units. The other civs seem to pay one gold per unit in support costs. I can't find any traits or civics which would explain that, so I am a little puzzled. I don't understand why the support cost is different, but I guess if support is free, why *not* spam them.

I also had tremendous economic problems. My attacking fleet was not so large, 3-4 transports each with 3-4 units loaded, say 20 units altogether. As soon as the fleet left friendly territory my economy tanked with -20 gold per turn. By the time the fleet reached the destination I was losing units due to negative gold and strikes. I'm not sure if I lost more units due to strikes or due to enemy action. At the time, I had 3-4 Master Truthsayers at +5 gold each, and I was running 0% research, 100% gold production. Compared to vanilla games, I think the gold income from tiles was pretty tiny, since there are no towns and little gold-producing bonuses. I had not researched banks/markets quite yet. While I was getting a little gold from spice, it was not very much. I covered all the local spice blow squares with refineries, and I was getting one gold per refinery from the corporation. But that was only 7-8 income, when I was burning 20 in unit support costs.

So in addition to a very limited unit selection, I don't think the midgame economy is quite working. There isn't enough gold.

Note to self, a lot of the worms seemed to get stuck and freeze for a long time. Also the spice blows, which are only supposed to last 3 turns, seemed to freeze. I will investigate that some.

Does anybody have expertise in designing a new tech tree, or diagnosing exactly how to tune up the economy? I'd like to learn more about how to do it, but playing 2-3 games a week makes it awfully slow going.

 

[keldath]

hey guys,

just wanted to let you know,

ive updated to 3.19,

and ive created also a make file for 3.19, so everyone can use to update their mod,

for now,
i will wait for glider to update revdcm to 3.19,
meanwhile ill update the 3.17 dune mod with your changes and suggestions,
but i wont be able to test it....

 

[Deliverator]

the worm...well ...whats left to say...its amazing.
a Sarlacc....where in the world did you find this model...hehe...perhaps will get to see a boba fet get blown out

The model is the same one from the previous post. I've just retextured the mouth. I took some screen captures from the original Return of the Jedi - there are some good closeups of the teeth when Luke looks down at the Sarlacc. I then used Paint.NET to create a complete circle of teeth from the screen capture images and using layers and rotation to make layers of them so they recede into darkness.

This is my usual technique for texturing - using existing images usual yields better quality results than painting from scratch - unless you are really amazing 2D artist. Anyway, you should have the final (for now) worm to play with tomorrow.

Also, on the cosmetic front - I'm planning to recapture leaderhead images from the movie and TV DVDs. I think they can be much better quality.

On the unit support/gold front, I think it makes sense to scale back unit support a bit since the majority of military actions are going to require quite major excursions out of your territory. Some factions paying no unit costs sounds like something that should be fixed.

In terms of making more gold, I think the primary revenue source should be the spice. Can we just make it produce more gold - just increase the amount of gold it generates and maybe increase the multipliers from building the improvement?

Also, on the Roller and Rover thing. Would getting rid of them mean no tanks? I think there should be some tanks, but maybe keep them to the later game as in vanilla.

 

[davidlallen]

Also, on the cosmetic front - I'm planning to recapture leaderhead images from the movie and TV DVDs. I think they can be much better quality.

Great minds think alike. I rented the 1984 Dune a few nights ago. I was a little disappointed that I could not get much better. For the Emperor, I was able to get something which is less squished and a little better. For Feyd, there are a few closeups and I got something which is a little better. For Irulan, she is never in any closeups. I redid a shot from the original jpg you can find at google images so it is a little better. I did not try very hard for Paul. Stilgar is also never in any closeups but I am sure you could grab something better than what we have. Same for the Duke. Sadly Stilgar and the Duke look very much alike, no matter what screenshots we get.

I have attached what I grabbed. I also grabbed a few misc shots for plants and techs. The SciFi miniseries should be arriving tonight. Let's both screengrab, but maybe I can save you a little time with what I did. I'll put up the xml's later so it won't take much work for keldath to integrate them.

On the unit support/gold front, I think it makes sense to scale back unit support a bit since the majority of military actions are going to require quite major excursions out of your territory. Some factions paying no unit costs sounds like something that should be fixed.

Do you know offhand where unit support costs live in the xml? I could not find it, and it doesn't appear to be in the civs or the civics.

In terms of making more gold, I think the primary revenue source should be the spice. Can we just make it produce more gold - just increase the amount of gold it generates and maybe increase the multipliers from building the improvement?

I can certainly do that. I have intentionally setup the spice blows so they are random and occur in deep desert. So the amount of spice you have will vary, and a lot of it may be unreachable. Also, I have noticed that I get one gold per spice improvement *inside my cultural borders*. I had a few improvements outside my borders and they did not appear to contribute. I have obviously made the improvement buildable outside borders, but perhaps the corporation code is written to avoid looking there. Anyway, this is certainly an area for improvement, but it requires some experimentation.

Also, on the Roller and Rover thing. Would getting rid of them mean no tanks? I think there should be some tanks, but maybe keep them to the later game as in vanilla.

I don't know. I focused my attention on the lower tiers of the tech tree, 1-8. None of the tank units even appear until later. My thought was that heavy carryalls should be able to handle tanks, so they would make sense as later game units. But, if people lose interest in the early game, they will give up before the tanks are available.

You had mentioned before about taking a crack at the graphics for the spice bonus. I don't know if it is possible, but I had thought about graphics which tile. The spice blow always creates a 3x3 grid of spice when it blows; each plot is randomly empty or filled with one of the three densities. If we had a "corner" piece, a "side" piece and a "center" piece I could arrange them so a perfect blow would look circular.

But, anything which is better than the blue/green/yellow clones I made would be a step forward.

 

[koma13]

(EDIT: Maybe we could just scratch out "roller" and write "thopter" on the existing units. If we consider these as cavalry, then the spearman becomes something like "maula anti-air".)

This. Cavalry and thopters is a good connection, even in vanilla civ cavalry updates to gunship. I would prefer the domain-sea solution. Air domain based units are too limited imho. But maybe we can add some kind of max range.
For spearman i would take those grenade troopers. Throwing grenades at thopters.

You are right. I was aiming for rock - paper - scissors and I got rock - paper - paper.

We will need some equivalent to melee and archer units.

For Irulan, she is never in any closeups.

I think this depends on which version of dune you got. In one version she is introducing the dune universe:

Spoiler :

By the way the worm has teeth you'll be pleased to know - courtesy of the Sarlacc...

This looks really great!
But ... if you want to make a truly perfect sandworm, there is still one thing left: thunderbolts.

Do you know offhand where unit support costs live in the xml? I could not find it, and it doesn't appear to be in the civs or the civics.

Civ4UnitInfos.xml: bMilitarySupport = Costs gold to support the Unit

 

[Deliverator]

To make good quality leaderheads:

1) It is best to start with a big an image as you can possibly get. Taking captures from DVDs you should get a decent size image as a source.
2) Crop a selection so that the Height is 1.28 times Width.
3) Resize using bicubic to 512x512 (256x256 will always be grainy as it will have to stretched for most resolutions).
4) Save the DDS.

Here's an example I did using a screengrab of Irulan from Children of Dune:

Spoiler :

I don't think this is the most appropriate for Irulan - it's just to demonstrate the quality that is quite easily achievable. I have both Dune 84 and the Dune miniseries coming courtesy of Ebay. The Dune 84 is the special edition which apparently has better picture quality so hopefully I'll be able to get some good ones - if we have ones that still need improving.

Maybe for Irulan I could grab this shot from the miniseries:

Spoiler :

Alternatively, I'm sure it is possible to get a better screengrab of the introduction from Dune 84 (the one we have now).

While on the subject of leaders, it would be good to add Liet-Kynes as a Fremen leader. There is room in the Sietch Tabr Fremen which is not really accurate. Maybe we could rebrand the two Fremen factions a bit so that one represents the Fremen pre-Muad'Dib and the other after...

This looks really great!
But ... if you want to make a truly perfect sandworm, there is still one thing left: thunderbolts.

Mmmm. Maybe one for the next iteration.

Also, I was just doing a little playtest and a sandworm attacked my scout from the coast. Unbelievably, my scout won - just luck of the draw? - I noticed that the scout does have 100% against animals. Does the worms' strength ramp up over time or something?

And it seems a bit odd that the worm belongs to the Smugglers. Can we come up with a better name for the Barbarians?

You had mentioned before about taking a crack at the graphics for the spice bonus. I don't know if it is possible, but I had thought about graphics which tile. The spice blow always creates a 3x3 grid of spice when it blows; each plot is randomly empty or filled with one of the three densities. If we had a "corner" piece, a "side" piece and a "center" piece I could arrange them so a perfect blow would look circular.

I'll look at better spice graphics after the worm is done tomorrow. The corner, side and center things could be a bit complicated, particularly if we want it to look natural with all the different combinations of density. I think initially just doing some nice textures with a bit of reddish spice gas would look pretty decent.

 

[davidlallen]

This. Cavalry and thopters is a good connection, even in vanilla civ cavalry updates to gunship.[...] We will need some equivalent to melee and archer units.

At a high level I agree with you. I seem to get stuck in the details of the exact units, bonuses, and where they go in the tech tree. It seems to be a large (re)design. Do you have any specific suggestions?

I think this depends on which version of dune you got. In one version she is introducing the dune universe:

Excellent. That is slightly higher resolution than the 480x250 which is widely available. Maybe there is a full 720x480 available somewhere.

Civ4UnitInfos.xml: bMilitarySupport = Costs gold to support the Unit

Thanks. My question is a different one; for some civs, the same unit costs either 0 gold, or 1 gold, or apparently 0.7 gold to support. I know that civics can affect this, but I cannot see any related difference in the civics of the "free support" civs vs the "not free support" civs. I will look further.

 

[davidlallen]

To make good quality leaderheads:[...] 3) Resize using bicubic to 512x512 (256x256 will always be grainy as it will have to stretched for most resolutions).

I am surprised that *upsizing* the screen grab makes it look better in-game. A typical DVD screen is 720x480, by the time you crop, it is maybe 350-400 pixels high. I had been *downsizing* to 256. Thanks for the tip! We can discard my grabs, although I will continue to look for icon-sized ones for techs like "Mentats", "Suk School" and "Desert Culture".

Also, I was just doing a little playtest and a sandworm attacked my scout from the coast. Unbelievably, my scout won - just luck of the draw? - I noticed that the scout does have 100% against animals. Does the worms' strength ramp up over time or something? [...] And it seems a bit odd that the worm belongs to the Smugglers. Can we come up with a better name for the Barbarians?

No, the worm strength does not change. However, at most difficulty levels, the player gets 1-2 free wins against animals. This is controlled in the handicapinfos file. I agree it is not too realistic, and we should probably mod this to avoid free wins at any difficulty level.

Regarding "Smugglers Worm", the problem is that whatever text we use for the barbarian player gets put onto all the barbarian units. This includes the soldier, sand rover etc which are fine, but also the worms, storms and spiceblows, which is a little strange. I have searched to see if I can prevent the barbarian player text from appearing on the worms, but no luck yet.

 

[Deliverator]

I am surprised that *upsizing* the screen grab makes it look better in-game. A typical DVD screen is 720x480, by the time you crop, it is maybe 350-400 pixels high. I had been *downsizing* to 256. Thanks for the tip! We can discard my grabs, although I will continue to look for icon-sized ones for techs like "Mentats", "Suk School" and "Desert Culture".

It is not so much upsizing as retaining whatever detail that is present in the source image. If the source is smaller than 256x256 it will obviously make no difference, but if you resize a 350x350 image to 256x256 you are losing a fair amount of detail. The visible area in the leaderhead window at the resolution I'm using is 354x454 - you have to stretch 256x256 quite a bit to get there. My DVD screengrabs are 576px tall, so 512x512 preserves most of the quality giving a nicer result I think. Your DDS files will be around 250KB, but that's still less space than most 3D leaderheads.

Regarding "Smugglers Worm", the problem is that whatever text we use for the barbarian player gets put onto all the barbarian units.

It's a tricky one - perhaps we could use 'Arrakeen' in the sense of native to Arrakis. Also we should rename Worm to Sandworm - it's just a bit more impressive...