Dune Wars Mod

[keldath]

hey a-man !

its been a while huh?...

thanks, doing by best

this time with kind johny smith - i have his woc lite inside dune wars.

the v i said hi,

glad to know youve become a c++ coder, from tweaking some xml to manage an empire of modding

 

[davidlallen]

Maybe something about land transport will pop from this thread. But if MagisterCultuum doesn't know a way, I don't think anybody will know.

I have to say, if we can make it work, the concept of sandseas is appealing somehow. I have not played any complete games this way, maybe it is not much fun. I know others play vanilla civ on archipelago, I always preferred pangaea, so maybe I should not judge. At least with the mapscripts from komas13, we can try both ways and see what turns out better.

 

[davidlallen]

Here is some feedback from one game I played through. Noble difficulty, small map, Dune_Archipelago mapscript, normal speed, no advanced start, Beast Rabban (agg/pro). I beelined Grenade Troopers, fortunately I had some soostone available or I would have been out of luck.

1. Granted, GT have a long tech tree and a resource requirement, but my stacks of 3-4 GT (STR 6) just wiped out everything I faced. The enemy capitols had 2-3 infantry (STR 3), the last guy standing had a couple of Maula units but I didn't really notice. I think GT need a bit of a nerf. They have move 2 which is a huge benefit over the other LI units, and also the jump from infantry STR 3 to GT STR 6 is pretty large.

2. I spent a fair amount of effort building roads across the open desert so that my GT could move faster. This is the opposite of the Dune effect we are trying to achieve. I will enhance my worm code to also destroy roads, which will help a little.

3. Granted I had a military research bent, but there was nothing I could build that was interesting, except more GT. I had a happiness problem, I could not find any happy resources. I did not have any religion, which would have helped a little. My biggest city was size 8, even the size 5 secondaries had happiness problems.

4. Randomly observed, the Desert Scout has domain sea, which means if it popped at a goody hut, it would be unable to move.

5. All of the tech tree popups for units say "Can Grenade Trooper", should be "Can *train* or *build* Grenade Trooper". This is probably somewhere down in one of the mods you have layered on, but it bothers me a little.

6. As I mentioned earlier, the graphics for the LH icons are awfully low-res; I can recut them if you want if you upload the original screencaps. Also, the Emperor LH picture is skinny; it did not get pre-stretched before you saved it. (EDIT: Also Irulan is skinny.)

7. The diplomacy screen always generates a python popup complaining about RTTI data. With python alerts off, the "exit" message is missing, which forces me to go one layer further into the dialog in order to get out.

8. Every time a new unit is built, there is a python popup complaining that Light Infantry is not defined for the UnitNaming screen. This is part of BUG, but I cannot find any configuration option in BUG to turn off unit naming, nor can I figure out where to fix it. Perhaps you could ask BUG people about this. (EDIT: the exact message shows in the text log at the top of the screen, "Bug Core - option UnitNaming__Combat_LIGHT_INFANTRY not found"). Probably you need to declare the list of unitcombats for BUG somewhere.

9. The flags all have black backgrounds. This makes it very hard to distinguish units of one player from another. I recommend that you re-cut the flags with the civilization color in the background instead of black.

10. I built the House Shield wonder, I guess this is "great walls". What does it mean if we use land terrain types for the whole map? I guess the whole map is one continent, which means it shuts off all the barbs, forever. Not too much of a game changer, the smugglers were not much of a problem anyway.

11. The civilization adjectives are not set. In file assets/xml/civilization/civ4civilizationinfos.xml, please change the <Adjective> flags. For example, Bene Gesserit comes up as German, which is a little distracting.

12. In one of my small cities, I was unable to build a monument, so I couldn't get its culture moving at all. I had built it in another small city. I did not investigate more about this. (EDIT: possibly, this is because monuments were obsoleted by somebody else getting Way Of The Desert; but that is fairly deep in the techtree and I do not think anybody was that far along.)

13. At the end of the game, I had destroyed all the other civs. But the game wouldn't end! Shouldn't domination victory automatically happen when the other civs are all dead? Also, I got a python popup when I tried to access the victory conditions screen, complaining about unset variable iBestTeam in file CvVictoryScreen.py line 926. I can investigate more about this later. (EDIT: the python popup does not come in the middle of the game. It only came after I had destroyed all the other civs. I guess the screen did not consider the case, where I am the only surviving civ; it should not have to. The problem is the game did not end.)

Save game available if you think it will be useful. Since I have locally hacked up the mod to install komas13's maps, it is not clear you would be able to load a saved game.

 

[Maniac]

i have,
fall from haven has a solution for this....
i tired kael but didnt get any response from him...

Fall from Heaven does not have an AI for land transports.

For the record, Planetfall has the Dropship. That's technically a naval unit which can move over all terrain. I also made it buildable in inland bases. I have not seen the AI do drops on inland bases, but because it's a naval unit, the AI knows how to use it like it can any other sea transport. So if you guys keep the deep desert as 'oceans', you could go for the Planetfall approach.

 

[Phoenician]

I won't have that much time to play, but when I get back from Turkey, I'll play lots and maybe post up a strategy guide for the mod.

 

[davidlallen]

I backed out the land-only mapscripts and went back to the original with sandseas, and played a Noble difficulty, small map, Continents mapscript, normal speed, no advanced start, Stilgar (exp/cha). I beelined Grenade Troopers again. We definitely need to nerf these guys. Stilgar gets the stillsuit promotion so these infantry get move 3. I stopped after stomping the other two civs on my continent.

14. No way to build hover units, unless you construct a city on a "coast". This would not be a problem, if I had played the archipelago mapscript.

15. One possible issue with the all-land mapscripts (which I did not use this game) is trade routes. I am not sure how ocean trade routes get built; but land trade routes with roads are not Dune-like. So trade won't be much of a factor.

16. I am not very sure about "chop". Several issues. The text has forest and jungle, which you can fix in units/buildinfos.xml, by overriding the text. Spaceports gives a +50% to chop hammers? Why that one? Philosophically, why are we doing chop at all? Are those tubers really worthwhile? Chopping a forest implies wood for building, but what do I build out of tuber fragments? Why would I chop "jungle" (spice)? It should be worth something.

17. There are no civics choices low in the tree. It would add a little interest if some of the civics were available early, so that there was some useful civic decision to be made.

18. Desert culture gives bridge building. That makes little sense since there aren't any rivers.

19. Not sure if this is on purpose, when I conquer a city I appear to get the ability to build their unique units, but not my own. In Fall From Heaven, this is activated for certain "tolerant" civs. I did not expect it here. In particular, as Stilgar, I conquered Irulan, and I could build Imperial Militia but not Sietch in that city.

20. Just to put into this issue list, it would be great to have non-vanilla tech icons.

21. Just to put into this issue list, it would be great if the civilopedia backgrounds for the unit pictures were desertlike instead of mountain/grass and water. I posted earlier in the thread about ancientbattlefield and waterenvironment, but I could not quite fix it.

 

[keldath]

hey guys,

Maniac,
thanks for the info, though i looked at your sdk and saw that something was changed in the allterrain movements.

i will change the miareasize as you suggested.

my dear Phoenician, you go ahead and enjoy lovely turkey, i'll be waiting......


and now david,

ok thanks for the extensive reports. it will use your tips.

1. hummm didnt quite understood that one.

2. yeah worm that pillage is good.

3. ill add more happy bonuses from res and buildings

5. what do you mean that grenade trooper msg shows when you get a new unit? it must be some text i changed and i shouldnt...

6. koma posted a fix for the leader pics, ill include in the patch.

9. yes i wanted to do that before, will do it later on.

10. can increase power of barbs...

11. test mistake - ill fix

13. domination victory means you have to take 66% of land mass, conquest is kill'em all victory.

14. ill fix the min areasize of hovers.

15. haven't thought of it, but if money levels go low, i can compensate with many ways.

16. well, the text isuue just need a fix, as for tubers, well... i know dune is barren planet, but , i think its more interesting and richfull terrain when you got those features, i think removing the tree likes, willl be a bit of a boring map.

17. good advise, will be fixed.

18. yap...will fix

19. ill reffer below - its assimilation mod.

20. totally agree, will do for one of the next versions.

21. i dont know how to change it (yet).


ok david and the rest:

im not sure if you guys play the mod through the custom menu, cause i added mods like revolution,
you need to check which mods you wanna have ingame -
see the options - the check options where you got the advanced start option,
down below - you got all kinds:
revolution mod,
assimilation mod
minor civs
and more.

assimilation mod for instance , when taking on an enemy city - you can assimilate its unique unit - and build it, you dont like it? dont check it
there are changed difficult levels - challange and sorts, you dont know them? dont check them,
thats all guys.

look at rise of man, it has tons of components, when getting to modcomps, my philosophy - the more the merrier...
also like woc - you can have tons of modcomps and you can choose what to play with in a theme mod.



******
ok now for maps:

this is my idea of how to utilize the land maps by koma:

until i have a solution, ill remove transport units,
instead,
in mid game i will create 2 harvesters - desert and plains,

the plains will build roads on land mass, the desert will build desert lanes/routes on the desert mass,
thus allowing units to move faster on land.

what do you think guys?

the other idea - just raise the movements of the game units , the more advanced the unit is - the more movements its has,
say, heavy scorpion - thats located almost last on the tech tree - will be able to move...something like 10-15 movements, i can give it limitations and such, like can move only on road, cant enter forsets hils peaks, and such, balance between its power - a fast unit - weaker - a slow unit - stronger.

this will propably create a unique game mechanics, that you guys might like.

the advantage of using an all land terrain is with the ai - it will be much more of a challenge then using the sand sea.

anyways - until someone have hes opinion on what you guys think is better - ill create
game mechanism that works on komas maps,

and also the sand sea system,

ill let you guys choose.

 

[davidlallen]

Replies on old items:

1. Grenade Troopers seem too strong. Move 2 (3 if you are Stilgar), STR 6 compared to previous unit STR3, not to mention ranged attack. I think the strategy of beelining this unit and then building a lot, makes the game too easy. I have locally changed to move 1, strength 5; we'll see what happens.

5. I wrote, "all of the tech tree popups for units say Can Grenade Trooper, should be Can *train* or *build* Grenade Trooper". This description is actually a little wrong. It is for improvements, for example "Can Compound" instead of "Can Build a Compound". This is because your text in units\civ4buildinfos is wrong; the description text there should say "Build a Compound" rather than just "Compound". I have fixed this in the attached file.

8. I wrote, "Every time a new unit is built, there is a python popup complaining that Light Infantry is not defined for the UnitNaming screen." I found out from the BUG team how to turn this off; please replace assets/config/unit naming.xml with the attached file. Also, whenever you add or rename a unitcombat, you must update this file.

13. I wrote, "At the end of the game, I had destroyed all the other civs. But the game wouldn't end! Shouldn't domination victory automatically happen when the other civs are all dead?" OK, I guess I meant conquest victory, but I had all the victory conditions enabled and the game did not end.

19. I wrote, "when I conquer a city I appear to get the ability to build their unique units, but not my own.". You wrote, basically, this is the assimilation mod, if you don't want it just turn it off. Thanks for the tip. In the custom game screen, it is not at all obvious that you can scroll the options panel. All the way at the bottom, many pages down, I can find these checkboxes. Now I have turned them off. They default to "on", and sure I can turn them off now that you told me, but many people may miss it like I did. I will now play with all of these options off. BTW, sadly, this does not fix the RTTI error which comes on the diplomacy screen (item 7).

New items:

22. Several typos in units\civ4unitclassinfos.xml and buildings\buildingclassinfos.xml. Please use attached files.

23. Tech "Dp Desert Expolore" is spelled incorrectly, and also too long. Maybe change to, "Sandsea Exploration"? Some other techs could be renamed to this also, instead of calling everything "desert this" or "desert that".

24. In the ocean version, workboats look kind of silly. But we seem to be leaning away from that. If you put out a clean land-only version, I am sure you will delete it.

25. One big problem with the land version (all terrain changed to land) is that there is a coastal wave effect. One way to control this is with file terrain\civ4terrainsettings.xml, variable iWaterHeight. Check it out. The default value is 49. At around 25, the wave effect is gone. But this makes "seams" appear in the land terrain, which is also bad. Please see attached screenshot. I guess the terrains do not tile.

26. The smugglers/barbarians can form cities. The names of these are not Dune-flavored, they are still American Indian (I guess) flavored.

27. There is a bunch of long text for the civ descriptions in civilizations\civ4civilizationinfos.xml. This should be pulled into xml\text\dunewars.xml so that it could eventually be translated, and also spellchecked.

 

[davidlallen]

this is my idea of how to utilize the land maps by koma:

until i have a solution, ill remove transport units, instead, in mid game i will create 2 harvesters - desert and plains,

the plains will build roads on land mass, the desert will build desert lanes/routes on the desert mass, thus allowing units to move faster on land.

what do you think guys?

the other idea - just raise the movements of the game units , the more advanced the unit is - the more movements its has, [...] anyways - until someone have hes opinion on what you guys think is better - ill create game mechanism that works on komas maps, and also the sand sea system

This is still a good discussion point. The game is playable with koma's maps, you can't use hover units but that doesn't matter much. But, you get tunnels criss-crossing deep desert, which is completely un-Dune-like. Maybe if they were called something like trails, rather than tunnels, it might fit the theme.

I like the concept of the hover and carryall units for crossing the desert. Maybe desert terrain could have a really high movement cost like 2-3, and you could add a promotion for units to decrease desert movement cost. Hover units would have that promotion by default. That *might* be enough to trigger the AI to build them, it would be worth an experiment anyway.

(EDIT: stupid stupid stupid. Movement cost is a nice idea but without land transport AI, we know the AI will not build the hovers. I can't picture heavy units like tanks slogging through deep desert, it needs carryalls. Sigh.)

I am doing some expansion of the worm logic, and also adding sandstorms. But it will be inconvenient to tune them for both land-system and sea-system. I think I will switch back to land-system; maybe with high movement costs we can get something going.

 

[davidlallen]

After playing a few games, there are some Dune "theme" elements that I feel, and some that I don't. I have only played small size games which are over in < 200 turns so I do not get far into the tech tree.

I don't get any feeling of scarce water. The first thing I build is irrigation, and it seems like I automatically have enough to grow crops. Granted, arid terrain only gives two food which is not a lot. But it doesn't feel like I am struggling for water.

There are windtrap improvements, and a reservoir wonder, and actual water terrain. Perhaps these could be starting points for irrigation, and unless you have a water source, you cannot grow much. I do not have a finished mechanic in mind, but it seems that "water scarcity" theme is lacking.

Also, sandstorms and worm attacks are missing, but I am working on some python for that.

 

[keldath]

davidlallen,

great thanks for this again,

5. ahhh silly me...

8. currect, should have done this - i removed the dynamic tab from the bug screen - but left its effect....

13. very particular - did you played with mastery victory on? its a score system thats overwrite all other victories even if they checked on, maybe because i changed the order og the victories in the xml its mixed them up.

19. yes i should emphasize it, no dougt. the diplomacy error, im begining to think that hte problem is a missing text in the diplomacy xml.

23. yeah....i ran out of ideas.........

24 . you dont like the unit art?

25. i might be able to vanish the waves from the map, color in in the terrain colors, and noone will see it..

26, currect, i haven't got around to renamed the barbs.

27. will be done.

thanks for the files.
very thankful that you save me time with some work!


****
it seems that your logic is like mine, i too like more komas maps.

i know im sometimes straying form dune theme, but it because we don't have an sdk coder....... so i have to workaround the limitations..

the nae of the route isnt that significant - raods,lanes - tunnels,
but, im not sure im ready to see the entire map being "roaded" by the ai...we will have a road map....

so maybe jusy giving promotions, and movement bonuses, wonders of movements - thus making units move moe and more.

i like carryals aswell - and dont want to get rid of them...but if we go with this - we'll have no use for it.


meanwhile im duplicating 2 patches - one with sand see and one with koma.

working the unit ais and everything.

***
david,
forgot to refer to the water,
i agree, do you have a suggestion for the improvements?
i have to give food bonus to terrain - or else the ai wont build cities.
i thought alot about how to build an improvement system that wont be depended on rivers, but thats what i came up with,
i know that we need to emphasize need for water - what do you have in mind?

 

[davidlallen]

13. Yes, I had all the victory conditions on including mastery, so it was checking that. I still think after destroying all the other civs, *some* victory condition should have let me win!

24. Perhaps you are joking, the workboat unit art is a *boat*, sailing on *sand*. That seems wrong.

On the name of the route, "tunnel" seems like an un-Dune name, why would you build tunnels for hundreds of miles through shifting sand? I could see two kinds of roads. One is called "trail" built on sandsea for long distance trade, the other is called "road" built on not-sandsea for moving equiment locally. We have two kinds in vanilla, one is railway. Maybe you could use railway for the long distance trail, if it is very expensive maybe the AI won't fill everything up with it. Otherwise, on the land variant, we have no way to ever get trade going. Maybe trade isn't that important, but you only get connected once you have a road path connection.

 

[keldath]

you have some good points,

13. uncheck mastery - if it causes problems - ill remove it.

24. hehe....no comment.


good ideas,

road for regular land - moving units.
trail - a road improvment - most units are banned from - costs money aswell as time? the ai wont build it if it costs too much - 20 per tile huh?

as i said - trade routes are not that important, i can raise money levels with improvements, civics, buildings, upkeep, no problem there - it wont impare gameplay if we dont have alot of trade routes.

with a special modcomp - i can set which unit can go over which road - so no problem in using this.
eventually in the books, dune became a green planet ..so raods are possible huh?
im just saying cause five minutes ago - i got the dune book!!! bought the whole 6 boooks, left brians H for later times...


anyway,
ive finish the 2 un official patch that uses 2 terrain - mainly for you david , koma and Ajidica testing.
what i did mainly was to set the unitai for each type.

also - for settler - ive made two - 1 - for game start - cannot enter desert, and 2 that can enter desert.

-og and for sand sea - i used komas texture....

link wil lbe here soon

 

[koma13]

Hey,

thx for your nice words about the new map scripts and terrain types. If you guys like, I can do a graphical redo of remaining terrain.

6. koma posted a fix for the leader pics, ill include in the patch.

I don't think that davidallen will be happy with leaderheads. Their are only interesting for people with ATI cards and even more low res.

it seems that your logic is like mine, i too like more komas maps.

i know im sometimes straying form dune theme, but it because we don't have an sdk coder....... so i have to workaround the limitations..

the nae of the route isnt that significant - raods,lanes - tunnels,
but, im not sure im ready to see the entire map being "roaded" by the ai...we will have a road map....

so maybe jusy giving promotions, and movement bonuses, wonders of movements - thus making units move moe and more.

i like carryals aswell - and dont want to get rid of them...but if we go with this - we'll have no use for it.

I would prefere having no roads in deep desert at all. Can't we use airports for trade connections?
If we really have to sacrefice the carryall concept, how about making carryall as a special "building" that grants a paratrooper promotion to infantry units?

water and irrigation...

I would like to see food is replaced by water. Farm would be wind trap, granary would be a cistern and so on. It would give dune mod something unique and it feels very dunish.

I also would like to see mentats in (Piter de Vries ) A first easy way could be renaming traits or civics but later I would like to see a more dynamic approach, maybe as GPs you can steal.

 

[keldath]

hey koma,
yeah sure, they remaining maps can be nice.

but,
i noticed something very very strange,
i dont think that the ai moved stellers over the new desert koma,
have anyone tried komas maps? for some reasin -when playing archipelago - the ai wont build settlers and settle in other islands!
koma can you check this?



excellnt idea - airport as trade connections

and paratroop building - its a very good idea! i thought of someething in this mannor - but im not sure how the ai will know how to use it - and if a droprange can be set via promotion.
good idea.

agree with the water,
will implement this.

but,
i you guys plz check if the ai builds more cities on other islands with kopma's maps.

 

[koma13]

but,
i noticed something very very strange,
i dont think that the ai moved stellers over the new desert koma,
have anyone tried komas maps? for some reasin -when playing archipelago - the ai wont build settlers and settle in other islands!
koma can you check this?

My knowledge in map scripts is limited (I'm good in doing screens ). Right now I can think of two reasons why ai won't settle because of map script:

1) I didn't updated areas after replacing sea plots with land.

2) AI_foundvalue are messed up

I will check it.


Another quick idea i had:
Coming straight from colonization modding I would like to see some kind of immigration.
I believe I saw a similar concept for a civ4 mod (rhyes/ revolution mod )
Maybe we can adopt it for dune mod and link it to city happiness.

yeah sure, they remaining maps can be nice.

I assume that is an ok.

 

[keldath]

hey koma,

mm immigration, very nice idea - i think johny smith can help us with this , they had immigration mod inside woc, and theres also somewhere here an immigration mod , ill add it to the todo list.



so coma, its is highly important to have a fix for the ai founding city bug,
i wanna base the entire mod on you wonderful maps.


sure, thats an ok...but the founding is more improtant,
after youll fix - ill make two settlers, one for game start that can move only on land and another that can move on desert,
and if the maps will deal with it well, perhaps a special unit, that can be given only say 3 a game via techs that can found cities on desert

goodluck koma hope you manage this found / area thing easily.


***
this might be related,
when getting on the world builder, and choosing to place deep desert and desert waste - it lays out regular sand sea and for desert waste a wierd messed terrain, doent bother me at all, but still might be connected to the sea area you mentioned.

 

[The_J]

You mean this immigration mod? (no current version iirc)

If you adapt it...

 

[Deon]

Woah, I somehow missed it (was pretty busy IRL). Turning ocean into desert is quite clever, with "safe" islands of solid soil and rock here and there. I am a bit busy right now with my exams, but I will definitely try this out later (and probably contribute some unanimated models like buildings or improvements).

 

[davidlallen]

Fury Road also has immigrants. In that case, they are "refugees" who show up in ruined cities, and may add population to your city (if you can get them home safely).

I am going to finish up sandstorms and worms in the next couple of days, for the land model only. I can't quite figure out how to do it for the ocean model, since both worms and storms spawn in deep desert and attack land. So they need to go over both domains, and I can't figure out how to do that.

I'm not stuck, but if anybody knows how to make, for example, an animal which will wander on both ocean and land, it would be helpful. Maybe there is a pure xml way to do that. I'd rather not have to handle the entire wandering in my own code.

Anyway if there is no viable immigration mod, after sandworms and storms are done, I can adapt something from Fury Road to this.