Dune Wars Mod

[keldath]

The_J,
yap, i mean that

Deon,

awesome great to know!

davidlallen,
that fine david, do what you can, i wanna base the mod on land terrain.

ill send johny smith a msg so he will help me get immigration mod inside.

david - try to run a few turns with koma's maps - see if the ai will found cities in archipelago?
or on other map types - it seems that it wont send settlers beyond the desert .

hope koma can fix it.

 

[davidlallen]

Long post, multiple points.

Another poster, EmperorFool, has found the solution to the diplomacy message about RTTI data; please see this post. Basically, the problem comes from using a revolution mod which refers to the assimilation mod, but it seems you did not actually include the assimilation mod or at least not all of it. The diplomacy model is trying to find responses for "leave me alone" which is added by assimilation, but there aren't any. So if you add the right responses then the alert will go away.

I have done autoplay on a few games for 200-300 turns using the land model, and I agree I never see the AI crossing the sandsea. I don't know why exactly. By design, you cannot found cities on sandsea. It may be that the AI will only build new cities where the BFC is close, or very close to an existing city. It may not like "gaps" in the zone of control it will expect to have after culture spreads a little. I will try some more runs, maybe using aggressive AI and running the games longer.

I locally modified the AI's and domains of the hover units to play a land model game. I found that using the light hover, strength 6, available from a tier 1 tech, is even easier than using the grenade trooper. I played a small map and I was able to blow away the two nearby civs by turn 120. It may take me a little while to reach the other two, and maybe they will have tech'd up. But a couple of strength 6 hovers can easily take out entrenched, home defense infantry, even without using their transport capability. Maybe hovers should have a big minus against cities? It would make me a little nervous to lower their strength much since that makes units they are transporting terribly vulnerable.

I also have one other fun thing to send out. I have not done much more with sandworms, but I have completed sandstorms. I think it is pretty cool. Using the sandstorm effect in the existing mod, I made variants at different sizes. In python, I randomly start up storms of different sizes and set them moving. If a storm moves over sandsea, it gets bigger; if it moves over hills or mountains, it gets smaller and may stop. When a storm passes over roads, improvements or any units, it is highly likely to destroy them based on the storm size. Presently it does not damage cities, but I should be able to add that.

Anybody who wants to can add this into their local area, but it may take a few minutes to do, following these steps.

1. The attached zip contains two python files which you can copy over their previous versions in assets\python.

2. I have hacked up my assets\xml\units\civ4unitinfos.xml file and you cannot use mine directly. Probably keldeth is about to release a substantially different version anyway. Instead, paste my file unitinfo-fragment.xml into your unitinfos file, to define the new units for storms.

3. I have included my entire file assets\xml\art\civ4artdefines_units.xml, which contains the art links for the new storm units. If you have locally modified your file, you will have to merge; copy out the four ART_DEF_UNIT_SANDSTORM... entries. But probably you can copy my file over yours.

Now when you run, you will see storms. You will probably have to view the whole map and follow one around to see what happens; having them cross your territory is supposed to be a rare event.

For testing, you may want to make storms appear more often. There is a constant value in the python which controls this; you can simply edit the python. See file CvEventManager.py around line 416:

		# Compute the number of storms to be added
		iStormWant = (xmax * ymax / 400) - iStormCount
		if iStormWant < 0: iStormWant = 0

This simply makes one storm per 400 squares on the map. If you want more, pick a smaller divisor like 100. I have noticed that the code to resize the storms seems to have a long runtime, so you may notice the turn updates are a little slower if you have a lot of storms. I don't understand why it should be slow but I could investigate more if it becomes critical.

Looking forward to a land model patch update!

 

[johny smith]

Forgive me for my ignorance please. I know very little about Dune. But would it be better if worms are only in the desert?

I mean so that there are safe spots from worms I mean. Like what I read the idea that a northern area or whatever was safe till the rocks were Nuked like in the 1984 Dune movie. Just would sound interesting to me anyway some safe areas that you can rely on. And the sand improvements being under the threat of the worms. I thought there was mod that had water monsters attacking improvements. Anyway maybe a bad idea. Figured I would just mention it. But if using just a land map then would may be just too complicated.

 

[davidlallen]

In the code I have written, sandworms will never move into rocky hill, or peak plots. So those are safe. There are 3-4 other types of terrain such as arid, badlands, etc which is where most of the improvements are built, and then two terrain types I call "sandsea" which correspond to ocean and coast. Few improvements can be built there and few units go there except to pass through. So, if we want worms to cause damage, there will be little opportunity if they stay on the sandsea. Presently the worms will move freely on the other 3-4 terrain types, so people may lose improvements or units there.

I have thought about a "thumper" action button. In the books, if you saw a worm coming, certain units could distract the worm by planting a thumper in some nearby unimproved location. The worm would be angered by the thumping noise and it would attack the thumper instead. That way your improvement or army would be safe.

I think a promotion is the best way to do it; units with the promotion can place thumpers and thumpers should draw worms. Most native infantry units should have the promotion, but it would be configurable in the unitinfo file.

There isn't much I can think of to add to the worm AI, but I don't have much feedback yet. So I will work on this, unless there are other suggestions about what worms should do.

 

[johny smith]

Sounds good. Just did not know yet if it had been thought about. I think there probably needs to be more spice improvements though under attack in the future though. I mean I know figuring out which terrain land or water to use is still being discussed. But once figured out. I would like to see more spice in the sand being harassed by worms.

The "thumper" is a good idea. And there is already a thumper promotion button I know at least. Less complicated AI may be better anyway. Simple does not mean bad.

 

[davidlallen]

Good point about the thumper promotion, looks like I just have to repurpose it. There is already a stillsuit promotion for +1 range so we won't lose anything. We can add this promotion as a start promotion for certain native infantry units.

I was able to find screenshots of the thumper from the movie, but if you have any idea about the unit art, or if somebody reading this thread could create one, that would be great. I can use a stub for now.

 

[keldath]

hey guys,

davidlallen,
thanks for the diplomacy tip!!!
ill do this - perhaps i forgot to merge some assimilation related code - ill check it,
if it merged right, ill just remove assimilation then, i figure more people rather not to play with it, and frankly, so do i, so removing it would clean some errors.

we must wait for koma's fix for the ai to settle byond land mass and cross desert for it.

thanks for the great worm code,
let me just know - it wont work with sand sea terrain?

theres no need for you to change the unitais, ive went through almost all of them (except some transports, and set them right for land terrain.

awesome idea with the stroms!! great touch!



a thumper promotion/action is also a fine idea,
the more dune concepts we get in the better.

johny,

yeah i agree about the spice - i rather it to be more found on desert terrain,
peraps i can make the spice refinery improvement buildble outside borders, and this way you could supply spice to you empire somehow - maybe with a road, i dunno,
the best way is to be able to build an improvement outside borders, that can act as city, but cannot build stuff.

heck - i thought of something else - how about a code, that will allow to build an improvement - that youll be able to build units from it? like building a tank depot outside the city - and have it creating units? thus seperating city from unit buildings? kinda like s real time strategy?
i guess this wil require quite alot of coding - jeckel can do this - hes a pro at this.

anyway,
im now building 2 patches - ill add the recent bt david,
and let you guys have them, atleast until koma gives us a fix for the maps.

 

[davidlallen]

Uh ... I *hope* koma13 has a fix for the AI problem. But from his post, he had some possibilities, not a fix. I have posted on the sdk/python thread here to see if somebody knows the answer. I don't think there are any simple xml improvements which will allow this. But it is too early to tell.

Unless koma13 replies pretty soon, please cut the release with what we have now. It is difficult for anybody to see the problem we are having, unless they download the release and then put koma13's patch on top of it. A clean "land model" release will let us keep making progress.

I have hardcoded the terrain names which are the starting points for the worms and storms. I put the "land model" names in there, the new terrain types defined by koma13. So it will not work if you put the python into a "sea model" release. That is, there won't be any errors, but it will never generate any worms or storms.

 

[keldath]

well, for wha i can tell,
koma posts mostly after he finished something,
im sure he will fix it soon enough.


ok i agree,

ill hold with the lad terrain shift, and for now just wait.


david -

whats this file does?
CIV4UnitInfos-fragment.xml?

 

[davidlallen]

ok i agree, ill hold with the lad terrain shift, and for now just wait.

Actually, my suggestion was to cut the release without waiting for koma13, but it's your call.

whats this file does? CIV4UnitInfos-fragment.xml?

Please see step 2 of the post where I included the file. It is the definitions for units SANDSTORM, SANDSTORM2, SANDSTORM3, SANDSTORM4. You should just be able to paste it into your unitinfos.

 

[keldath]

oh ok, then, im uploading soon a patch for current version (sad sea).

it il include everything you did and terrain art changes - hopefully removing waves.

i left the worm code inside though, i know it wont work, but i left it in for now.
i have pasted the sandstoms into the unitinfo, dont worry.


ok people here is the unofficial pathes :

patch 1 - is with koma's maps and fixed unitai to handle land terrain -
but theres a bug with the maps - the ai wont found more then 1 city - so i dont recommend you guys install this one until koma fixed the maps.

patch 2 - it give the sand sea terrain a better look using new art from koma, also fixed text by davidlallen and more stuff he did.

both patches have a worm code and sand storm code - that creates worms and sand storms randomly, currently for path-2 it can work.

both patches - remove waves...so now theres now waves on desert.


i will have to wave to wait for a fix from koma before further develop the mod.

i will remove some sdk codes that cause some python errors.



again - plz use patch 2 ,
patch 1 is just for showing and testing.

http://uploading.com/files/8URB4HOG/unofficial patch-1+2.exe.html

this is an unofficial release.
thanks
to everyone who helps!!!

 

[The_J]

I was able to find screenshots of the thumper from the movie, but if you have any idea about the unit art, or if somebody reading this thread could create one, that would be great. I can use a stub for now.

This building could be used.

 

[davidlallen]

ok people here is the unofficial pathes :

patch 1 - is with koma's maps and fixed unitai to handle land terrain -
but theres a bug with the maps - the ai wont found more then 1 city - so i dont recommend you guys install this one until koma fixed the maps.

patch 2 - it give the sand sea terrain a better look using new art from koma, also fixed text by davidlallen and more stuff he did.

both patches have a worm code and sand storm code - that creates worms and sand storms randomly, currently for path-2 it can work.

If I understand correctly, patch 1 is what I called the "land model" and patch 2 is what I called the "sea model". That is, some units in patch 2 have DOMAIN_SEA, while in patch 1, no units have DOMAIN_SEA.

Then the worm and storm code will run correctly in patch 1, not patch 2. The current worm and storm code relies on the new terrain types in koma's mapscripts, deep desert and desert waste.

I'll try it out in 5-6 hours from now.

This building could be used (for a thumper).

Excellent, thanks.

 

[keldath]

bingo david a,

you got that exactly right.

the_j,
thanks buddy, lets hope we'll have a thumper action .

in 5-6 hours ill be in dream land

 

[koma13]

Hey,

I looked into that bug with the settlers and I don't think there will be an easy solution for it.

t may be that the AI will only build new cities where the BFC is close, or very close to an existing city. It may not like "gaps" in the zone of control it will expect to have after culture spreads a little.

If that is true it would explain why ai isn't expanding. The only way for AI player to found a city far away would be placing it in another area. The problem is if we replace ocean plots with land plots, the whole map will be counted as only 1 area. To fix that behaviour we have remove the restriction where ai can found cities.
SDK. :suicide:

I can try but I could need some help. Keldath, do you think you can look into it? A good start (imho) would be CvUnitAI::AI_settleMove() and CvPlayerAI::AI_foundValue().

EDIT:
As a quick workaround we can allow founding cities in deep desert waste. Ai still will look for good tiles.

 

[keldath]

hey koma.....



wish i could help, but sdk is Chinese for me, i dont know coding....

perhaps you can get some help with one of the modders on the site, im sure we can find someone to help with that,
try to post on the sdk forum.

hope you can do something, i will hate no to use your maps.

 

[davidlallen]

I reinstalled your main release and overlaid patch-1 for "land mode". This looks much better! A couple of the small bugs I mentioned previously are not fixed:

6. Graphics for the LH icons are awfully low-res; the Emperor and Irulan LH pictures are skinny. See screenshots in the attachment. All of the icons seem very grainy, you can see this especially in the rabban screenshot. The new files from komas13 did not fix this for me. I do not think this is graphics card related.

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.

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.

11. In file assets/xml/civilization/civ4civilizationinfos.xml, please change the <Adjective> flag for Bene Gesserit; it comes up as German. This is the only one which is wrong.

23. Tech "Dp Desert Expolre" 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".

Some of the longer term items are still there, by number: 1 (Grenade Trooper nerf), 17 (want more early civics choices), 20 (non-vanilla tech icons), 21 (dune-o-pedia unit backgrounds), 27 (move civilization civilopedia entries into DuneWarsText.xml)

New issues:

28. I noticed that the "Apollo project" is still in there as a victory condition; I assume that is not supposed to be there.

29. Civs that start with hover as a free tech get a hover patrol unit as their free scout. This is way stronger than the basic scout that other civs get. The hover is ST 3, move 3; the scout is ST 2, move 2, and defend only. I had a little trouble finding this unit because it is unitclass transport; I guess you recently renamed one of the hover transports. I recommend you make a tiny hover unit which is the base unit for the hover tech, so it will not outrank the basic scout.

30. Worm movement got turned off. This is because the UNIT_WORM1 has TerrainImpassables for deep desert and desert waste. Please remove these, and then you will see the worms moving.

31. In the terraininfos file, hills and peak have bWater set to 1. I am sure that will cause something to go wrong somewhere. Also, there are two entries with description Deep Desert: one is the ocean, and the other is the "real" deep desert added by komas. Please set the description of ocean back to ocean, and coast back to coast. This will avoid confusion, but it probably won't cause any problem.

32. I suck as an artist; but I still try. I have created buttons for sandworm and sandstorm in the attachment. These show up in the sevopedia; currently you are using the pit beast button which goes with the sand beast unit. Could you please cut in these buttons instead of the pit beast?

33. To prepare for the new thumper action, please decide which unitclasses should be allowed to have the thumper promotion and update the promotion file, and also reset iMovesChange for the promotion to zero. The promotion should not give a movement increase, only the ability to drop the thumper.

---

In other news ...

I have painfully relearned how to add action buttons in python. I have now locally added a thumper action button. Any unit which has the thumper promotion can drop a thumper, except in hill or peak squares.

I have a new theory about why the AI cannot put new cities on the other side of the sandsea. Please take a look at this thread. So far it is just a theory, but I like it. Putting a new city so far away from the existing cities would, in fact, be hugely expensive due to the city distance maintenance cost. Maybe if we change that, the AI won't mind doing it.

I have at least a couple of days work to make some more changes to the worm AI. It needs to attack thumpers, not attack units with the stillsuit promotion, and destroy roads. The storm AI needs to damage cities, and cause a storm to disappear if it is too near another storm. If anybody has other feedback about worms and storms so far, I can incorporate it.

 

[johny smith]

I worked on a new dll that I sent keldath to look at. I removed the RevDCM Super Spies,inquisition, and assimilation. Then added WoC inquisition and WoC Super Spies.

Buttons I can help with. Not hard for me. The Star Wars thing looked nice for a thumper. But I am still a little confused how it will working as art I mean. I mean will it be an improvement art wise? I mean the idea sounds good I just do not understand how it will be displayed.

The immigrate code wise. David yours probably would be easier to go ahead and add if you can get the chance when finishing the worm stuff. Just wanted to make sure and ask. Your immigrates code has AI?

 

[johny smith]

I got tired of seeing the LH buttons sent up something better resolution anyway. But maybe even should have a different image.

Many of the big images themselves are really grainy and new to be reworked. Bad images to begin with probably. Well just at least the buttons will look better anyway.

I was looking at the older before the FPK files d'oh. Well maybe they will be of some use the civilization buttons still need some work.

 

[davidlallen]

The Star Wars thing looked nice for a thumper. But I am still a little confused how it will working as art I mean. I mean will it be an improvement art wise? I mean the idea sounds good I just do not understand how it will be displayed.

I took the watervaporator nif and put it onto a unit. It can't be an improvement since you can only have one improvement in a plot. Here is how it works. Any unit with the thumper promotion has a new action button. The button is greyed out if you are on hill or peak terrain. When you click the button, a thumper unit appears in the plot. So far that is all that happens. I will add an AI for the thumper which will make it disappear after 5 turns, and change the worm AI so that if they are anywhere near a thumper, they will head straight for it, and destroy it.

One problem which has just now occurred to me, is getting the AI units to use thumpers. Sigh. I will have to think about that.

The immigrate code wise. David yours probably would be easier to go ahead and add if you can get the chance when finishing the worm stuff. Just wanted to make sure and ask. Your immigrates code has AI?

This will need some design. I don't have any specific ideas. As I mentioned, in FR there are ruined cities, from which refugees appear. Occasionally a new refugee unit appears randomly in these squares, like an event. If you can move the refugee successfully to a city (wandering monsters are a real threat in FR) then the city pop increases by one. The AI for the refugee is simply UNITAI_CITY_DEFENSE, which causes the unit to move towards the closest city.

What do people want for immigration? The unit and AI can be directly copied, the question is what causes a refugee unit to appear in dune wars?