Dungeon Adventure MOD MOD

[Psychic_Llamas]

Kael said pickling is bad:

Pickling is bad. I dont think warhammer uses it so it shouldnt see an improvement from the change (more appropriatly it wont see the performance drop from using it in the first place).

no idea why, but...

 

[odalrick]

I'd guess speed concerns. That module SdToolKit, unpickels all data each time anything is read from it. When it stores data it both unpickels and pickels all data again. I can't see any good way around that either... Had it used pickle, rather than cpickle, it would reportedly take 1000 times longer too.

That said, there must be some way to persist data in game. Maybe there is some other other way. Barring that, pickling and storing it in a scriptdata seems good enough.

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

I tried the sdToolKit suggestion but could not get it to work. Same problem as my attempts at pickling: The game runs fine, but refuses to make any terrain changes when the spells are "cast."

In the interim, I fell back to my old BASIC programming skills and did some crazy stuff with arrays and whatnot.

As a result, I now have a mechanism that will switch out terrains on the fly. The only drawback is that changes to the template terrains will not be remembered from switch to switch.

This accomplishes what I wanted. Pretty "brute force ugly," though!

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

Gosh, I'm just full of questions, aren't I?

This is a quibbly thing, but annoying. Now that my terrain can update on the fly, I have noticed that the minimap does not keep up.

The minmap will refresh only once per turn. Is there a command I can call from within python to force a minimap update?

Searching on the fora turned up nothing of use. Hoping someone knows this one.

Thanks!

 

[xienwolf]

You can try either:

gc.getMap().updateMinimapColor()

or:

CyGInterfaceScreen( "MainInterface", CvScreenEnums.MAIN_INTERFACE ).updateMinimapVisibility()

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

alas, no luck. Neither of those forced an update. This isn't a huge deal, since the map updates every game turn, but aesthetically it would be nice.

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

Okay, time to come clean.

I needed a break from the DA project, especially after it became so mystifyingly crash-prone in Vista.

For a while, to clear my head and try out some new ideas, I started a mod that is a remake of one of my favorite board games of all time: The Awful Green Things from Outer Space!

Made some very good progress. The game board is all tricked out: A space ship floating in interstellar space. All of the crew units, monster units, and weapon types are in. The game phases are implemented, which was a pain in the *ss, but I finally got something to work. (For example, movement is by "zone," and not per tile. The transition mechanisms were tricky, but are now stable.) I got zoned combat to work, too.

Sufficient cheats for the Green Things were put in place to give the human controlled Crew a run for the money. Really the only feature not yet implemented is the random assignment of an "effect" to all of the weapons. (One of the best things about the game is that, from game to game, the effects of the available weapons on the Green Things is randomized.)

So anyway, I was all set to reveal this treat when I realized, "Wait a minute. I know this is an old game, but somebody might still own the IP rights on this, so let's check that first."

Oops.

When I bought the game it was owned and produced by a genius named Tom Wham. Apparantly, he later sold the rights to TSR. Eventually they ended up with Steve Jackson Games, the current owner of the AGTFOS game franchise. Although they have not produced the game in many years, and appear to have no plans to ever do so again, SJ Games also has an understandable interest in protecting its IP rights.

More specifically, they don't like fan-created [read: non-professional] "computer game" versions of their board games, and have indicated a cheerful willingness to sue the Bejeezus out of anyone foolish enough to distribute anything that looks like one.

Sufffice it to say that, after reviewing their online FAQs about IP rights, I am extremely reluctant to post any AGTFOS related work. This is a shame, as I feel that an AGTFOS Civ4 mod might help drum up interest for this moribund product line and revive interest in one of my favorite games. On the other hand, I really don't want to get sued!

So that, in a nutshell, is what I have been doing for the last few months. I can salvage some basic coding techniques from this effort, I think, but other than that I feel like I have wasted a lot of time and effort.

So -- please learn from my mistakes!

Don't ever start work on a mod based on someone else's IP unless the person or company in question has specifically told you, "Okay." And even then, it is probably best to just make up your own stuff anyway.

 

[3141592]

What you talking about? This is a fantasy forum. You weren't making "the Awfull Green things from Outer Space" (I love that game by the way) you were making a game about a town invaded by werewolves right? (take a look at the Scrabalicious lawsuit, the makers just modified it a little and put it right back up)

 

[Ekolite]

A Night of the Werewolves based modmod could be interesting while we're on the topic lol. See the link in my thread if you dont know what that is.

 

[Arctem]

I bet you could fairly easily turn that into an FFH mod. Make the weapons all swords and staffs, change a few textures around, set it in a dungeon/palace under siege/city (walls are houses), and there you go!

 

[3141592]

There are so many clones of so many games out there that a unit rename and retexture should be plenty (There are so many stratego clones out there it's ridiculous)

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

Yes, I thought about something like, "the Citadel of the Purple Menace."

But it would appear that SJ Games frowns on the "use of game mechanics and rules" in addition to the obvious things like artwork and names.

Thank goodness they weren't the first ones to start using dice!

Meh. I'll see what I can do. To do the right thing though, I'll have to ask them about a "different enough" version, and I predict that they will say "no." They also do not appear to give advisory opinions on stuff ahead of time. You post at your peril and wait to see if they sue you, I guess. Heck of a way to encourage creativity.

 

[3141592]

They can frown on "use of game mechanics and rules" as much as they like, but as long as there isn't a direct copy and paste there's nothing they can do besides . .. .. .. .. . and moan.

Here is what the US Copyright Office (http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html) has to say about it:

The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.

So, you are 100% safe and have nothing to worry about as long as you don't copy and past any of the pictures or names or plotline.

 

[mtagge]

Yes, I thought about something like, "the Citadel of the Purple Menace."

But it would appear that SJ Games frowns on the "use of game mechanics and rules" in addition to the obvious things like artwork and names.

Thank goodness they weren't the first ones to start using dice!

Meh. I'll see what I can do. To do the right thing though, I'll have to ask them about a "different enough" version, and I predict that they will say "no." They also do not appear to give advisory opinions on stuff ahead of time. You post at your peril and wait to see if they sue you, I guess. Heck of a way to encourage creativity.

Yeah, SJG is notoriously bad about playing fair. And of course this is the company that does Munchkin and GURPS. Don't worry about anything, if you have a reskin and change the rules around a bit they have no right to pursue you legally. As an avid boardgamegeek (handle is the same on boardgamegeek.com) let me assure you that mechanics are constantly reused. Since you are going to be offering the mod for free the worst they could do is send you a cease and desist letter and you would have to take it down.

I would definately hold off on asking them for permission, especially if you mention civfanatics.com you are only alerting them to this places presence.

 

[3141592]

Again, you don't even have to change the rules as long as you don't cut and past the items and characters. (see previous post)

P.S. In case you can't tell I REALLY want to play this game. I love board games like it, but they can be a pain to set up, having a computerized version of it would be just great.

 

[cyther]

So is the Dungeon Adventure still happening?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

definitely yes. lutefisk mafia just said he needed a short break

 

[Lutefisk Mafia]

I think I know how the family dog feels.

I am trying to figure out pickling or use of sdToolKit to save and access data that can change during the game. This is absolutely crucial to the success of the DA mod and the other mods on which I am working.

But I am not a formally trained coder -- all of my knowledge comes from looking at what other people have done and just trying stuff to see what happens. Not very efficient.

Moreover, my underlying understanding of Python is strangely limited -- thus the family dog comparison. I suppose I understand maybe a few words here and there in the documentation out there about pickling, etc.

Sort of:

"Blah blah blah PICKLE blah blah blah FUNCTION blah blah blah OUT blah blah blah blah DISH blah blah blah TREAT blah blah blah GOOD BOY!"

I am certain that my failure to get sdToolKit to perform is because I am missing some step of implementation that is so basic that more experienced modders forget to even mention it.

I have used the search function on the forum and not gotten useful information. Either the discussions assume a high level of experience, or they are so low level that the methods described dont even match how Python was implemented in Civ4.

So, here is what I am trying to do:

I need to save multiple groups of lists that have upwards of 400 elements in the list. By list I mean a thing like:

thisList = [1,2,5,3,6,8,9,3,4,2,5]

I know I can compile many of these lists into an overall dictionary:

thisdictionary = { 'firstList' : thisList, 'secondList' : [4,5,6,7,8,] }

I think that I am succeeding in dynamically changing lists by reading certain information and writing it to a newly defined list. I accomplish this by doing things like a plot by plot scan that looks at terrain type and assigns it a number, then appends that number to a list. If you do this as a plot by index type of search, you end up with an inferred key from the order of elements in the list -- so it can later be reversed and the elements read out of the list in order and reapplied to plots by "plot index" number.

But I can't get this stuff pickled or scripted in a way that I can SAVE IT and then RELOAD IT.

So ---------------------

Is there any place that actually explains STEP BY STEP how to use these methods specifically for a Civ4 mod? In excruciating detail? With idiot proof examples?

Seriously, I have looked at multiple other mods that use scriptdata to save information but just can't seem to replicate it. It is frustrating because I don't know what I am missing, and I don't even know enough to be able to ask intelligent, specific questions.

Suggestions are very welcome!

 

[odalrick]

Could you post the entire python source you are having trouble with? Maybe we could spot something.

 

[Kael]

If you could get more specific about what you are trying to do we may be able to suggest other ways to do it without using that nasty pickle.