Feedback and Suggestions

[Lib.Spi't]

yeah, with techs being such a big part of the game now it makes sense to get this civ feature up and running!

Good Job!

 

[Nightinggale]

Ok, yeah, help text would be easy to add. It's on the screen now and updates each time you change Techs so that was the important part, it can be moved, resized, and colored changed with ease now.

Sounds like you already added it. How about committing and pushing it too. That way the rest of us can sit in awe at your magnificence

Another and possibly more realistic result would be me proofreading your code to look for easy to spot bugs
Also I would like to see what you do. Despite having rewritten the domestic advisor to make it resize columns to fit screen resolution and stuff, I still haven't quite figured out how to code new stuff for the GUI
(I suspect it would be simple if I divert enough DLL coding time to investigate, but that's not an ideal solution)

 

[Kailric]

Yeah, I can push it soon. I am still working on the Civics Screen layout so it isn't complete yet. For the Tech bar I just moved the code from the Tech Screen to the Main screen and then trail and error to figure out how to get it to update. There is multiple ways to go about it, I just did something simple to get the bar on the screen and working.

 

[Nightinggale]

I spotted a civic change, which allows us to set food consumption for units. That gave me an idea for the "tradeoff civic" I proposed at some point. All units consume 3 food, but the rumour of plenty of food provides a big immigration bonus. Presumably it should add up all the immigration production and then add a certain percent before using it in "Europe" for obtaining immigrants. The bigger the number, the smaller the int rounding error will be, which is why it would make sense to apply it to the total production rather than just in each city.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Apart from the change you specified about adding it up empire wide, isn't this already doable with just a minor xml input?

There is a Civic that already uses 3 food per person (I think it is wage labour?) and other civics that effect non-cargo yields. So I think all you really need to do is add a percentage change to immigration production, (the combo yields are still yields right?), to your chosen civic.

I think there is one civic that already effects Culture(same kind of combo yield)?

 

[Nightinggale]

isn't this already doable with just a minor xml input?

That is precisely the point. Looking through the currently available options in civics I realized it's possible to make a civic like this. I know I usually propose coding all sorts of possibly wicked new stuff, but for once I actually came up with something which is rather easy to implement.

Imagine using such a new civic together with wage labour. Each unit would consume 4 units of food. Still if the bonuses are big enough, it could be worth it in some cases.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

ah ok, so you are proposing a system that adds +1 food, rather than redefining the amount of food to X (Is that how the system currently works?)

I guess I am just not used to you proposing a gameplay change rather than a 'structural' change!

 

[Nightinggale]

I just came up with an idea for a structural change.

In order to place yields in cargo slots, they have to be units and unitclasses in addition to the regular yield stuff. That is an awful lot of XML work. I started wondering if it could be done in a way, which would save XML modders a whole lot of time.

Looking at UnitInfo, more or less everything is default and the only thing, which can't be autogenerated is ProfessionMeshGroups (graphics). It's even better with UnitClass where everything can be autogenerated.

I propose moving ProfessionMeshGroups to YieldInfo and then in the post XML read function, it loops yields and generate a unit and unitclass for each cargo yield. That way all XML info regarding yields is in YieldInfo.xml and nowhere else.

 

[Nightinggale]

I want to tag the tickets we plan to solve before next release. However it brings up an interesting question: what will the version number be of next release?

 

[Nightinggale]

I looked into making the building placement debug code better. My plan was to enable all buildings if the debug placement code is active. However that didn't go according to plan

The city drawing code is already slow as it is in debug mode. Adding that it should examine all buildings seems to be a killer. I started thinking about it and then I came up with this:

What if we build a "tech tree" like screen for city buildings? If we build one for each city type and try to autogenerate placement based on dependencies, we could get a pretty decent info screen. It would be useful both for players and for modders to check how buildings ended up depending on each other.

While building the tech tree, or based on result, the city screen debug code can quickly draw all buildings when an XML modder is placing buildings.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Yeah, that would be good, platypedia has that for just about everything that could need it. Buildings, Units, Promotions, Improvements(I think).

It is really handy!

Especially when designing new stuff.

 

[Nightinggale]

Yeah, that would be good, platypedia has that for just about everything that could need it. Buildings, Units, Promotions, Improvements(I think).

I really need to remember his work. It's awesome and for once I might actually be able to make something brand new in M:C by copying something from him.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Yeah, it would possibly need some reworking, depending on how closely Col. code mimics prereqs and such from Civ, but why build when you can steal!

 

[Kailric]

That's a great idea and I bet it wouldn't be hard to implement. For display purposes changing out the types isn't hard at all really. That's what I had to do for the tech screens, covert the tech code in civ 4 to col civics.

 

[Nightinggale]

Ray modified RaR a moment ago:

1. I added TERRAIN_SAVANNAH wherever I found TERRAIN_GRASS
(It is more or less the same combat wise only with other Yields.)

2. I added FEATURE_FOREST_TUNDRA wherever I found FEATURE_FOREST.
(It is more or less the same combat wise only with other Yields.)

That gave me an idea. How about adding an XML telling terrain/feature "families"? We can then assign a unit to have bonus attack of whatever in all forests or whatever. On load, the DLL can then assign the bonus to each individual terrain/feature. This mean the regular code for finding combat strength will not have to be modified because CvTerrainInfo will still return the same data. It will just be an XML setup feature.

We might do something clever with the display as well, but I haven't figured that out yet. Perhaps something like making an array of group bonus, which it displays and then it loops though the individual terrains/features and displays those - the group data (which would often become 0 and not be displayed).

 

[Kailric]

Yeah, I like this. Its to much information when you have +25% Attack to Light Forest, Forest, Coniferous Forest, etc, plus any other bonuses... information overload. I've always wanted to consolidate those into a single +25% Any Forest Attack or whatever. This goes for Workers gaining bonuses to Clearing Any Forest as well (I may have added that with my "modderscode" attribute, not sure). Anyway, there are other areas I'm sure where attributes can be Consolidated to be more clear, clean, and concise.

 

[Kailric]

I recently captured an enemy city at the fringes of his empire. This city was a good ways away from his other cities but he had built up quite a bit of cultural borders around it. And so, after taking it I only had 1 plot to work with besides the city plot, which got me to wondering just how was he maintaining control of all of "my" other city plots. So, I started thinking about how borders are calculated and if any thing could be done to make it more fun and or realistic.

It seems to me that if I have units present and he doesn't I should be able to control those borders. So, perhaps that could be a rule, if you have a Military presence in times of war, you control the borders around captured cities. There could also be certain Administrative buildings or Civics that can do this automatically and you can put your units to work inside the city, or move them out for military actions elsewhere and you would not loose your borders. However, you would need to build up cultural influence quickly as in times of peace those borders could then revert back to their owner. And perhaps we could add a new Diplomacy option for Peace in that you can also put on the table to "Maintain Current Borders" and thus, the enemy looses all rights to his borders and they become yours.

Also, could there be changes to how borders are expanded? Could we have improvements, such as Watch Towers, that are built and when they have active military units present they exert a border influence. These military influenced borders could be shaded differently so that you can tell them apart so you know you must keep a military presence there to sustain the borders.

In times of peace, if both sides have a manned Watch Tower present then normal cultural calculations apply. In times of war, however, the borders are changed according to military presence. If I move a unit onto a plot that is controlled by an enemy Watch Tower, my unit gains control of that plot and I would keep control of it, even if it is unoccupied, until he sends out a unit to take that control back.

Anyway, that is my initial ideas on this subject

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Yes, the watch tower idea sounds very similar to how the modcomp 'Superforts' works for Civ.

We have this in FTTW, along with a couple of recent fixes to it for some ai CTD issues.

I wonder if we could make something like a 'pillage' button for culture borders in times of war, you can put a unit on a tile and 'stamp' your culture/control onto it, as though you are actively surpressing the population.

It could also be that it is lost again if that unit moves, so in order to actively control a hostile land you have maintain a presence in every location.

The treaty deal would be good too, so that at the end of the war you can take ownership of those captured lands.

 

[Nightinggale]

I started thinking about being able to conquer plots by moving into them, but realized it would cause tons of performance problems, not to mention that it would remove the strategic values of features, such as not being able to use roads in enemy plots.

One thing I wonder about owning plots. What is the benefit really? Sometimes there is a strategic importance because some other civ can be boxed in, but apart from that, once you have the plots around your cities, you really don't gain much by spreading borders. We need something great to do with plots you own, but no city can use.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

There are benefits. (At least I think there are)

For example being able to build strongholds to protect your borders, without having to take up city squares.

Also you have area denial, where people cannot build a town in a potential spot because you own it.

The thing from regular civ was bonus resource control, but we currently don't have that in col.