Final Fixes Reborn

Imho this thread should be closed and there should be a new one with Black_Imperator as thread opener where he can write down tutorial and FAQ. It´s not so easy to get this mod started and how to handle it (cache cleaning etc.) . I always had the problem that modules are listed twice and I had to delete one in game to avoid crashes, I don ´t know how I solved this but at least I ´ve done it and now the mod is working better.

@ Black_Imperator The more I advance in a game the more crashes occur, most games I can ´t finish because I got repeated crashes after my turn and the other units move. As it seems always to be in that cases the same error it must be unit related probably, do you ´ve any clue some units cause crashes?
For example unit X attacks worker (slave)= always automatic crash cause of bug ?

 

When you lose a unit to Domination, the notification says "Unit lost to Domination." I don't know how easy it is to program, but can we have the notification specify the unit, eg. "Champion/Longbowman/etc lost to Domination," like notifications about Combat results? In my current game I lost some units to Domination and had to search around to find which ones they were.

It's not really needed the other way, ie, when you capture a unit via Domination, since you know which of your units cast the spell and you can check the stack to see what you captured.

 

noted, that should be easy to do

 

Also, if you don't mind my asking, any idea what the ETA might be on the next SVN Update? I know we're all busy with real life, and besides, you're doing this voluntarily, so I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, just curious. Thanks.

 

I made great progress on it over the last month. I probably need a good two days of work to finalize stuff and do some more bug hunting. The only thing i'm not certain is when i can get those two days

 

No worries, I'm in the middle of an interesting game right now, so probably wouldn't update right away in any event.

 

I simply adore this mod, it's probably the most time i've ever spent on any 4x period!
I do have a couple of questions though, and since this seems the "current development" thread, i'll ask here, sorry in advance if this is not the place.

1) SVN version VS Official Release
When, in terms of date/year, has the latest Official version been released? I know SVN has a lot more features (and bugs), and i'd have no problems switching to SVN, unless the saves cannot be loaded each time there's even the slightest update. I also usually play with Locked Assets, so i'd like to know if with SVN i have to turn it off to avoid losing a save every day or so :V

2) Locked assets and "aesthetic modifications" only.
I like different colors for my civs (and different portraits too), but can i change the XML/jpgs without incuring in the Locked Assets block? Civ-Color-Picker,exe only shows me what colors are assigned to what faction, without allowing me to make changes. I also like to share my saves for challenges (and flexing i'll admit!), so that's why the solution would not be "disable locked assets": i want to prove i'm not cheating, while also doing a favour to my eyes and roleplay by using my favourite colors and portraits, but still allowing other to load my save (given the same game version of course)

3) What modules (both in release version and SVN) are the safest and most used ones?
Which ones mostly break the game (figuratevely and literally) and which ones are must haves? I know it's subjective, but i ask mainly from a "most-used" and "most stable" point of view rather than quality or personal preference.

I also have a couple "meta" questions, but then i seriously risk going off topic, so sorry in advance!

4) Any recent tier list? I know every civ can win at any difficulty, but which ones are (either in MP or SP) objectively OP or better than others? Which ones are the most challenging?

5) I love with all my undead imperial heart the Scions of Patria. Are they too powerful or are they balanced? Does the "+1 happiness per unit in city" basically remove the population cap on Scion cities as long as i create troops (or summon skeletons too?) I'll play them regardless, but i'd rather avoid cheesing my way to victory with OP stuff in challenge games, if it is even OP at all.
5.5)Also, since Fallow is an amazing trait, how can Infernals ensure a never-ending supply (or farm) of Manes? Any sure-way/set-up to enclose a city and just farm every troop that comes out?

6) Sidars: do they no longer have the Wane ability to make lots of great specialists? As you may have guessed i have an hard-on for immense cities of countless people and yelds.

Feel free to redirect me if these questions are out of place, and thanks for keeping this mod alive and updated: you have gifted me countless hours of fun, and many more to come i hope!

 

I won't pretend to answer all your questions, but here goes some.

With the SVN you can choose whether to update to the latest Revision, so can finish playing a game before deciding to update to a newer version. Not sure how that interacts with Locked Assets, since I don't play that way.

Several Modules are disabled by default, although that's not necessarily for stability reasons. I seem to remember that there was some problem with More Arcane, so I don't use that, and maybe Jotnar as well.

Anyway, my active modules are the following: Advanced Workers, Black Duke, Chislev Expansion, Dural, Dwarves, Emergent Leaders, Everchanging, Fortifications, Frozen, Hamstalfar, Lizard Art, MOM Bulidings, More Events, Noggormotha, PPQ Effects, PPQ Flavor, PPQ Navy, Scion Healthcare, and Werepyre.

I kind of miss the Sidar ability to Wane high-level units. I rarely did that myself, actually, since I prefer having high-level military units, but it gave you interesting choices and made them distinctive.

One way to deal with SVN instability, whether caused by one or more modules or not, is to change the autosave interval to every turn instead of every four turns, as discussed here https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/where-to-change-auto-save-interval.400303/, particularly in the second post of the thread Where to change auto save interval?. It's not an issue in the early game, of course, when each turn is really short, but in the late game, when each turn can take several minutes, having a crash and having to reload an autosave from three or four turns ago and replay all of that is really annoying. I recently changed the autosave interval to one turn and it's been great.

 

1) There's a few year of difference between the svn and official. Updates do usually break save games, but you don't have to update to latest svn if you don't want to. You can install current svn, play your game, and when it's done, check if there's an update

I must admit i have no idea how Locked assets work, so i cannot really help with that one

all modules currently in svn should be relatively stable. here's a quick description of what they do :
Dural, Frozen and Hamstalfar are new civs.
MoreEvents does what it tells, PPQ_flavor adds new unit artworks,
BlackDuke the black duke event and unit.
As for the ones disabled by default, adv_workers buffs khazad and luchuirp workers,
Chislev is the Chislev overhaul by Alsark,
Dwarves revamps the dwarven arcane line,
EmergentLeaders adds 4 leaders,
everchanging adds a weird world unit,
fortifications buffs fortresses and makes some world improvements capturable as forts,
Jotnar is a giant civ, lizard-art is cosmetic, loyalcorrupt is cosmetic (changes Good Evil to Loyal-Corrupt),
mom-buildings adds 2 new buildings,
more-arcane adds mounted adepts,
MPL is a test module ( don't activate it),
noggormotha adds a weird unit,
scion-healthcare revamps scion health buildings, silvercircle is a wonder and werepyre addresses vampire werewolves

They're not particularly OP, particularly till they are a bit dispersed (Good civs are civs that tend to focus on specific boosts, the scions have a bit too much going on everywhere to be really efficient).

 

Thank you for the very accurate answers, i really appreciate it!

I see, i guess i'll wait for the incoming SVN update and then conver to the beta version, since i've seen that updates are not so frequent (like once or twice a year), so i should be good for a good time.
I'll change my auto-save interval just in case, better to have each turn recorder after all! Thanks also for the modules suggestion, it'll be useful for when i download the SVN version.

As in 4+ years or just a year or so? Anyway i'm tempted to switch over for the lots of new content added, but again, stability and game balance are kinda important to me, so if the new stuff is still in dire need of balancing i'll consider it once the new update comes along.
I'll try and see for myself if changing portraits (but keeping the same filename) does anything that locks me out, where can i find the jpgs of leader portraits? Any way to change civ color without changing the XML file? (aka keeping the XML intact but using something to still change civ colors?)
Thanks for the description of the modules, glad to know they are stable, i was worried they'd crash and freeze the game 100+ turns or so in the game.

Thanks again for the answers, you guys rock! Any answers about the "meta" questions anyway? (especially the fallow and infernal stuff?)

 

Oh btw, i managed to change portraits, and as i suspected (and hoped!) it doesn't affect the Locked Assets setting, since it's only cosmetic and not XML-edit based. Now if only i could do the same but for civ colors... Where are the colors for each civ stored? I can't edit the XML and change it from there or it'll incur in the locked assets limitation, but i could just find where the civ color is stored, change it and then leave the color_name as is.

 

I just checked the SVN logs and the earliest Revision that shows up is from June 10, 2016, so it's been at least four years now.

I've never played as the Infernals, so can't help you there.

I don't think the Scions are necessarily overpowered. With the Awakened spawning they have a bit of an advantage in the early game in being able to settle new cities and expand, but of course those cities don't grow on their own and therefore aren't productive right away. The only place I see "+1 happiness per unit stationed in city" is with the Social Order civic, which requires the Order as your state religion, but he Scions can't adopt a state religion, so that doesn't come into play.

 

I was going to turn some more of these modules on as I haven't used them before, but I'm seeing conflicts with Hamstalfar & the PPQ modules. Is this expected behavior?

 

yeah, the module manager is a bit too sensitive on a number of conflicts. So any conflicts detected between current modules is not a real one.

 

Yeah, I ´m missing the ability too, Sidars were my fav. civ in Fall from heaven, but they removed their ability as many seen them as too strong. Nowadays as other civs got some love, it would not make them overpowered though imho and getting lvl. 6 units is not that easy too and you might need the better units for conflicts and not as great ppl.

 

Excellent, thanks.

 

For those interested, this thread https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/derfs-ashes-modules.523100/ has information about several of the modules.

 

PPQ here. The conflict is benign and has to do with the fact that both the Hamstalfar and my own module add art to the Hamstalfar civilization. So the mod manager detects two modules trying to edit the same civ and goes "Hey. I don't know what these two are doing but they are touching the same thing. Be warned." You'll see the same sort of conflict with the other modules that add civs once I get to doing art for those. It's fundamentally not an issue unless I screw something up on my end.

 

Does the Triforce promotion take away the three Shards? (It's been a while since I had a unit accomplish that, so sorry to be asking.) If so, it strikes me as a letdown, as you're losing quite some nice bonuses in exchange for a somewhat modest benefit. Might be better to make the bonuses cumulative, ie, you get the bonus form the Triforce promotion in addition to the three Shard benefits.

 

I confirm that you lose all 3 shards... and get a sub-par item (it's a good item but it's less strong than the sum of the 3 shards... and even if as strong, the ability to split the shards to different dedicated units is in itself a bonus.).
I'd agree with getting "something" with the Triforce ; either stronger, or a special ability...