Final Fixes Reborn

[black_imperator]

Hey, I'd like to know what triggers the Kahdi event for the Amurites (if that even exists anymore.) That and if there's a playable version of the Jotnar in this build.

In the svn build, the Kahd event has a 1 in 3 chance to trigger as soon as you hit sorcery if you have at least two cities.
There is a functional Jotnar module in the build as well. I have further plans to tweak the jotnar, but I haven't started to work on them yet.

I discovered what seems to be setting my Calabim Emergent trait counter back: when a werewolf converts an enemy into a ravenous werewolf it adds a large amount to the required count for the next level.

Thanks for that report, that was helpful, it'll be fixed next commit.

( For more details, the Dominant trait gains points when you get the Crown of Command promotion and loses points when you lose it. The werewolf code was written such that all promotions are removed from the unit unless the pre-converted one had it, meaning that the game was removing promotions the unit didn't have, and in particular, the Crown of Command one).

I just finished my first AoE game. The game was big fun and full of civ-specific flavor.
Can I post some bug reports and questions though I played the 'official' release 14.11 version?
(I tried svn r301 indeed but the game always crashed at the very first turn when I click the 'end turn' button. Sometimes crash occured while initializing a new game. (I'm using CIV4 DVD Version and windows 7 system.)

1. I played as Illians but never have found any blizzard at all throughout the entire game before and after completing The Deepening.
The ritual just made terrains cool. I hope this was fixed in the later versions.

2. I was at war against all civs(except my vassal Amurites) after completing The Draw.
Later when I completed Auric Ascension, Doviello was forced to become my vassal(I guess it's because their state religion was White Hand) but they were still at war against me.
Foreign Adviser showed that they're my vassal though we're still actually fighting and scoreboard showed the red letter WAR. I hope this was fixed too. (I solved this situation by Worldbuilder.)

3. Mulyafar priestess could climb volcanoes but not peaks. Is it their feature or a bug? Pedia tells they can move through impassable terrains.

4. Priests of Hand can summon Frostlings infinitely. Need some limitation here, I guess.(to the same number of the military units that the civ owns? or something else?)

Now I'm uninstalling BTS and going to reinstall it to re-try the latest svn of AoE on clean-intall of BTS.
It's a great mod anyway. Thank you for your efforts and creativity.

Reinstalling of BTS worked. A new game started normally and end-turn clicking caused no crash.

I'll check the various reports on the svn build. Nice to know you managed to make it work.





General remarks : i've now managed to get a workable computer so i'm back on track. Most of the work i'll be doing the next few months will be to track and debug the large unstability issues we've been having, along with balancing the existing stuff.

Yet i would still like to continue discussing what comes next, and bring back the dev diaries i started last year. You can find former dev diaries and the categories you can vote for to determine what the next one will be at this link : https://docs.google.com/document/d/14P90zYvnsodp-PLfRDmAehvX--nuhGV6yhKZMUxy9NI/edit

 

[Cyrus317]

Hoping someone can help me, knowing from the get-go that I have no coding experience so I might not really know what I'm looking for.

Been playing an older version of AoE (thanks to all who have made this a great mod to play) that I installed years ago on a machine running Windows 7. Recently had to upgrade to a new machine, which is, unfortunately, running Windows 10. I know Windows 10 had some issues with Civ 4, but I bought a new copy of Civ 4 Complete with the latest patches and the game seems stable and playable.

AoE, on the other hand, doesn't. Attempts to use the AoE launcher do nothing (no processes seem to be running in the background, that I can tell). Attempts to load the mod via the in-game Mod Load menu just kick me out of Civ 4 altogether, also with no background processes or error messages. Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong?

I'm using the 14.11 files found here
I followed the instructions and unzipped all files into my BtS Mods folder.
I do NOT currently have any version of FFH, FF, or any other related mods installed. Didn't this use to be a requirement?

 

[black_imperator]

when you open the Ashes of Erebus folder that is in Mods, what do you see ?

 

[Cyrus317]

when you open the Ashes of Erebus folder that is in Mods, what do you see ?

To be clear, I downloaded the 7zip file and dragged the entire AoE folder from 7zip into the BtS > Mods (folder).

04/28/2014 11:09 AM AoELauncher.exe
03/28/2012 06:07 PM Ashes of Erebus Options.ini
08/11/2013 11:30 AM Ashes of Erebus.ini
08/11/2013 11:30 AM Ashes of Erebus.ini.bak
01/02/2018 10:09 AM <DIR> Assets
03/28/2012 06:07 PM CivColorPicker.exe
03/28/2012 06:07 PM CivDisabler.exe
03/28/2012 06:07 PM PediaReader.exe
01/02/2018 10:09 AM <DIR> PrivateMaps
01/02/2018 10:09 AM <DIR> README
01/02/2018 10:09 AM <DIR> Resource
03/28/2012 06:07 PM SchemaUpdater.exe
01/02/2018 10:09 AM <DIR> UnsupportedMaps
03/28/2012 06:07 PM Valkrionn.ico
11/13/2014 06:38 PM 5 version.txt

Nothing should be missing from the Install, as far as I can tell. However, as I stated in the previous post, I have NO FILES installed from any builds of FFH2 or any associated ModMods.

 

[black_imperator]

No older install should be necessary. To be clear, you have the following path for the Assets directory : Beyond the Sword/Mods/Ashes of Erebus/Assets ?

 

[Cyrus317]

Stop the presses and bear with me. I originally stated that there was NO ERROR when I opened up AoE via the launcher. Again, I'm new to Windows 10. There is no window that pops up with an error code, but I'm noticing that a Windows Error Reporter briefly pops up in my information pane (lower right hand corner) and quickly disappears (within a second). Sorry, I would have started with this info, had I caught it the first time:

Source
Sid Meier's Civilization 4 : Beyond The Sword
Summary
Stopped working
Date
‎1/‎3/‎2018 1:31 PM
Status
Report sent
Description
Faulting Application Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe
Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Civ4BeyondSword.exe
Application Version: 3.1.3.1
Application Timestamp: 48317e8a
Fault Module Name: CvGameCoreDLL.dll
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 5463ba37
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0007a200
OS Version: 10.0.16299.2.0.0.768.101
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 3bf1
Additional Information 2: 3bf1fa32aebfdb7bf566cccc50e55572
Additional Information 3: a95c
Additional Information 4: a95c6ea8c966488bc27fbf4a951f28a0
Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 3b46475b82ceae689a663ea4807892b3 (73718449131)

 

[black_imperator]

hmmm not sure what's happening, usually people with that error put the folders one step too deep ( Beyond the Sword/Mods/AoE/Ashes of Erebus/Assets instead of Beyond the Sword/Mods/Ashes of Erebus/Assets) What does BtS show when you look at the list of mods ?

 

[Jerrian]

Dunno if it is already known, or important for further fixing of bugs. But it helps me a lot to play AOE when I delete the files in BTS/cache each time before playing. The game is running much more stable and I ´m not having any issues with python anymore and only one crash to desktop. Nice to have you back around Black Imperator .

 

[black_imperator]

well, i was considering adding that to the launcher by default. Seems to be one more reason to do so ^^

 

[Mknn]

Glad to hear you are back, Black_Imperator. If you need more examples of the python stuff, LMK. But I suspect you have all of them you need.

Unrelated, I would submit that the influence-by-battle mechanic is overpowered by quite a bit. By the time I conquer a city, it is usually 90%+ my culture because of it. I think that the struggle to retain conquered cities is a great mechanic, and a realistic one as well. I love the idea of battles leading to culture gains--it supports all sorts of narrative/myth making--but it should be either really nerfed or not apply to culture in conquered cities (making it more a tile acquisition thing), or something.

Thoughts?

 

[legionof1]

well aside from combat influencing culture requiring mid game tech(as general requirement there are exceptions), most empires are generally sufficiently strong in culture that nearby cites do achieve the push back necessary for the concept to function. IF the war ends soon after the capture of the outlying cities.

However it is rare that a war is not persecuted to total victory by the player, removing any possibility of culture flip unless there is a super powerful third party source. Cites influence while strong has a very limited range of effect. Generally only affecting the next city over.

The only times I've ever felt culture flip ever mattered was when dealing with Kazad and there piles of dwarf forts(high tier forts are harder to handle then cities and 2-3 in range of every city), or a human Balserheph player culture bombing with loki in multiplayer.

If anything i wish the culture system had more teeth. Mostly in the range of effect from cities.

 

[Mknn]

Yeah, that's not my experience with it. Instead, like I said, by the time a city is conquered, there is virtually no culture left from the conquered civ.

I think we may be agreeing on one solve: make the culture effects of cities more powerful, including them being exceptions to the culture by battle mechanic.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Sounds to me that there are two camps here. Those that keep "City flipping after conquest" on who would like it to actually happen and those that keep it off who love the culture thing because it lets us not have to spend ages fighting with over foreign culture.

Honestly it sounds to me that the best solution for this would just be to have that very feature also add a fixed cap on the amount of culture you can get via fighting, like say 50%.

 

[Nor'easter]

I've said before that I like Influence Driven War (allowing battles to affect borders), since it seems to make sense: you win a battle, you gain territory. So I wouldn't be in favor of too severe a nerf.

Having said, that, maybe placing a general 50% cap, as suggested by @PPQ_Purple , would work. Or something along the lines of what @Mknn suggested, limiting the effect on cities. I don't agree with exempting cities completely from this effect, since there are plenty of examples throughout history of conquered cities being quickly pacified and remaining conquered with no serious popular resistance (eg, the fall of Rome in 476, the conquest of Constantinople in 1453), so maybe some limit, less than the limit for non-city tiles, so 50% in general, 35% for city tiles?

 

[Nor'easter]

Also, for those interested here's the original Influence Driven War thread. I don't know to what extent the specific formulas have changed over the years and by the time it made into Ashes, but there's some interesting stuff in there.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sdk-modcomp-influence-driven-war.188007/

 

[Gattamelata]

I've been playing as Naxos and testing out the Necromancer Emergent Trait. Here's what I've observed:

1) It's much, much easier to advance this trait than the Calabim Dominant trait. That trait was advanced by choosing promotions (Mind and Commanding), which is limited by your unit production, and by dominating defeated units, which is limited by victories and RNG. This trait is advanced (I think) by acquiring Death Mana (seemed to be 100 points?), I speculate by choosing Death promotions, and I know by summoning Death units. The last bit is what makes it easy to advance the counter: If you find a fortress, Amurite fortress commanders are mages with Chanelling II. Make their first two promotions Death, and they can be set to autosummon spectres each turn for 5 Necromancer XP per turn per fort. Easy peasy. This is doable later on with mages, too, but they're at least gated by research and the need to get an Apprentice up to 10 XP.

2) The first two trait levels mostly seem to work as advertised, except that skeletons and Spectres seem not to receive the Implacable promotion promised by the tooltip on Necromancer level 2.

3) I was surprised that undead don't get 1 death affinity at Necromancy 3 to reward piling up Death nodes. There doesn't seem to be a reward for going beyond Death 4 outside of the Necromancer XP gains. There are probably excellent reasons, I'm just mentioning that the design surprised me by not having specialization incentives, not that I think it's wrong.

Other issues I'm noticing in 3.02:

1) My Amurite scout got to Foxford and got the werewolf promotion. He has been in many combats, become a Greater Werewolf, but has not once managed to create a Ravenous Werewolf. I'm wondering if something's wrong with werewolf conversion.

2) I have a problem where diplomacy screen text doesn't appear, so I can't choose anything. I usually don't care for AI suggestions, so I just esc out.

 

[Hunter Johnson]

I recently switched to the SVN build, and I've been having a few issues (they might have been dealt with upthread somewhere, but I haven't been able to look through the whole thing):

1) Has anyone else been having trouble with missing assets? Notably the mana icons and happiness icons in text.

Spoiler :

2) Several of the default modules are indicated as conflicting with each other, is this supposed to happen?

3) Somehow I have ended up with multiple instances of some modules (it might be something to do with removing a different module and then running an SVN update)

Spoiler :

4) Several module handling issues:

Spoiler :

a)

b)

 

[PPQ_Purple]

2) Several of the default modules are indicated as conflicting with each other, is this supposed to happen?

I can't speak for the others but my module does clash with the Hamstarflar technically. They both edit the elf art style. But they don't actually clash so you can ignore that error.

Spoiler :

a) View attachment 484698

That error is very clear if you read it. The whole folder structure and all its component names are just too long. Windows only allows the whole thing to go up to 248.

And honestly I feel that the whole module management system is to blame as it introduces two new layers of folders with long names. The whole modules/normalmodules/ thing adds over 20 characters.

Spoiler :

b) View attachment 484701

Access denied usually means you are not running the launcher as admin. Post XP windows versions are really anal about letting you touch anything in C/program files/ if you don't.

 

[Hunter Johnson]

That makes sense. Renaming fixed both the file length (PPQ) and the access issue (BCC).

I figured the length one was worth noting mainly because it might be good to shorten some of the names of the intermediate folder layers to avoid other modules having the same issue.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

That makes sense. Renaming fixed both the file length (PPQ) and the access issue (BCC)

It did not fix things. It just made one set of errors go away. Renaming anything in the module structure is going to break all the modules. As in the XML won't work.

We basically need the dev to edit the mod it self to shorten up the folder structure a bit. But even than you'll only get 14 extra characters to play with. So BannorChainOfCommand is still going to be way too long.