Fixed borders idea: uneven spreading of culture

[Afforess]

Hey -- sorry all, I have been busy.

@Afforess, I've attached what I've got to this thread; if you could take over from here, that would be awesome.

What still needs to be done
-- soft code / XML tags for the weights on various terrain and feature types (yes, you set up the groundwork for this, but I didn't quite understand how to get them integrated; spent some time trying to get this working and finally gave up)
-- some debugging with the rivers blocking culture spread; it seems to work sometimes, and then other times it just doesn't
-- consider tweaking the amount of culture a city puts down on a tile, as it's very difficult to hold a captured culture-level-established (or greater) city when revolutions are enabled

Anyway, the core algorithm is there, and the remaining tweaks should be relatively straightforward. I'm leaving this in the community's more than capable hands. I've had a bit of fun playtesting, but really haven't had a chance to program this in the last couple of weeks. The AI seems to do reasonably well with it, though it really should learn to use fixed borders to grab resources in its BFC before culture expands sufficiently.

Great, thanks, I've already merged it for 1.74. (Although, I might even be able to update it in 1.73 without breaking saves... I'll have to test that theory. I adjusted the XML weights with your changes, added a new tag for the Floodplains, so that the desert culture distance is negated. As for possible bugs, I see you caught the "pPlot == NULL" scenario, as I found out the hard way early in 1.73... I had to release a patch for that.

Initially, I wanted to add extra culture levels, but then the culture levels would be in games without Realistic Culture Spread enabled, which would be rather...bad. Other alternatives I have in mind is making the borders expand when you reach the half-way point of the culture level too... but that might take a lot of modifications.

Anyway, code attached. Anyone is free to use it with whatever mod they want; just give me a quick shoutout in the acknowledgments section

You've been in the credits list for some weeks now.

AND THUS THE FORCE OF AWESOME MODDER IS UNLEASHED!
.

That sounds like the opening line of a novel...

 

[os79]

That sounds like the opening line of a novel...

Ssh! I am about three quarters way through the novel. Don't spoil the release !

 

[Tomcat1962]

Are there any code changes/behaviour changes on uneven spreading after AND 1.73J?

I ask for one reason: The only minor flaw/ the only minor thing i would like to see that should be changed is, that there should be a noticeable spreading along roads, paved road, etc..

Beside of that, this feature (uneven spreading) combined along together with "fixed borders" and "larger cities" are in my personal view the most innovative ideas of the last year.

 

[civ01]

Love the AND mod! Wouldnt even play civ4 without it!

But a quick question: I started a game with realistic culture and played it for a couple of days now and it seems like this feature isnt really my cup of tea...gets kinda hard to get borders to spread out, soo..

Is there any way I can disable it so that the original culture rules would apply?

I tried to remove the Culture Spread folder and restart but seems like its still in effect in the game

I have RoM 2.92 / 1.74 AND (with patch B)

Ty!

 

[os79]

Love the AND mod! Wouldnt even play civ4 without it!

But a quick question: I started a game with realistic culture and played it for a couple of days now and it seems like this feature isnt really my cup of tea...gets kinda hard to get borders to spread out, soo..

Is there any way I can disable it so that the original culture rules would apply?

I tried to remove the Culture Spread folder and restart but seems like its still in effect in the game

I have RoM 2.92 / 1.74 AND (with patch B)

Ty!

If you are playing with 1.74, you SHOULD NOT had touched anything!

You should simply had not clicked on Custom Game option "Realistic Culture Spread". Or if it is clicked on, click it off.

 

[soup567]

If you are playing with 1.74, you SHOULD NOT had touched anything!

You should simply had not clicked on Custom Game option "Realistic Culture Spread". Or if it is clicked on, click it off.

Why, does it conflict or something?

 

[os79]

Why, does it conflict or something?

I meant that there is already a Custom Game option to turn off Realistic Cultural Spread. So you weren't supposed to touch the folder.

 

[soup567]

I meant that there is already a Custom Game option to turn off Realistic Cultural Spread. So you weren't supposed to touch the folder.

Oh, ok. So Realistic Cultural Spread still works fine in 1.74. Ok, I understand.

 

[civ01]

Well I moved the folder back so that i wont break anything, but yes theres the option when creating new game - was just asking is it possible to change this culture thing on a game that is already going.

 

[Afforess]

Not in-game, no. Changing some Gameoptions mid-game will cause strange things to happen...

 

[winthrowe]

Well I moved the folder back so that i wont break anything, but yes theres the option when creating new game - was just asking is it possible to change this culture thing on a game that is already going.

For most issues like this, you can go into worldbuilder and save it there; then you can start a new custom scenario and choose new options. some things like construction progress and such get wiped out, I think i've heard it will recalculate culture as part of this, which should do what you want.

 

[civ01]

Thank you for the replies! I'll try opening it in the worldbuilder as winthrowe suggested and see if it works out.

And if this does not work, I can always start new game of course, couple of days is nothing compared how much Im playing this game nowadays when i discovered this superb mod!

So much to learn heh, I havent even won a single game yet xD

 

[Killtech]

as an alternative to address the low borders spread rate i still advise to change the condition for spreading depend more on the tile FROM which the borders spread and less on the tile TO which they spread. more specifically this should be changed for forests and jungles. currently one is encouraged to cut forest outside of ones territory to boost borders expansion while removing forests/building improvements on your side of the borders doesn't help any bit. this contradicts the naming of 'realistic culture spread' and makes the reaching new culture level having no effect often enough.

to be more clear: forest on your side of the borders should delay culture spread while improved tiles along your borders should have the opposite effect (so culture spread from cottages & towns is similar to city culture expansion)

 

[Afforess]

as an alternative to address the low borders spread rate i still advise to change the condition for spreading depend more on the tile FROM which the borders spread and less on the tile TO which they spread. more specifically this should be changed for forests and jungles. currently one is encouraged to cut forest outside of ones territory to boost borders expansion while removing forests/building improvements on your side of the borders doesn't help any bit. this contradicts the naming of 'realistic culture spread' and makes the reaching new culture level having no effect often enough.

to be more clear: forest on your side of the borders should delay culture spread while improved tiles along your borders should have the opposite effect (so culture spread from cottages & towns is similar to city culture expansion)

Unfortuantly, I've tried that, and it doesn't work; it has really strange side-effects. Instead, I fixed it by simply adding 3 new culture levels between developing and Legendary, which only work with Realistic Culture Spread.

 

[Killtech]

Unfortuantly, I've tried that, and it doesn't work; it has really strange side-effects. Instead, I fixed it by simply adding 3 new culture levels between developing and Legendary, which only work with Realistic Culture Spread.

well, this is very unfortunate to hear. thx for trying anyway.