FlavourMod 2

[Verdian]

If I understand the starting plot selection correctly, you two complainers are not fair to FlavourMod.

What happens after map creation is that the BEST spots are selected as starting plots - and only then they are distributed according to flavour considerations.

I understand how it works, and I do appreciate the changes. But even if my city does not start in swamps, the fact that it is surrounded by them still hurts when it comes time to expand. Either I build a city in swamps and it suffers, or I build a city farther away than I normally would and my economy suffers.

Honestly, my problem is not with flavour mod so much as I wish there was a tech to get rid of swamps. But as there is not, I think factors that include swamps should be handled carefully, and not just added because it fits the lore.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

or, just add a way to get rid of swamps

 

[Jean Elcard]

about the avoid unhappy/unhealthy buttons, I guess you could make them an option or add an option in the .ini file to disable them for multiplayer?

Disabling them for MP games should be easy enough. Only till the bug is solved that is.

about marshes: ... another would be to have scorch able to terraform them, like in FF. however, in FF scorch turns them to plains, I think grassland would be more appropriate. and while I'm at it, I might also mention that imho scorch should also be able to turn tundra into grassland

Marsh to grassland via scorch sounds nice, but I think to be able to terraform tundra to grass would be a bit über for a low level spell like this. I can already see the hilly grassland all over the world again, which was the common end result in Civ2 or Civ3 (can't remember which one).

A second non-magical way to improve it could be give workers the ability to build drainage at a certain tech. Any ideas which one would fit best?

A shame, nobody seems to like marshes. How about giving the Orcs and Sidar for example the ability to thrive better in marshes with one more food from marshes as a civ trait (like the Illians get for snow)? This way you would see some marsh later in the game too.

That's my only problem with Flavourmod. It was really cool when the changes were coming together, but the more that negative things are around some, and positive around others, it really unbalances the game.

Like Gekko said and explained in detail: That used to be true in the past. I put quite some effort into balancing out the starting areas without destroying their flavour lately.

What happens after map creation is that the BEST spots are selected as starting plots - and only then they are distributed according to flavour considerations.

The first part of this is not entirely true. FlavourMod takes the starting location it gets from the underlying map script. You may ask: Why don't I generate my own starting locations? The answer is easy: I assume the maker of the map script put some thought into where to put the sart locations. To get a new world and stuff like this. I don't want to nullify this work.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I don't think giving Sidar and orcs better yields from marshes is a good idea, since it doesn't really fit them. however, marshes shouldn't be too crippling. if you add some marshes on grassland riversides ( no jungles involved ) , the situation should be: orcs like to start near jungle, but get no unhealthiness from it. Sidar like to start near marshes, but NOT near jungles ( giving them a liking for marshes and a dislike for jungles should achieve this easily I guess ) . so basically they will get grassland+riverside starts, and some marshes there will only make it not a uber start, definitely not a bad one. they will also get the "misty" feeling back that way

then you could have two ways to get rid of the penalty:

1) scorch
2) a tech that gives +1 food to marshes making them equals to grasslands. Sanitation sounds like a good one.

about tundra, well I don't think scorching them to grassland would be overpowered. you would get +1food, which is the same you get from scorching ice to tundra or marshes to grasslands. spring is lvl1 too, and it gives 1food AND 1 hammer. when you compare it to the terraforming that's already possible, it actually seems unfair that tundra are the only ones that can't be improved imho

and well, of course nobody likes marshes. just like nobody likes desert, tundra or ice

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

some other suggestions:

if you want to give improved yields to the clan, I think removing the -1food from jungles for them could be nice. 2f/0h/0c tiles are useless anyway, so this will only have an effect on tiles with resources. nothing gamebreaking.

the doviello otoh could get +1food from tundra and maybe ice, since they seem like they're hardy enough to scavenge food even in colder areas, and it fits them nicely.

seeing how good the "food balancing" function works, maybe "commerce balancing" and "hammer balancing" could be added? this would help avoid situations where one player has a huge advantage due to having the luck to start near the remnants of patria or other uber unique features, or starting next to lots of gold ( having a huge tech rate in the very beginning is POWERFUL ) , make sure that plains are not considered equals to marshes or tundra when evaluating starting spots, and even help with those rare starts where you are very production poor ( which only happens in certain mapscripts and not in others, but still.. )

last but not least, would it be possible to have the "food balancing" ( and possible other balancings ) make sure that it does not breake the rule of "resource isolation" on different continents on perfectworld? you know, how one continent has wheat and pigs and another has different sets of resources to encourage trade: sometimes food balancing breaks the rule by placing cows on a continent that's supposed to have only pigs for example. actually I think this rule is not limited to food resources in perfectworld, so this should be taken into account if you do decide to add "food/commerce balancing" .

so far so good. can't wait to see the avoid unhappy/unhealthy buttons outside of FF. thank you

 

[Seven05]

I think the problem you'll run into doing that for too many civs is that you only end up give them an advantage that can't be leveraged by other civs. What would be better, but far more than merely 'flavour' would be to change all of the terrain values based on civ traits instead of just boosting them. So, using the Illians as an example, they would get 2 from snow/ice and 1 1 from tundra, 1 from grassland and 1 from plains. That way they wouldn't just be better due to their bonus in snow/tundra they would just be the opposite of most other civs. As it stands right now the Illians not only function in terrain that nobody else can but they can also function the same in all other terrain as everybody else so really, there is little incentive for them to build temples of the hand in every city which is unfortunate as the game has a cool feel to it when you litteraly turn the world into a frozen wasteland.

 

[Jean Elcard]

Just a small note: A slightly improved version of the growth control buttons is scheduled for the next version. this time I even tried to mark it in a way, that other modders can copy the necessary code easily .

 

[Valkrionn]

Just a small note: A slightly improved version of the growth control buttons is scheduled for the next version. this time I even tried to mark it in a way, that other modders can copy the necessary code easily .

You are amazing.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that's great news

 

[notque]

I'll be interested in seeing the growth control stuff. I have all the code in, but if you select the city with no popup, 2 buttons are blanked out from the bottom button scheme. If you open the city up, the 2 buttons are back, but I see no growth control buttons. Will be interesting to see it when you release it to see what i've missed.

 

[Jean Elcard]

@notque: Interesting. Since you've told me that you did copy all three FF changes from CvMainInterface already, let me ask you something else: Did you add the file CvEmpasizeInfos.xml and the corresponding changes in its schema xml file?

 

[notque]

@notque: Interesting. Since you've told me that you did copy all three FF changes from CvMainInterface already, let me ask you something else: Did you add the file CvEmpasizeInfos.xml and the corresponding changes in its schema xml file?

No....

I looked through all the XML's and didn't think I needed them, but that sure is an obvious name I should have caught. I'll try that!

 

[notque]

Working great now!

Do the AI automatically use them? Do they use them if they are vampires and want to go over the cap? Is it time to merge Flavourmod into my mod. (yes!)

 

[Jean Elcard]

Finished another promised feature today. Here is a screeny:

Only the entry marked with an arrow will make it into the mod. The other three entries are just there to demonstrate, that this new civ property is flexible. I could be applied easily to the Malakim as well for example. What do you think?

@notque: Nice, that it is working for you now. You should take another look at the code after the release of the next FlavourMod version, though. There are some small changes.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I think the problem you'll run into doing that for too many civs is that you only end up give them an advantage that can't be leveraged by other civs. What would be better, but far more than merely 'flavour' would be to change all of the terrain values based on civ traits instead of just boosting them. So, using the Illians as an example, they would get 2 from snow/ice and 1 1 from tundra, 1 from grassland and 1 from plains. That way they wouldn't just be better due to their bonus in snow/tundra they would just be the opposite of most other civs. As it stands right now the Illians not only function in terrain that nobody else can but they can also function the same in all other terrain as everybody else so really, there is little incentive for them to build temples of the hand in every city which is unfortunate as the game has a cool feel to it when you litteraly turn the world into a frozen wasteland.

this is a great idea, a system like that would be wonderful. for example, Doviello could get 2food from tundra and 1food1hammer from ice, making them like to have the Illians around freezing the world, which would be pretty flavourful

@Jean: nice job on the new feature

 

[xienwolf]

As long as you are adding some info to the CivInfos tooltip, you should look at bringing the enhanced Dawn of Man and CivInfos bits out of FF for people to use with FlavourModded FfH too I still find the "Clan of Embers Palace - (Bannor Palace)" so amusing

 

[Jean Elcard]

Would it be possible to have the "food balancing" ... make sure that it does not break the rule of "resource isolation" on different continents on perfectworld?

Done, and not only for PerfectWorld. This was actually only a one-liner.

Seeing how good the "food balancing" function works, maybe "commerce balancing" and "hammer balancing" could be added?

Worth considering, but it bears the danger of putting lots of metal around hammer-free cities, because there is not much else you could put there to increase the production value (aside from forest). Commerce should be easier.

... you should look at bringing the enhanced Dawn of Man and CivInfos bits out of FF ...

Good idea. Will do so. And btw, it would be cool to have the civilization info widget available more readily. It is really difficult to find in the pedia. Unfortunately the flag mouseover only shows the traits, but not the Hero, unique units ...

@Terrain Yields based on Civilization (Seven05)

I don't know, this change would be pretty severe and would change the game play completely. However it's an interesting idea. Maybe someone else, who wants to give modding a shot would like to try this out. If it proves to be a working well, I'll consider it again for an integration into FlavourMod, but for now I'll stay away from it.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Could this base FFH's issue get fixed by FlavourMod?

"3. Pearls as set as <bNormalize> which allows them to be used to enhance poor starting locations, and thus means the locations REMAIN poor for all but 1/21 civs (Seven05 - Post 335)"

it also affects Patrian Artifacts in FF/Orbis.

 

[Jean Elcard]

Version 2.7.0 changelog:

• Added Civ Strategy Texts to Dawn of Man Screen (Fall Further)
• Added Civ Plot Yield and Unhealth Changes to Dawn of Man and Pedia
• Added Civ Info like Hero, World Spell etc to the Flag Mouseover help
• Added Growth Control Buttons for avoiding unhappiness and unhealth
• Marsh can appear in all moist areas (not only in jungle)
• Marsh gains a 25% defense modifier
• Forest may also spread to Marsh Terrain
• Made the Dawn of Man Screen a little bit bigger
• Lanun: moved +1 Food from Coast and Ocean from palace to them as a civ
• Illians: changed +2 Food from Ice to +1 Food and +1 Production
• Illians: +1 Food from Tundra, -1 Food from Grass, -1 Food and -1 procuction from Plains
• Ljosalfar and Svartalfar: -1 Food from Farms
• Clan of Embers: No Unhealth from Jungle
• Malakim: Only -0.20 Unhealth from each Flood Plain near a city
• Malakim: +0.50 Health from each Oasis near a city
• Scorch allows Ice -> Tundra -> Marsh -> Grass -> Plains -> Desert
• Scorch may set burnable features at fire and spawn barbarian "annoyances"
• Scorching Plains to Desert doesn't result in Flood Plains immdiately
• Scorching Plains to Desert may lead to an Oasis (good luck!)
• Food balancing tries not to break intercontinental trade groups
• AI considers civ specific unhealth, terrain and improvement yield changes
• Pearls no longer allowed for the normalization of starting locations
• Updated lonker173's MountainCoast map script to v1.0.1a

Download link in the first post. Feel also free to take a look at the attached screen shots at the end of this post.

As you can see, there are some pretty big changes in 2.7.0. Especially the Illian changes are very experimental. I really would like some feedback on this. Thanks for Seven05 for suggesting this change. In the end I couldn't resist to give it a try. The Scorch changes are a result of constant code exchange between me and Valkrionn. So you have to thank him for the changes too, if you should like them. I also tried my best to inform the AI about all the Yield changes. I hope it works.

For the modders out there: The new Tags for civ specific Terrain and Improvement Yield Changes and civ specific Health/Unhealth from Features you'll find in CIV4CivilizationInfos.XML. Here is an example from the Malakim entry:

Spoiler :

            <FeatureHealthPercentChanges>
                <FeatureHealthPercentChange>
                    <FeatureType>FEATURE_OASIS</FeatureType>
                    <iHealtPercentChange>50</iHealtPercentChange>
                </FeatureHealthPercentChange>
                <FeatureHealthPercentChange>
                    <FeatureType>FEATURE_FLOOD_PLAINS</FeatureType>
                    <iHealtPercentChange>20</iHealtPercentChange>
                </FeatureHealthPercentChange>
            </FeatureHealthPercentChanges>
            <TerrainYieldChanges>
                <TerrainYieldChange>
                    <TerrainType>TERRAIN_DESERT</TerrainType>
                    <TerrainYields>
                        <iYield>0</iYield>
                        <iYield>0</iYield>
                        <iYield>1</iYield>
                    </TerrainYields>
                </TerrainYieldChange>
            </TerrainYieldChanges>

I hope I didn't forget to tag one of the necessary modifications in the dll source code and the XML (schema) files. Look for these lines (except in CvInfos, where I didn't add them):

//FlavourMod: ... (Civilization Feature Health Percent Changes)
//FlavourMod: ... (Civilization Improvement Yield Changes)
//FlavourMod: ... (Civilization Terrain Yield Changes)

If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to ask.

EDIT: I know the growth control buttons are still sometimes failing. If you get a save game where I can reproduce this bug easily with this version of FlavourMod, please please give it to me. I would really like to fix this bug and the easiest way to do this is with the help of a debug dll of my own source code.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

totally awesome! the only change I disagree with is the nerf to farms for elves, since it means they have less choice in improvements now ( cottage all the way instead of having the choice to choose aristocracy and spamming farms for a hybrid SE/FE )

a bonus to tundra for the doviello would be nice as well