Fog of War and Visibility

[Supergold]

First, let me say: "HI! I'm new to both this site and modding, so please bear with me."

After I acquired the Satellites technology, I noticed that while the clouds disappeared (what the in-game Pedia calls the "fog of war"), the newly revealed tiles were still grayed out as further proven by not seeing any of the troops/workers near the cities of other civilizations. This made me as I was disappointed that the power to send my XCOM Squads 40 tiles away was rendered useless.

So, the Pedia says there are 3 levels of visibility: the "fog of war" clouds, the graying out, and "visible" from line of sight. What I want is for the Satellites tech to make *all* tiles set to "visible" instead of merely clearing the clouds.

How do I do that?

I know of the direct root folders for technologies:

...Steamapps\common\...Civilization V\Assets\Gameplay\XML\Technologies\CIV5Tecnologies.XML

as well as the expansion Brave New World location:

...DLC\Expansion2\Gameplay\XML\Technologies\CIV5Technologies.XML

(And the website puts in unwarranted spaces with the file location directories, such as "Te chnologies.XML" which I find annoying, but that's a minor point in comparison!)

In these files, the code says:

"
<Row>
<Type>TECH_SATELLITES</Type>
<Cost>7700</Cost>
<Description>TXT_KEY_TECH_SATELLITES_TITLE</Description>
<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_TECH_SATELLITES_DESC</Civilopedia>
<Help>TXT_KEY_TECH_SATELLITES_HELP</Help>
<Era>ERA_FUTURE</Era>
<MapVisible>true</MapVisible>
<Trade>true</Trade>
<GridX>15</GridX>
<GridY>5</GridY>
<Quote>TXT_KEY_TECH_SATELLITES_QUOTE</Quote>
<PortraitIndex>2</PortraitIndex>
<IconAtlas>TECH_ATLAS_2</IconAtlas>
<AudioIntro>AS2D_TECH_SATELLITES</AudioIntro>
<AudioIntroHeader>AS2D_HEADING_TECH_SATELLITES</AudioIntroHeader>
</Row>

"

Somehow, with this criteria, only the clouds are lifted but I can not see what everybody else is doing on the other side of the map. It reveals city locations, but I can't send my bombers at them even if they are within 10 tiles away from my city. This means this does not set all the tiles to "visible".

How do I change that?

What I *CAN* deduce from this code are super simple things, such as if I tweak the "cost" variable, I can make researching it faster or slower. I also know that "TXT_KEY_TECH_SATELLITES_TITLE" in the Satellites code block is telling this to refer to wherever this description is, but I need to know: where is this text variable defined that it is looking for? Where does the file know to pull this information from? And how does this magic happen?

So, if it is possible for a modding guru to give me a bonus tutoring and/or mentoring on how these things work and how the codes define things, that would be very nice. I know only beginner stuff: like what an integer is, what a boolean means, how to change strings or "adjust" a couple stats when those stats are clear.

In addition, at around the beginning of these files among the top, I see some purple and red lines of code (coloring may be different for you, as I'm reading this from Notepad++), one of which says:

"
<Column name="MapVisible" type="boolean" default="false"/>
"

Somehow, this allows the Satellites tech to change this defining variable "MapVisible" from false to true. While the variable going from false to true is obvious, I have no idea how this translates to the in-game effect of removing the clouds but not the graying out of "visibility". How does defining it here then changing this to "true" in the Satellites tech get rid of the Fog of War clouds? And most importantly, how do I make it so all tiles are truly "visible" and not merely grayed out?

Moderator Action: Welcome to CivFanatics. Moved your thread as questions belong in the main C&C forum.

 

[LeeS]

This

<Description>TXT_KEY_TECH_SATELLITES_TITLE</Description>

is telling the game to do a look-up within the player's appropriate language database for the string that shold be displayed as the name of the tech in question. For English, the language database is accessed through <Language_en_US> , where for example I think Espanol uses <Language_ES_ES>.

If you look in the folder

.......DLC\Expansion2\Gameplay\XML\

there should be a folder called "Text", which has sub-folders in it for the various languages available to players. Rather than trying to hunt through all these files, though, you may want to get a text-search program that can look through files within a folder looking for a matching string of text. I use Agent Ransack but I don't have the link where you can download it handy. You would want to do a search for a string that matches TXT_KEY_BLAH_BLAH

Just an additional note about where things are hidden for the TXT_KEY_BLAH_BLAH stuff: sometimes you will also have to look in the original "vanilla" expansion to find the text for a string. Firaxis only really added changes to text and etc. in many cases when there was a change in something between the original "Vanilla" expansion of the game and forex the BNW expansion. So you may have to look in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V\assets\Gameplay\XML\NewText

........................................................................................................................................................

For the other question,

<Column name="MapVisible" type="boolean" default="false"/>

merely defines a new column within the Tech table to be called MapVisible, states that it will be a boolean value, and the default setting for any technology within the table will be "false". In and of itself this definition doesn't actually do anything.

The line

<MapVisible>true</MapVisible>

tells the game that the <Row> being defined within the Technologies table will have the capability of revealing the map when the player researches the tech being defined. What actually happens in-game when a tech is researched that has this column (command) set to "true" is entirely controlled by the "core" software of the game, and what you are seeing is entirely intentional and normal. You can see the "geography" of the map, but not the details of who has units placed where. If your units or cities would not otherwise be able to see full details of what is occuring on a map tile, the MapVisible does not alter this. And if the map tile is not in full line-of-sight of your cities or units, you can't attack the tile with a bomber, for example, or an artillery unit. I am not sure if this behavior can be alterred by mods or not.

 

[bane_]

Check this out!

 

[LeeS]

Check this out!

I should really tape a post-it note to the top of my screen that says "Look at whoward's website 1st, stoopid" Definitely answers the questions of whether mods can alter the normal behavior.

Now if whoward would just make a mod that served me piping hot pancakes every morning when I turn on my computer............

 

[bane_]

Now if whoward would just make a mod that served me piping hot pancakes every morning when I turn on my computer............

I heard something like that is in the works. Keep posted!

 

[Supergold]

So I have learned a bit about the code, and I have been able to find exactly what I wanted through an extensive upgrade someone on Steam Workshop calls "Ingame Editor" which essentially turns on God-Mode. It is super awesome!

So, somebody did the work for me. But that does not teach me how to do it myself, which is part of why I insist I also do this the "hard way", prompting me to ask questions lest I remain forever lost.

 

[LeeS]

So I have learned a bit about the code, and I have been able to find exactly what I wanted through an extensive upgrade someone on Steam Workshop calls "Ingame Editor" which essentially turns on God-Mode. It is super awesome!

So, somebody did the work for me.

IGE is probably the single most useful tool for testing stuff....well, other people also swear by the live tuner that comes as part of the SDK, but I prefer IGE more often than not.

But that does not teach me how to do it myself, which is part of why I insist I also do this the "hard way", prompting me to ask questions lest I remain forever lost.

The only way you can learn how to make mods, really, is to make mods, ask questions when you run into difficulties, and research the various tutorials and references and look through the threads on the modding forum (very often there are threads that are asking similar questions to those you have).