Forbidden Palace

[CivFan94]

Hello everyone,

I have a few unusual questions. I couldn’t find concrete answers by browsing the forum.

1. Has anyone tried to have multiple Forbidden Palace options at the same time?

2. What happens to the others after one of several is built?

3. If AI has the opportunity to choose between several options related to Forbidden Palace, will it be able to choose one of the offered options (regardless of the success of the appropriate selection)?

By the way, none of the Forbidden palaces are tied to any resource or government so that AI would not be further confused.

 

[tjs282]

1. Has anyone tried to have multiple Forbidden Palace options at the same time?

The Firaxis base-game already includes several FP-type buildings: the FP itself (buildable under all govs, once the player owns half the OCN of towns for that map-size), and the Secret Police HQ (buildable under Communism, once the player owns half the OCN of towns for that map-size, in any town which does not already contain the Palace/FP -- AFAIK the game .exe itself will prevent 2 FP-type SWs from overlapping).

I'm assuming you are hoping to add more FP-type buildings?

2. What happens to the others after one of several is built?

See above.

Since FP-type buildings must be SWs (under the Firaxis Editor), it is not possible to build more than one of each type, and (AFAIK) each one must be built in a different town. You can add as many FP-type SWs you wish, but you would have to give each one a unique name, even if only by e.g. numbering them ("Forbidden Palace 2/3/4/...").

But building one FP-type SW will not affect the ability (human's or AI's) to build any of the others.

3. If AI has the opportunity to choose between several options related to Forbidden Palace, will it be able to choose one of the offered options (regardless of the success of the appropriate selection)?

The AI will certainly see the value in building an FP-type building, but it may not always build the 'right' one unless you give it some additional guidance/ restrictions.

So at this point you should explain more clearly what you are hoping to accomplish with your modding, because the potential options are extensive (if not limitless).

 

[Blue Monkey]

I vaguely remember a mod with multiple FP equivalents (reduces corruption for a certain range being main function) for each civ. TAM maybe? Or RAR ?

 

[Civinator]

Edited: Removed a sentence about FPs in CCM 2.50, as these observations took place with a prototype of this mod, where the FP setting is removed from the Great Palace.

Much more important than multiple FPs in my eyes is the setting of the Flintlock Patch for governments that now allows the "corruption off" flag in the editor to work as it should work.

 

[tjs282]

The AI is not handling this feature properly, as it frequently builds the FP and the second FP in the same city where the palace is located.

Have you actually seen this happen in Debug runs?

Because I'm pretty sure I remember @justanick saying that the FP can't be built in the Capital in the base-game -- at least, not by the human.

(I certainly don't remember it showing up in the build-list for my capital in my current DG-game, in which I built my FP relatively late, and relatively far from my capital, using an MGL acquired during the extirpation of ... the Iroquois?)

If an AI loses its capital though, its Palace may well jump to its FP-town, since that one will probably also be well-garrisoned, and likely pretty well developed.

 

[CivFan94]

First of all I want to thank everyone who tried to answer my questions.

Warning! The wall of text follows.

Maybe I was left unsaid in the introductory post. Namely, the situation I want to create is as follows. I try to bring the AI or human player in the choice between 3 different, simultaneously available (independent of the government type, i.e. not marked as Secret Police HQ which is only possible under Communism), Forbidden Palaces.
Each of them will have marked required basic options: 1. Small Wonder and 2. Reduces Corruption within the Empire (similarly phrased in the basic Civ3Conquest and Quintillus Editor), but with different additional bonuses for each of them 3 separately.


So the question is, when a human player or AI meets the conditions to build one of the 3 Forbidden Palaces offered, and builds it, what happens to the other two? Do they still remain among the options offered for construction in other cities (Except the Capital and the city that built the Forbidden Palace because they cannot do so by default)?


I don't know if I was able to explain the questions from the introductory post in more detail.


@tjs282


Yes, the idea is to knock out the original Forbidden Palace and replace it with 3 new ones but with different benefits. So I wonder after building one of the 3, do the other 2 remain at the same time as options for building in other cities, and if so, is there a way to prevent this?


@Blue Monkey


Yes, I am familiar with most of the popular mods from this forum. However, no one uses the Forbidden Palace in the way I envisioned it.


This part that you wrote in parentheses "(reduces corruption for a certain range of being main function)" I do not fully understand. Nor am I aware of the possibility that the Forbidden Palaces may have different ranges or amounts related to corruption. Maybe I misunderstood you. But either way, I am not trying to achieve different levels of corruption by providing the option to choose one of 3 different types of Forbidden Palaces.

The catch is in the additional different effects that each of them would provide. But an AI or human player can only choose the one he deems appropriate in that situation.
Without the ability to build the remaining two after choosing one and building it.
Only after the destruction or sale (I don't know if it is even possible to do it since it is a Small Wonder) of the originally built Forbidden Palace man player or AI again gets again the opportunity to choose one of the 3 Forbidden Palaces.


@Civinator


The result I want to achieve is not further reduction of corruption other than what the basic Forbidden Palace offers. In addition to this basic option, I want to incorporate additional different benefits for each of these 3 Forbidden Palaces individually.


I haven't had a chance to use Flintlock Patch yet but I've read something about it. I will definitely try to try it out and incorporate it, primarily for the sake of improvements in the form of Railroads and Artillery.

 

[Civinator]

Have you actually seen this happen in Debug runs?

tjs282, I deleted that sentence in the citate of your post before your posting when I noticed, that those observations I made by investigating AI cities in testgames were done with a biq where the FP settings are deleted in the CCM settings.

 

[Civinator]

the question is, when a human player or AI meets the conditions to build one of the 3 Forbidden Palaces offered, and builds it, what happens to the other two? Do they still remain among the options offered for construction in other cities (Except the Capital and the city that built the Forbidden Palace because they cannot do so by default)?

In Mem there are many 'FP-SWs' for the different king and caliph titles a player can gain in the game. They are simultaneously available, when the different prerequisites are met. May be it is a good idea to have a look into the biqs of this scenario.

I haven't had a chance to use Flintlock Patch yet but I've read something about it. I will definitely try to try it out and incorporate it, primarily for the sake of improvements in the form of Railroads and Artillery.

Flintlock´s mod is brilliant and especially the new routine for land artillery is a game changer for Civ 3.

 

[tjs282]

Yes, the idea is to knock out the original Forbidden Palace and replace it with 3 new ones but with different benefits. So I wonder after building one of the 3, do the other 2 remain at the same time as options for building in other cities, and if so, is there a way to prevent this?

No to the bolded.

If what you want is for only one FP to be built in total, but potentially provide 3 different mutually-exclusive sets of attributes, then the only way (that I can think of) to do that would be to have 3 different "add-on" generic buildings, which each require the FP as a prerequisite, and which each have the "Replaces all improvements with this flag checked" improvements-flag. This should ensure that only one such building could ever be active, at any given point in the game.

The advantage of this approach would be that — unlike SWs — generic buildings can always be sold off (provided that they do not have the "Allows City Size Level 2/3" flags), or replaced when they are no longer appropriate for the current situation.

The main drawback is that to prevent unwanted interference with your FP-add-on buildings' effects, the "Replaces all improvements" flag would have to be removed from all other buildings. This flag's sole purpose in the epic-game .biq is to force the replacement of Coal-/Hydro-/Solar-/Nuclear-plants, preventing more than one power-plant from being active in any given town — so if your mod also includes power-plants, you would then have to find another solution for those (e.g. reducing their individual production-boosts, and/or giving them all the potential to explode).

Another potential problem is that when buildings with this flag all have the same/similar costs, the AI may well fail to understand which one it should use, and/or get into a loop of constantly replacing these buildings (in the epic game this is less of a problem, because the 4 power-plant types are clearly differentiated by their costs, pollution effects, and production-boosts, so the AI can better assess which one is the most "valuable").

 

[CivFan94]

@Civinator

I have downloaded one of the MEM versions. Although I can't run it inside CIV 3, I looked through CIV3Edit.

I think I understand the principle on which the MEM settings of the Forbidden Palaces work. I think this is a good idea for the thing the author wanted to achieve - the Vassalage System.

However, my goal is different. I'll try to explain. When the conditions for building the Forbidden Palace are met, I want the human player or AI to get 3 different Forbidden Palaces offered in their building queue instead of the standard one as in Vanilla. For simplicity of example let’s call them Forbidden Palaces A, B and C. Let’s say a human player or AI opted for Forbidden Palace A. It was built. Now, what interests me is, do Forbidden Palaces B and C remain within the building queue of other cities (Not the Capital and the city where Forbidden Palace A is located)? If they are, how can I prevent it?

Because what I want to accomplish is for a human player or AI to pick and build one of the options A, B or C and then to lose possibility to build another/remaining two.

@tjs282

I think you are close to understanding my question.

I want this partially - "If what you want is for only one FP to be built in total, but potentially provide 3 different mutually-exclusive sets of attributes".

Yes, I want one Forbidden Palace to be built in total out of 3. But each of the three has different effects and bonuses. Now, what i want is to after one of them is built to prevent building other two as well.
For example, after Forbidden Palace A is built I want to stop human player or AI to build Forbidden Palaces B and C in other Cities as well.

Unfortunately I am not able to use the "Replaces all improvements with this flag checked" option because I use it for other things.

Sadly, another idea went irretrievably into the wind.

 

[Civinator]

As posted, the SWs with the FP-flag stay simultaneously available, meaning the building of other SWs with that flag is not automatically disabled, when one of those SWs was built. The use of the 'replaces all improvements with this flag checked' option in your case is no solution (and in my eyes in general is a very problematic flag cause of the danger of AI loops).

Spoiler :

 

[tjs282]

Yes, I want one Forbidden Palace to be built in total out of 3. But each of the three has different effects and bonuses. Now, what i want is to after one of them is built to prevent building other two as well.

In that case, the only other way I can think of to have >1 FP-type-SW available, while still preventing more than one FP from being built/active at any given time, would be to make each added FP-type-SW government-dependent.

If the government is switched, the FP-for-the-old-gov will then "disappear" from the city it was built in*, and another FP-for-the-new-gov can then be built, whether in that same town, or somewhere else. You would therefore need to add one FP-type-SW for each government available in your mod, e.g. "Despotic FP", "Monarchic FP", etc. If you only want to include 3 different potential attribute-sets, but have, say, 6 governments, there is nothing preventing you from giving the same attribute-set to >1 FP-type.

*The caveat here is that the FP doesn't actually disappear: it remains present, but invisible/inactive until the required government is returned to. And this can lead to an 'interesting' situation whereby a Civ may end up owning >1 copy of a given SW!

If Civ1 uses Gov-Type-A, and builds the matching FP-Type-A, but then switches to Gov-Type-B, then FP-Type-A will disappear for Civ1 — but if Civ2 captures Civ1's FP-town, and Civ2 is still (or again) using Gov-Type-A, and has already built its own FP-Type-A, Civ2 will now control a second FP-Type-A, in the captured town.

I first learned about this potential bug while playtesting @haluu's Tides of Crimson mod (which includes gov-specific autoproducing SWs), and you can read more about it in that thread — starting from this post.

 

[CivFan94]

Guys thank you for the answers. You have helped me clarify many things.

@Civinator

Thanks for the picture from MEM mode, it's one thing to look at the settings inside the Editor and another to read the text.

@tjs282

All clear. So, in fact, the simplest is your suggestion from one of the previous posts. One Forbidden Palace and three different improvements that are mutually exclusive with the option "replaces all improvements with this flag checked".

Although this will disrupt the previous settings of buildings unrelated to the Forbidden Palace, I will have to think about it further and find a solution.

 

[Takhisis]

In that case, the only other way I can think of to have >1 FP-type-SW available, while still preventing more than one FP from being built/active at any given time, would be to make each added FP-type-SW government-dependent.

Or the ‘replace all buildings with this tag’ tag which usually is a feature of the power plants.

 

[tjs282]

Yeah, Takh, I suggested that further up and it was initially dismissed as unfeasible. Maybe you should try reading the whole thread next time...

 

[Takhisis]

Oh, yes, you did! Sorry, but I've been vaccinated against the coronavirus again this week and have been woozy for the past couple of days.

 

[tjs282]

Oh, yes, you did! Sorry, but I've been vaccinated against the coronavirus again this week and have been woozy for the past couple of days.

No worries, I was just teasing. And I hope you feel better soon.