Future Mod

Welcome back Asthix. It is a nice mod, but for right now play only Custom Games with the No Espionage option. Intentionally or not Hewhoknowsall knew exactly what was wrong. There was a CTD a couple of hundred turns into most games that was hard to isolate. In one case, if both of two cities are eliminated, it doesn't occur, but if only either of the two is it does. In another case, if a particular cities population or food supply changes on one particular turn, it does not occur. I had eliminated Python or DLL as the issue. I woke up one morning thinking about this, and realized it is something global, no point in trying to pin down what unit or building it is because it doesn't pinpoint like that. So what's global that way, that a QUANTITY would affect? I was also thinking about the differences between BTS and Vanilla, which includes espionage and that led me to the answer: a lot of spy missions are non localized and "quantity" oriented, such as the one that takes a percentage of gold of an entire civ. I just ran a Near Future start game on EarthTitan for 400 turns under the no espionage option and no crash. Crashes were occuring pretty consistently at between 200 and 300 turns, so from this one sample I can say the problem is in espionage and recommend playing without it until I can pinpoint further and correct.
 
Isn't it a little illogical, that Religions like Amun-Ra and Norse are still existing in the far future?
Could you make the spread rate of Religions change depending on era? That way it would be possible to let old religions like Amun-Ra and Norse etc. become less and less influential and making the newer Religions like Transhumanism and Swarmism etc. more influential later on. eventually, an obsolation Tech/Era would also be a possible solution. Or making an anti-spread rate for Religions. A Possibility, that a Religion is abandoned in a single city. The abandoning-Event is rather irritating, it always takes the Holy City of a Religion away.
And different spread rates for Religions depending on Civilization. Amun-Ra in America?
 
Hmm. Maybe I could make the futuristic religions immune to the abandonment event, much like I made state religion give immunity to it. There's a tag for regulating spread rate "iSpreadFactor," and also I could make missionaries of some religions cost more than others. To make this relate to civs I would have to add a tag and some dll code. The best way would be to affect the conversion percent chance. So, an AmunRa missionary in America would fail often, but would have a much better chance in Egypt. Also I think I'll try making the "subsidize" event choice have global effects and see what that does.

Holy cities are World Wonders, and as such they can only be built once. Perhaps I can find out where this is done and get rid of it.
 
What about making the abandoning Event inflicting only one City, which can't be the Holy City of course? Maybe the iSpreadFactor could be made to an iSpreadFactor1, iSpreadFactor2, etc, one for each era? And the missionary solution would be much more effictive, when Religions wouldn't have the same chance to spread to other countries as they have to spread in their home countries. iBorderSPreadFactor? It could be nice to have these functions to make Religions more specified.
 
Okay, I've been reading the WHOLE forum to get an idea about whether this is the type of MOD I am looking for, but I am still not sure. Is it possible to take just one civilization right from the beginning of the game all the way to the end, or is it more like Rhye's & Fall, where civilizations can end at certain periods. I really like playing a full game, i've just always hated the late game, because once you reach future tech, that's it, and so I like how you've expanded the tech tree to include futuristic techs for the late game. Thanks again. looking forward to trying your mod.
 
You CAN play one civ all the way through. If you start in the Ancient Era, all civs will be appropriate to the ancient era, and the civs in the game will remain those Ancient Era civs. If you start in the Industrial Era, all civs will be appropriate to the industrial era, and the civs in the remainder of the game will remain those Industrial Era civs. Some civilizations have existed all along, but under the hood in the FutureMod those are really different civilizations. Thus there is an ANCIENTCHINA civ (which in game is just "Chinese Empire") that can only start in Ancient Era and has Qin Shi Huang as leader, and there is a RENNCHINA civ (which in game is just "Chinese Empire") that can only start in Renaissance Era and has Kublai Khan as leader, and there is an INDCHINA civ (which in game is just "Chinese Empire") that can only start in the Industrial Era and has Cixi as leader...If you start in the Ren with Kublai, you will find yourself in the Distant Future era, still running the Chinese Empire, with Kublai, and your opponents will be guys like Charlemagne and Justinian and Montezuma (but not Augustus or Gilgamesh...or Stalin or Mao) who started at the same time and are still around.

I wanted to make barb civs that upgrade to regular civs be selected from the era as of the date they upgrade, but it didn't work--they are currently selected from the era the game started in, from among civs that did not get selected then.
 
Great. That's awesome. However, now I have run into a snag. I downloaded and Installed 1.36 from the download db, then I installed patch199 from the first page of this forum. When I went to load the mod, I received a TON of xml errors involving Techs and Units, then the game crashed on me. Here is the XML log. Let me know If I am doing something wrong.

Edit: Running BTS 3.19
 

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Great. That's awesome. However, now I have run into a snag. I downloaded and Installed 1.36 from the download db, then I installed patch199 from the first page of this forum. When I went to load the mod, I received a TON of xml errors involving Techs and Units, then the game crashed on me. Here is the XML log. Let me know If I am doing something wrong.

Edit: Running BTS 3.19

1.36 is the last version for BtS 3.17, 1.97 is the latest version for BtS 3.19. I am pretty sure the 1.99 patch is only for the latter version ;)

So depending on what version of BtS you have installed, here are your options

- BtS 3.17 : install 1.36
- BtS 3.19 : install 1.97 and then patch to 1.99
 
Loaded 1.97 and Patch 1.99 and cvgamecore.dll crashed.

Running BtS 3.19

Here is the error report that Windows Created.

EDIT: Found the problem. for some reason, my BtS had not updated at all. I was still running 3.00. Solved the Problem.
 

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Yeah, well, I'm still having problems myself. Kind of lost track of versions (removed a lot of DLL and Python features and fixed some art issues from renamed RTS art in the process of trying to find what turned out to be an inexplicable espionage related crash) and redownloaded my own mod. That crashed even playing without espionage, but avoided the crash once I added another art fix I had left out. Something I have done somewhere has made this mod incompatible with espionage calculations, ie something like what happens when the calendar uses divisions that don't divide into 12 months. I've tried simplifying some of the Espionage missions in the dll but it didn't work, still trying. The scenarios won't be stable unless you insert the no espionage game option line so just play with espionage turned off for now, and install patch 199b.

EDIT: Problem is gone. Patch 199c also improves the ini, adds a modern militia button, and bars all workers from the Margin feature (previously "global warming" was making it possible for some workers to build highways in space)
 
Why, are you having stability problems? Please share. Yes, I'm having no trouble with it lately. Once in a while I get a crash that says something like, 'Memory could Not be Written 0x03375f62" but if I restart from a save game it goes away. Can't pin down something like that. I've been playing with a few more changes though, I guess I'll attach a new patch. I've given up on getting Barb Civs to generate civs from the current era until later and decided to just go with the most stable version of that and my EraCivs modcomp. The scenarios seem less stable than random maps.

There's a lot of fine tuning yet to do, and I was hesitant to mess with something without making sure it was fully stable first. Don't know how long it will take. I need to make the ancient era units consistent, so that shields always give a bonus against archers for example. And I was just playing the Colonies scenario as Pehlivan Turkoglu and it was rough--there's a need for some kind of unit that can defend improvements. And I think I'll make Rabble upgrade to a new unit with composites, not just graphically change. Prefab builds need to be instant. Want to maybe give Safety worker a small defense only combat value, see if I can use kfm utility to add a combat action using the chop animation. Need to lose that pole in the scorch. Differentiate solar power imps--there is enough art available. Improve spread rate of later rels, cut down earlier ones, also scenarios need free missionaries (its OK if civs have rels other than real, but should at least have a chance to have actual rel). Reduce sea monster combat and have it upgrade to Nautilus (req steam power, barb national unit replaces AirAssault). Look at Cavalry Prereqs, too early? Hunting camp can be placed in any forest for food plus.

On a larger scale, I need to experiment with making space a water terrain. I may make this an optional "patch." Playing thinking like someone new to the mod, I see the glaring lack of documentation. Need to make it accessible. Maybe make a button for autoplay instead of control shift X. Credits, civilopedia, consistent xml names and structure. EDIT: also that dragon needs better animation or at least an effect. And stuff.
 
Want to maybe give Safety worker a small defense only combat value, see if I can use kfm utility to add a combat action using the chop animation.

Have you looked at the included tutorial?
Because Esemjay does exactly this ;).
 
Tholish,
the other day, i was searching the net, and I found thic BBC article about how man will split into two species by 10000AD. one will be tall, good-looking and smart, while the others will be the complete opposite. is there any way that human evolution (beyond transhuman units) could be implemented?
thanks.
GLP
 
The battle system may be a bit unbalanced. Give you an example. Playing settler (yeah I know, too easy, but wanted to test it) I had 8 militia defending a city on a hill. They were ALL taken down by ONE phalanx who was NOT on a hill. Even fighting on regular plots, a simple rabble could easily take down a more advanced unit without any trouble.
 
No problems with espionage for me so far. The reason I wasn't forthcoming with details of my play so far was because I was finishing up an involved MP game (FfH2) with patch 3.17 and so had not downloaded the latest vers. Got that done during end of year craziness, however I'm already mired in a new Fall Further game now. (unit commanders are neat) Will get back to the future soon! (cue theme):popcorn:
 
The time scale can't really include natural evolution. While theoretically a game can last 5000 turns, most end one way or another before 3000. Genetic engineering will be a much larger factor on that time scale.

Militia and Phalanx both have combat strengths of 7. Militia has a minus of 25 percent versus melee units (they have muskets without bayonets and aren't very proficient) and get no special city defense bonus, so effectively they should have a combat strength of about 5 vs a Phalanx, approximately counterbalancing the hill and fortification advantage. If the Phalanx has a bunch of promotions I guess its possible, but its not built in. A Phalanx is similar to a polearm unit, and there was an entire era of warfare, prior to the invention of flintlocks and bayonets, called the Pike and Musket era because early gunpowder weapons were so vulnerable while reloading that most armies consisted of more pikes than muskets. Rabble can take out more advanced units if they have been disabled by air strkes, dealing the coup de grace. They are very weak and very cheap, however, and this is not typical.

I couldn't keep my promise by year end, got burned out and started working on another mod I call JFF (Just For Fun) set on a fictional planet (everything made up, not drawn from existing fiction) where an ice age (the "little ice age" just kept getting worse) set civilization back and is just now ending. The survivors go from the Middle Ages to the Industrial in one generation, but then reach a plateu because the ancient technology they are bringing back from archaic records never went beyond about world war one level. At that point even more glaciers recede, exposing new ruins of a completely different ancient civilization, one even older and more advanced, enabling this now late industrial civ to again catapult into ill understood seriously advanced technology, skipping the modern era completely. Obviates all this having to worry about realism stuff. But then I played the FutureMod again and had a blast and realized how good it is, so I'm going to try to get it to a presentable end state. Got to be careful though and not break it in the process.
 
Ah I understand. You are going for a more realistic feel towards the game. That's cool. Some of your realism kinda slows things down. Give you an example. An early technology is mining, however you cannot mine anything until mid game when you get engineering, so I couldn't access any mining resources for quite some time. Makes the early game really slow. Mining isn't the only tech that does this. Farming is another example. Another tech that is useless until you get Crop Rotation mid game. I'm curious as to your reasoning behind these. Why have a tech early on that you cannot take advantage of until MUCH later in the game?
 
You can access mining resources in the early game. For making ancient Mines, the Workgang (available with Domestication) actually has a different Build than the Worker (which is available with Renaissance). The workgang version of the mine (available with mining but unable to tap any resource other than gems until the appropriate resource working tech is availalbe, even though they are now visible) has a lower yield, and consumes the worker, but can tap resources. So if you are making a scenario starting in the ancient era, place Workgangs, not Workers. Also, barbs tend to have Workers, which means captured barb workers aren't as good--oh, I forgot the uploaded version doesn't have barb cities until the modern era. Anyway, the Worker can't mine until Engineering. So if you have mining and see copper but can't mine it, that's because you don't have Bronze Working. I just figure people knew resources were there before they could actually use them. That way, if you get mining and don't see any copper or iron around, don't bother, go the Horse Archer route instead. Whereas if you have copper but not iron, maybe you want to just go with that.

Actually, Crop Rotation isn't mid game, its late Ancient era. Mid game is like early Modern. Farming isn't useless. With the Basic Agriculture tech You can build primitive farms with the Work Gang, on watered cleared land. You have to clear the forest first though. The farms turn into depleted farms then in 50 turns, producing less food, but with the Shamanism civic they produce food as before at a cost in gold.

You have to build Work Gangs.

However, yes, the early game is really slow. Until you get some decent civics and build a Palace, the economy is bad. Maybe there should be a free start building that centers the empire (allowing resources, since civ calculates bonus availability based on connection with the capitol, if any) without providing all the other benefits of a palace and that goes obsolete. Until then, you need to get Monarchy and build the Palace.

What I'm going for is a hint at realism, not total realism. I taste of what it was like, not a simulation. The idea originally was hard science fiction, stuff that might actually be possible in the future rather than out and out fantasy. Upon extending into the past, the same principles had to apply.

EDIT: As of Jan 9th I'm still trying to pin down a CTD that occurs around 2400 in the late game.
 
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