General A New Dawn discussion

[GreedyManul]

Exactly. Thank you.

This line is responsible for what?

iNumCitiesMaintenanceModifier>100</iNumCitiesMaintenanceModifier>

For every city you settle, regardless of palace distance, you have to pay a small fee for having a lot of cities. The more you settle, the more it balloons up. The line above? Doubles its effects.

 

[Phantom11]

Clear. Thank you.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I have spent the better half of my free time since I last posted here playing this mod. And I have been enjoying it immensely. If this post had been made this time yesterday it would contain nothing but pages upon pages of pure praise for what you did. It's just... well it's CIV the way it always should have been. It's just that simple.

But I did not make this post yesterday. And since than things have changed. Playing yesterday evening, right about the year 771 in game I received a rather nasty and unpleasant random event that rendered the entire game unrecoverable. Just one event and poof, the game is gone. I tried playing after that, I really did. But there is not much you can do when suddenly the RNG decides that every single food producing tile on the planet is to be rendered worthless.

In case some of you have been lucky enough to avoid it, I am talking about the one where a meteor strikes and all food tiles get raped.

Now I don't know what the idea was behind including such an event. And whilst I can imagine several things, both mechanical and in terms of simulating our history, that you were trying to achieve with it I frankly don't care. It's not fun, it's not a challenge, it's nothing but unfair random brutality thrown at the player to pointlessly mess the game up through an artificial difficulty spike.

And no, having to waste far too many turns watching your cities shrink as you helplessly stand by and watch is NOT my idea of fun.


Now, there is a point in me writing this. And it is NOT raving against the mod. No, I still enjoy it quite enough. The point is that I can and will mod this event out quite easily. All I have to do is disable a single trigger. What I want to know is how many more such unwelcome surprises await me and how to nip them in the bud.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Well, it's a single event and AFAIK it can't be disabled once the game is started. Anyway food production will go back to normal in a few turns, it's just taking away 1 food from every tile producing 3 or more IIRC. It was added by Afforess, the mod creator and main developer until some years ago. I suppose it's meant to add something hard and out of your control. I never had a problem living with that event. There's a similar event caused by a catastrophic volcanic eruption, but they should not happen in the same game or twice.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Well, it's a single event and AFAIK it can't be disabled once the game is started. Anyway food production will go back to normal in a few turns, it's just taking away 1 food from every tile producing 3 or more IIRC. It was added by Afforess, the mod creator and main developer until some years ago. I suppose it's meant to add something hard and out of your control. I never had a problem living with that event. There's a similar event caused by a catastrophic volcanic eruption, but they should not happen in the same game or twice.

It's lasting far longer than "a few turns". Like, I played well over 200 years in game after that and it's still to wear off. That's when I finally gave up.

As for living with it I will be direct. I do not find it fun to have control taken away from me. That is the opposite of fun. Fun is when I have a steady and known challenge that I can play against. Like a game of chess. Having half your pieces suddenly swapped for other ones at random is not fun and it is not challenging. It's just infuriating.

So on that subject. We have the meteor, you said a volcano... any others?

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On the plus side, the fact this angers me so does demonstrate that I care for this mod. So there is that.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

It's lasting far longer than "a few turns". Like, I played well over 200 years in game after that and it's still to wear off. That's when I finally gave up.

As for living with it I will be direct. I do not find it fun to have control taken away from me. That is the opposite of fun. Fun is when I have a steady and known challenge that I can play against. Like a game of chess. Having half your pieces suddenly swapped for other ones at random is not fun and it is not challenging. It's just infuriating.

So on that subject. We have the meteor, you said a volcano... any others?

----------
On the plus side, the fact this angers me so does demonstrate that I care for this mod. So there is that.

The lenght depends on gamespeed. I might consider reducing the lenght, provided it's possible and I'm able to do it. That event has somehow been a pain from the point of view of the code. Considering that it last at least 10 turns on Blitz, on Eternity it might be more than 80 turns. There are no other such extreme events. This event reduces 1 food per tile. I was considering adding similar events in the late game that temporarily reduce 1 hammer per tile (kind of resources crisis) and 1 commerce per tile (kind of financial crisis), but before I add this kind of events, I want to make sure they can be turned off.

 

[Vokarya]

The lenght depends on gamespeed. I might consider reducing the lenght, provided it's possible and I'm able to do it. That event has somehow been a pain from the point of view of the code. Considering that it last at least 10 turns on Blitz, on Eternity it might be more than 80 turns. There are no other such extreme events. This event reduces 1 food per tile. I was considering adding similar events in the late game that temporarily reduce 1 hammer per tile (kind of resources crisis) and 1 commerce per tile (kind of financial crisis), but before I add this kind of events, I want to make sure they can be turned off.

It seems like the ending of the effect is the real problem, not the effect itself. There is Python code that feeds a length of time to the triggerDarkAge function, which I'm guessing is in the DLL. If there are any bugs, it's probably in the DLL code.

One thing that I would very, very strongly recommend is removing the random factor in calculating the length of the Dark Age. I don't care how "realistic" this is. Give it a fixed length and that will make it much more palatable.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

I would leave it as it is.

Its a CHALLENGE to game play.

If you can't cope with reduced food production for a while, your game play style needs changing.

I vote for leaving the randomness of the length, I've had these events twice in one game.

Maybe I had the Meteor and the Volcano, or Volcano twice??, but it did happen TWO times.

Was I inconvenienced, yes I was, but the AI's suffered much worse then I did.

A bigger problem in the game, is the AI suddenly selling off ALL its armed forces. Leaving it with 1 per city, if that some times.

That is a game breaking event. Losing food per tile is a part of the game, adjust your play style.

Another Game breaking event, is the hammer/gold over flow bug. Its happened in my current game, not to me, but to an AI opponent. Suddenly they have 1.2 Million gold.

A 3rd Event, that just happened, I had a 1 city opponent, 2 tiles culturally, with NO units in its cities, I bombed them out of existence. Culturally enclosed by a 3rd Civ, who has me as worst enemy, so won't open borders. Suddenly, they have 30 units in city (max units per tile) and spammed another 30 per tile over 8 tiles in a neutral area, next to a 2nd continent colony I'm trying to set up (which won't work??), on opposite side of continent. They suddenly created 240 Units, 230 of which are ACV's. I eventually bombed them all down and destroyed them with Plasma tanks that I sat to be attacked.

4th Event has just slipped my mind.

to sum up.
1) AI selling all it troops suddenly
2) Gold/Hammer over flow bug.
3) Sudden influx of 240 units from NOWHERE???
4) *for when I remember it again.

P.S. Colony problems, probably due to alliance, that previous civ has with 2 others, eliminated 2 of the 3 in alliance, but 3rd had the troops spamming.

*Edit* I don't have the save BEFORE it happens, only the one when is DOES happen. May 1942. I will archive it as a zip if required, if not, I'll just delete one day.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

It seems like the ending of the effect is the real problem, not the effect itself. There is Python code that feeds a length of time to the triggerDarkAge function, which I'm guessing is in the DLL. If there are any bugs, it's probably in the DLL code.

One thing that I would very, very strongly recommend is removing the random factor in calculating the length of the Dark Age. I don't care how "realistic" this is. Give it a fixed length and that will make it much more palatable.

Honestly I don't think that there is any way to make it palatable. Like, maybe it's just me projecting here, but the way I see it the sort of people that like to play civilization are the kind that enjoy playing complex and intricate strategy games that challenge the player by making him plan out and execute complex strategies over a long period of time. And that sort of thing is inherently opposed to just having random curve balls thrown at you out of nowhere.

I would leave it as it is.

Its a CHALLENGE to game play.

If you can't cope with reduced food production for a while, your game play style needs changing.

It's more than just reduced food production. It's the fact that the game literally pulled the carpet from underneath me. It was a sudden event of unfair random brutality that came in like a wrecking ball. And that's just not right for a strategy game.

Also, I would genuinely like to hear what strategy I can apply to a 20 something city empire where most of the cities have ALL of the available food producing buildings done and most of their tiles worked already. And while you at it do be so nice to teach it to the AI.


If you ask me the simplest thing to do would be to just code in a game option of some sort that lets you turn off such extreme events in the pre-game menu. Especially since he has the intention of adding even more of them. That way we can both be happy.

 

[Vokarya]

There is an option that already exists, and that is "Strategic Events". It's a BUG setting, not a pre-game setting. Currently, it only affects the Unlimited Power and Super Virus events, turning them off if the option is unchecked. It would not be difficult to apply this check to the Dark Age check. (I don't think the improvement destruction from the meteor/volcano is important enough to warrant the check.)

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

There is an option that already exists, and that is "Strategic Events". It's a BUG setting, not a pre-game setting. Currently, it only affects the Unlimited Power and Super Virus events, turning them off if the option is unchecked. It would not be difficult to apply this check to the Dark Age check. (I don't think the improvement destruction from the meteor/volcano is important enough to warrant the check.)

I think I've tried that in the past but usually BUG settings affect every ongoing game, meaning that if you switch off Strategic Events during a game, those events will not happen. But IIRC it doesn't work with Dark Age event. If a game is started with Strategic Events on, switching it off during the game will not prevent Dark Age from occurring. I'll check again and see what I can do.
@PPQ_Purple, do you have a save or an auto-save a few turns before the event occurs?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

@PPQ_Purple, do you have a save or an auto-save a few turns before the event occurs?

Sadly no. I was under the expectation that it would not last so freaking long so I tried to power through it. Big mistake. And the worst part was that I was just turns away from wining too. All I had to do was spread my religion to a couple more foreign cities and than BAM. Population rape - percentage drop - game ruined.

Anyway. I went into my XML files and removed the python callback from both the meteor and volcano events. This should, hopefully, mean that next time they trigger the actual code that screws the game up won't be activated and
all that happens is that I get to laugh at the games impotent attempts to rape me. Right?

 

[Vokarya]

I think I've tried that in the past but usually BUG settings affect every ongoing game, meaning that if you switch off Strategic Events during a game, those events will not happen. But IIRC it doesn't work with Dark Age event. If a game is started with Strategic Events on, switching it off during the game will not prevent Dark Age from occurring. I'll check again and see what I can do.

It doesn't work NOW because the code isn't there. I was suggesting we add the code. Only the events with the canTriggerNewEvent Python callback are affected by the Strategic Events checkbox, which currently are Unlimited Power, Super Virus, and the now-disabled Harry Potter. But we can add the check for the Strategic Events option to cut off the Dark Age part of the event from firing if Strategic Events is disabled.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Sadly no. I was under the expectation that it would not last so freaking long so I tried to power through it. Big mistake. And the worst part was that I was just turns away from wining too. All I had to do was spread my religion to a couple more foreign cities and than BAM. Population rape - percentage drop - game ruined.

Anyway. I went into my XML files and removed the python callback from both the meteor and volcano events. This should, hopefully, mean that next time they trigger the actual code that screws the game up won't be activated and
all that happens is that I get to laugh at the games impotent attempts to rape me. Right?

I'm not sure. Removing part of the code like that might just lead to a CTD the next time the function is used. By the way, winning the game in 771AD is not how the game is supposed to work. In theory, you should be halfway through middle age by that time. Which gamespeed and map size were you playing?

It doesn't work NOW because the code isn't there. I was suggesting we add the code. Only the events with the canTriggerNewEvent Python callback are affected by the Strategic Events checkbox, which currently are Unlimited Power, Super Virus, and the now-disabled Harry Potter. But we can add the check for the Strategic Events option to cut off the Dark Age part of the event from firing if Strategic Events is disabled.

Yeah, I was saying that I tried something like this in the past but it didn't work; I'll try again but unfortunately there's no way to know if it works in a new game until someone reports it triggering when it shouldn't.

Edit: If somone has a savegame a few turns before a Dark Age events triggers, I would ask to post it here so I can run some test. Thank you.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I'm not sure. Removing part of the code like that might just lead to a CTD the next time the function is used.

Strictly speaking there are two things that could happen if this is done incorrectly.

The first possible error, and one I am relatively sure would happen is is if one was to simply delete the entire line blindly. That would provoke a XML error while loading the game as the file no longer properly matches the schema.

The second is if one is one that should not happen but might if the code in the DLL is not safely written. And that's if one was to delete the value of the ipyhtonCallback tag whilst leaving the tag it self in its open and closed state as opposed to replacing it with the valueless version </ipyhtonCallback>. This could potentially cause problems because even though, strictly speaking, the XML specification permits this as a valid state the DLL it self might be using the valueless tag variant as a sort of indicator to skip the line in which case it would simply read the empty value as being a blank string. And in theory this could lead to a situation where the DLL tries calling that empty string as if it was a valid function name and causing a crash that way.
But I say potentially and theoretically because proper programing practice places several safety checks along the way of that, either of which would prevent it from happening. So it would take quite the sloppy job for this to cause a crash. Not that I have not seen worse, mind you.

The 100% safe way to do it, and the way I did it, is to look at an event that has no python callback and than copy the appropriate lines over to this event making extra sure to not overwrite the wrong lines.


Also, sorry for the wall of text. But I happen to be a computer programmer you see so this is sort of my profession and passion.

By the way, winning the game in 771AD is not how the game is supposed to work. In theory, you should be halfway through middle age by that time. Which gamespeed and map size were you playing?

Why should you not be able to win half way through the middle ages? There are plenty of victories including religious and cultural that you can snag by than.

Especially religious because, for some reason the AI really does not like to build missionaries of its own. So even when they found a religion they rely entirely on passive spread which is a joke. So all I did was beeline for a religion until I managed to get one (and got a hold of Aztec polytheism) and than aggressively spread it to everyone who has open borders with me.

Some smooth diplomacy, lots of gifts and sucking up, and lots of missionaries later and I had 17 out of the 20 civs on the map sacrificing their children to the winged serpent.

As for my game stats it's the second to largest map size, what ever that is, 20 civs, second to slowest game speed (IIRC). And yes, I was half way through the middle ages. Really though what I think made the difference was that, through an accidental scrolling error in the game setup screen I ended up not with custom continents as I wanted but with that odd map script where everyone is in a ring around a circle of mountains in the middle. And that meant I had an unobstructed land route to everyone.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

You're probably right about the python and dll part; I didn't write that part of the code but I trust that Afforess, the original mod developer, is expert enough to code that part safely. He's definitely better than me at coding anyway.

About the victory, religious victory is usually considered one of the hardest victories, but that depends on the map. Cultural religion is not that easy either because you usually don't get Legendary Cities before Renaissance, let alone 3 of them. The mod is designed to last until industrial-modern at least, so that you can fully enjoy its features. Of course it's possible to win much earlier. The smaller the map, for example, or the less continents are available on the map, the easier the game is. In theory on a small map you can win by domination or conquest before Middle Age. In my view, that's not fun at all, but that's me.
For your next game, especially if you found the last one easy, I suggest you try Totestra, PerfectMongoose or PerfectWorld mapscripts. PlanetGenerator is good to, but it depends on the settings of the mapscript and there are too many of them. Also, using Flexible Difficulty and Flexible AI difficulty is a good idea. And Revolution, with a default difficulty of 2.5: if you look for troubles (but fun!), you can increase that to 10.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

You're probably right about the python and dll part; I didn't write that part of the code but I trust that Afforess, the original mod developer, is expert enough to code that part safely. He's definitely better than me at coding anyway

I thought that events having the ability to call on python functions was vanilla code?

About the victory, religious victory is usually considered one of the hardest victories, but that depends on the map. Cultural religion is not that easy either because you usually don't get Legendary Cities before Renaissance, let alone 3 of them.

I genuinely think it's the mapscript that did it here. Like I literally had contact with all the worlds civs before I hit the middle ages.

The mod is designed to last until industrial-modern at least, so that you can fully enjoy its features. Of course it's possible to win much earlier. The smaller the map, for example, or the less continents are available on the map, the easier the game is. In theory on a small map you can win by domination or conquest before Middle Age. In my view, that's not fun at all, but that's me.

If you ask me the ideal setup would be some sort of mapscript where I have a small continent to my self and some AI for the early eras. And than as time progresses I advance to a region of several clustered continents I could not get to before each with its own several AI's. Than to a cluster of these continents. Etc.

Like say 3-4 civs per continent until classical. Than another 3-4 neighboring continents at medieval. Than half the world at industrial and than eventually have the whole thing open up in the late game.

Basically have the whole game expand fractally as time progresses. Sort of like custom continents within custom continents. The game it self is already set up quite well for this with the various ship upgrades and the limits on ocean travel. You'd just need a good mapscript.

For your next game, especially if you found the last one easy, I suggest you try Totestra, PerfectMongoose or PerfectWorld mapscripts. PlanetGenerator is good to, but it depends on the settings of the mapscript and there are too many of them. Also, using Flexible Difficulty and Flexible AI difficulty is a good idea. And Revolution, with a default difficulty of 2.5: if you look for troubles (but fun!), you can increase that to 10.

How's custom continents? That used to be my favorite in vanilla CIV.

As for flexible difficulty is there a way to turn it on for the AI only. Basically I don't like the idea of the game messing up my carefully micromanaged cities through random jumps in artificial difficulty bonuses. But I would very much like to be able to give the AI something to help them catch up if and when they fall behind.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Flexible difficulty is available in 2 separate options.

1) Flexible difficulty for the AI only.
2) Flexible difficulty for the player only.

I myself use Flexible difficulty for the AI players only.

Bug options, *Edit, Ha Ha, just as well, A New Dawn options, left hand column, under Flexible difficulty, choose the 2nd option, of AI flexible difficulty, the 1st option, affects human only.

 

[<Nexus>]

Its a CHALLENGE to game play.

If you can't cope with reduced food production for a while, your game play style needs changing.

Well... The last time I faced that event I could handle it by building Caravans and hurrying food. But AFAIK the AI doesn't build those units and doesn't know how to use them.
Hearing so many complaints (PPQ_Purple is neither the first nor the second) I think this event should OFF by default and if you want extra challenge than you turn it ON. I'm also thinking about changing the mechanism would help. A few ideas to replace the reduction:

• All cities of the world require 2X as much to grow
• All cities food bar is set back to 0
• Food resources (wheat, corn, cow, sugar, apple, etc) don't give It would still mean a reduction but not that drastic.

 

[<Nexus>]

Minor Civs mean no challenge

That's also a common complain that barbarian spawned one city civs are not really a challenge. Maybe a little boost would help them by giving them free Golden Ages. GA length would depend on the era (of the leading civ). It would be 1 if it is spawned in the Classical, 2 in the Medieval, and so on.