Give names to forts

Hey there,

is there any chance that forts become names?
I think is not a big change but would make the game more fancy.

Like for city names, there could be list for every nation:

English:
Fort Oswego
Fort William Henry
Fort Halifax
...

French:
Fort Niagara
Fort Frontenac
Fort Louisbourg
...

 

You can simply name spots on the map by: using Alt+S
Why not just do it like that.

 

I think that will have to do. Assigning names means we should also display the name and before long we end up with a fort type colony if it is to integrate smoothly into the game. That is way too much work compared to what we get in return. Remember every hour spent on this will be an hour spent less on something else. We are limited on time rather than ideas on what to do.

 

It is actually a medium size change.
Technically not too difficult but still considerable effort.

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Forts are technically "just Improvements" which technically also do not have an "owner".
(Cities or Units do technically have one though.)

Improvements are just "on a Plot" and that Plot does have an "owner assigned" (which is again indirectly determined by the dominating Player culture rate of that Plot).
Fir this though you would most likely need to imprlement for Improvements the base functionality to "store and read" its "owner" (instead of always determining it from the Plot culture rate).

Also, you would need to implement a logic that reads "nationspecific Fort Names" from CivInfos (XML) of the Player.
And that list of historic Fort Names would first need to be collected as well of course.

Also, how do we display the Fort names?

Improvements do not have a billboard like real cities.
(It would be possible to add it for Forts but it would be further effort on top.)

And to just add the "Fort Names" in "Mouse-Over Improvement-Help" really is not worth the hastle.
(It does not do anything for atmosphere at all.)

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And in the end, what do we get considering actualy gamplay?
To my opinion nothing.

It is purely atmospherical (or for immersion) ...
Is it worth that much effort.

How many Forts are really placed on a Map?
I usually place something like 2 or max 4 myself.
(AI hardly ever builds them itself.)

Basically it is almost the same as "Alt + S" with the small difference that the names are automatically chosen from Nation specific name lists.

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Summary:

For me, it is not worth to invest that much effort for a cosmetic change myself.
But if anybody else is motivated to implement it, I do absolutley not mind.

 

That's why I said we are moving towards making a new type of colony. I think the exe needs a colony in order to display a billboard. That's an unrealistically lot of work for something, which has no gameplay impact. I mean it would be nice, but totally not worth the time it takes for the game to accept a new billboard. If we add a new colony type, then we need to update all the code, which loops through all colonies, like the lists in the domestic advisor, the AI code to take action in all colonies and... well that list is long.

 

I didn't know about ALT S. I have been adding the sings in world builder

 

Out of curiosity, how much work would it be to create a new type of unit that founds a different colony type (based on the free building(s) you get when you found it) once the new Settler profession is made? I haven't dug into the code to determine how the game determines what buildings are provided for free (though I'd assume it's based on Civilization and makes no consideration to what unit is doing the founding.)

 

First of all the "New Settler Profession" already exists. (see here)
And yes it would be possible to have different types of "Settlers Professions", that found different types of Colonies with different starting buildings.

The logic could technically be done by the functionality offered DLL logic + XML + Python - so there is nothing in the idea that I would call impossible for Civ4Col modding.
But of course we would also need new graphics (for the new "Settler" types and different buttons for founding different types of colonies)

The effort of this however would vary between "considerable" (40h) to "massive" (80h). It can not be answered that easily without knowing the complete technical concept.
It really depends on the details of the concept - especially how difficult the game mechanics get, because the more difficult the more you need to teach to AI.

This is by far not a "beginners concept" though.
It is technically really challenging.

But what for?
What is the actual feature we would want to use it for?

Would it add enough considering game play to justify the efforts?

 

Presumably we can do it by adding an int to the founding unit telling which type and an int to CvCity. On found, we add an argument to set the type. While presumably a doable task, all we get is that the colony can remember which type of unit founded the colony. It's not used for anything at all. If you want to mod a colony to be something other than the current one, then be prepared for a lot of work.

I have the same question. How would it benefit the game?

 

Definitely.

And I am talking here about numbers for an experienced modder.
A lot of effort would already be needed to teach AI when to found which kind of "City".

But it really depends on the details of the game concept and technical concept.
Without knowing that we are guessing into the blue.

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I could however imagine this to become something interesting considering gameplay.
The question that still remains though: Is it intersting enough for gameplay to invest all that effort?

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So many interesting ideas and so much potential that still slumbers in this game ...
And so few modders that are currently active ...

 

Something interesting that I would love to see in colonization is better forts.
Forts could have cultural borders and can recruit a unit, worker, or settler every 20-30 turns.
And they could have names.
A great way to do this is using Jeckels improvement names modcomp and Forts with culture. Those 2 could be merged and I doubt it is too hard to make a python script that spawns a random unit every 20-30 turns on the fort. I could probably do it myself!
Note that those 2 modcomps I mentioned above are for BtS but I think that the python code could still work because python is the same in Civ 4 BtS and Colonization, it's just written differently.

 

Forts already have cultural borders IIRC - they often just get overwhelmed by a nearby city since the fort doesn't produce any culture itself.

Regards
XSamatan

 

Forts and Monasteries in WTP are not just "stupid simple Improvements".
They have several small features attached.

But let us talk about "Forts" only:
(Monasteries have other sub-features.)

• They need to have "Gun Powder" Units stationed to become active - meaning an armed colonist with guns has to be fortified there
• AI can take over control of Forts - and knows how to do so
  
• They have a cultural radius - thus being able to unlock production plots for cities
  
• They have an area of control - which does not simply allow enemies to pass by
• Combat Units stationed in Forts will attack Enemies in the area of control
  
• Raiding Natives are forced to either attack a Fort on their path (instead of trying to get to your cities) or to become "normal friendly Natives" again
  
• They act like cities considering movement - they allow both Land Units and Ships to enter (if at coast)
• They of course also give defensive bonus - which is however pure XML
• Wild Animals can neither be spawned in Forts nor can they enter them - of course they would also be attacked by Forts
• Forts can grow to Large Forts (even if outside city borders) which are stronger - the Improvement growth logic is different than for normal Improvements
  
• ...

Again:

Forts in WTP are not just "stupid simple Improvements" - they are a full fledged feature.
(Including DLL logic, AI logic and Game Concept in Pedia)

All the sub-features of Forts described above are already fully implemented in WTP.
(There is no need to implement these things anymore in WTP - it is already there.)

What they however do not have is what this thread dicussed:

• Civ Specific Names like Cities (displayed e.g. like City Billboard)
  
• Full City Behaviour

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Generally for WTP:

WTP is a "mega mod" with massive amount of code changes and many new features that have many dependencies and have been designed very specifically for WTP.
Thus be very very careful with trying to simply merge "off the shelve mod components" into existing WTP features.
Of course taking a look at other code is always nice to get some inspiration for the code you want to write yourself.