Help! No Building Options

[RocknD]

Playing Zak I've reached the point where I can begin building Dimensional Gates, but, about 10 turns ago ALL cities build buttons became grayed out. Units and Research/Stockpile still available, though.

I seem to remember reading somewhere about 11 cities (I think I'm at 14) being a limiting factor in some regard yet not sure if I know what it limits. Is it this or something else?

I patched 13e over d whilst playing this game and like others got Cloudscoops in place of Command Centers and many cities with a positive suddenly went to negative by 2-3 points.

[In an ongoing struggle trying to build PBs to avail, can someone please tell me that if by voting to "Defy Resolution" for non-proliferation, and it Fails, I am still prohibited from building them? I have yet to figure this out after 5-6 games at 400-500 turns!!]

Will post saved game if need be.
TIA

 

[Pfeffersack]

You are not alone...I runned into the same issue as posted here (#435):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=338471&page=22

I thought it was related to contiuning a too old save (patch c)), but if you encountered it with a continued patch-d)-save, it could mean at least that patch e) breaks saves of all previous versions. Posting another save probably does not hurt (I guess however that Maniac needs one directly before that issues comes up to be able to find out what is causing this)

 

[RocknD]

@PF- Thanks

OK, I thought I'd read that somewhere (#435), just didn't pay much attention to it at the time since it hadn't happened to me (yet).

But, I loaded the save you posted and played 2 turns and everything was normal for me except Lab Three which had no selection buttons for Anything.

Mine are all there yet completely grayed out and not available.

So then the solutions are:
- keep playing and see if they come back
- quit the game and start a new one from scratch
- uninstall everything and go for a clean reinstall beginning with BTS

Or something else?
And btw do you mean to say that I need to send Maniac a separate save to him directly?

 

[GeoModder]

And btw do you mean to say that I need to send Maniac a separate save to him directly?

If you have a save, just attach it to your post. That is, if the map size used isn't large or huge...

 

[RocknD]

Yeah, it's Hooge. That is very very large; so large in fact that I've yet to explore all of it, if that makes a diff.

That reminds me, didn't the whole map become visible with satellites in SMACX. Couldn't that be incorporated in Space Elevator Wonder or would that juke the map trading feature or mess something else up?

And, still no answer to my PB prob.
G

 

[RocknD]

Since most of you brainiacs really must have a life outside of CIV (or at least PF), I'm going to take it that this patch e over d breaks all saves as Pfeffer suggested.

I've re-played last 19 turns and it happens the same as the first time, all build buttons have the appearance they show when you are building that item.

I also went from 41 turns on completing a Comm Center to having it finished the next round. I had a Planetary council crash twice on replays under d which prompted me to patch with e in the first place. Luckily it corrected that, but only made possible these other woes.

So now, being 9 turns away from winning a subspace victory I am left with the only option I see open to me. Uninstall ALL, start from scratch-Again!

Out of curiosity:

- why can we now beat back opposing forces to only 60% of their strength with bunkers or air support?
- why do opposing factions trained NL restore their health by skipping several turns?

And finally, I enjoy this mod alot. I still express my thanks to all

involved. However, after playing PF for more than 300 hours and

having experience with numerous games and platforms, I have to

rate this at 3 stars out of 5 for playability and 4 for design.

Just one man's opinion, but sometimes things get screwed up when you try to make "improvements" to anything. I think that's what's happened here. But hey, everybody's a critic.

 

[GeoModder]

If RL business keep Maniac busy, you'll just have to wait until he can spent some time on the issues you mentioned. No point to keep asking when your feedback will be solved.

 

[Maniac]

I think I changed around the order of some buildings in the XML - ordering some that weren't alphabetically. That would cause these problems. So yeah, patch e isn't compatible with patch d after all. :-s Tell me if anyone has these problems in a game started under patch e.

 

[GeoModder]

I think I changed around the order of some buildings in the XML - ordering some that weren't alphabetically. That would cause these problems. So yeah, patch e isn't compatible with patch d after all. :-s Tell me if anyone has these problems in a game started under patch e.

I've put some more alphabetically in CivArtDefines_Building. I'll attach stuff in my thread later today.

 

[RocknD]

New situation with Xenoempathy Dome building under e.
After putting together 12 Temple of Planet cities and building the XD in one, all other cities for the XD build are not accessible i.e. grayed out.
At first thought this may be a National wonder and all cities receive the benefits, but that is not the case.

This comes on the heels of the Weather Control problem over in feedback thread that was fixed with Geo's zip file.

I can post a save, but it's 1,000KB and played on a big map, so????

 

[GeoModder]

If it's on a big map, don't bother to attach a save. It's too big to read on Maniac's computer.

 

[Maniac]

You'll need to build another 12 Temples of Planet to build another Xenoempathy Dome. It works like Temples and Cathedrals in vanilla Civ4.

 

[RocknD]

You'll need to build another 12 Temples of Planet to build another Xenoempathy Dome. It works like Temples and Cathedrals in vanilla Civ4.

What what, huh?
As far as I can tell in vanilla, it's 3 temples for a cathedral, and goes in multiples to a max of 4 in 12 cities.
Using your formula that'd be 48 cities just to have 4 XD, which doesn't make the 'walk with planet' any more likely than without.
Do you smell what I'm steppin in?

 

[RocknD]

Alright, alright I get it. Nobody knows what's going to happen to the game when you make the tweaks that are made. You think you know, but the interactions are not revealed until a whole game is played out over many rounds.

I just built my 18 TOP in my 18th base and was able to build my 2nd XD, so it's 12/6 and still is not like vanilla Civ. I'll let you know when I get 3 more bases to see if it goes 12/6/3.

 

[GeoModder]

Why should the TOP/XD ratio be exactly the same as in vanilla Civ?
This is a mod, we can decide to implement whatever ratio we feel is appropriate.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Why should the TOP/XD ratio be exactly the same as in vanilla Civ? This is a mod, we can decide to implement whatever ratio we feel is appropriate.

Yes, of course...but I think RocknD has two issues, which need to be viewed seperately.

The first is the game balance - I think his opinion is that you need too many ToP for one XD. No one answered so far to this (me neither, because I haven't yet made my mind up - I must confess that I haven't build a single XD so far, so how should I jugde?)

The second issue is how the prequesite function of the ToPs works technically. RocknD was surprised about the prequesite at all, asked and Maniac explained, that it works like Temples/Cathedrals (a constant X of temples - depending on map size - leading to one more cathedral). Now that statement can be interpreted in at least two ways - either that it is exactly the same ratio or a fixed ratio at all (but not the same). I would rather understand the first meaning as well, but in RocknDs experience it seems to be neither. A variable number of prequesite buildings is something I have never heard of, so I think it's worth to investigate whats happening here. I would be willing to look at the save to be able to confirm a possible issue at least. Or maybe I will experience it in my current game as well...

 

[RocknD]

Yah, what he said.

Here's two saves, a before and an after build of XD #2.

@Geo
It's not about whether the devs/mods have a right to artistic license or not. I am asking questions to get answers on the implementations Already Made!

As a player/tester I am giving feedback to (hopefully) make the game have a wider appeal because it is enjoyable to play. If that in turn helps someone new that comes along stay with the game, then I believe it adds life to the mod. Isn't that what you want, too?

If the game is just for your pleasure and there is no dialogue to (in my case, 4-5) questions on game play/rationale that've been posed over the last several months I've been here, then who's going to want to keep playing if there are no answers to them? I mean if it keeps changing "just because" when will a player expect to understand the rules?

Anyway, weekend is here. Hope everybody gets time for a few (hundred) turns the next few days.

 

[GeoModder]

The mod is basically Maniac's baby. If he's not around, well I guess I don't need to draw a picture on what that means...

 

[Pfeffersack]

Here's two saves, a before and an after build of XD #2.

I had a look at both and it seems that you have miscounted the number of XDs. In the Cutlass save, you have already 2 (Freshwater Springs, Provision Bay) and you are just about to complete the 3rd (in Cutlass Cay). You cannot give order to build a 4th one (and the hoover tells you NOT why). The datalinks say that you need 18 total (= to build the next one, which is here the one under construction)

In the second save, you already have 3 (in the bases named above), none under construction and the datalinks say 24 as total prequesite (= to be able to build the 4th) You again cannot order another one to be built, but this time the hoover says in red "18/24 ToP"

That's a ratio of 6:1. Now we can go on with discussing if that feels right...given that this number will probably be reduced on smaller maps, I don't think a change is needed (at least not less)

 

[RocknD]

Thanks Pfeffersack.
Indeed I did miscount. At Post #10 I had TOP in build queues and had 1 XD built.
Not sure when I got that 2nd one, but since I only have 18 cities with TOP the ratio of 6:1 is dependent upon the initial quota of 12 being satisfied, no?
Then somewhere between that 12th TOP and the 18th I am allowed to again build #2 and #3 XD thus making the ratio 3:1 for that set.
I am fine with 6:1 overall, let's just place some of this stuff somewhere in a FAQ and we'll all know.