[GS] how do I debug why UI disappears during AI turn?

[ask]

first of all, I want to say that Civ 6 is a great game with a lot of potential if UX was improved.

alas, the base game UI is pretty painful, so installing UI mods is pretty much a requirement if you are spending hundreds and hundreds of hours in the game.

unfortunately, these mods get broken every time the base game is updated. having a way to disable updates until I manually apply them (plus ability to roll back to the previous version of the base game) would be a life saver. the value I get from the base game updates is not worth it if the overall UX becomes unusable and I can't play the game again.

alas, Steam forces game updates onto users, so... I have to stop playing the game after each update until UI mods catch up with the game. I do not think this is how the user experience should be... we can do better, right?

since both CQUI and "Concise UI" mods were (essentially) abandoned, I had to install 10+ smaller mods like Trade Routes, Leader icon info, etc, etc.
once something gets broken after base Civ 6 update, it is hard to debug which mod exactly is causing problems. I can do binary search on all mods, disabling half of them and then playing 5-20 turns to reproduce the bug, and so on, but you have to agree that can hardly be described as a good user experience and a good use of the player's time...

now , a real solution would be for the game studio to update the UI in the base game, which is probably pretty
easy to do, given that a lot of great ideas and implementations are already available in popular mods, and the best ones could be picked and just integrated into the core (licensing permitting, of course).

but... in the meantime, while the base game UI is what it is, I at least want to find an acceptable way of debugging game crashes.

the current issue I am facing - UI completely disappears and only map stays visible during AI turn at some point. so my question is - HOW do I debug this? what log files should I look at?
I saw the advice of deleting "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Base\Assets\UI\LeaderIcon.lua" file (https://steamcommunity.com/app/289070/discussions/3/1813170373221736278/) . I do not have that file, so my issue is caused by something else...
again, disabling all mods or doing binary search on them is hardly the best way...

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Two things:

1. Concise UI hasn't been abandoned, the last update was on 11/21 - about a week ago, & there is a fairly decent working version of CQUI on Github.
2. It would help to know what UI mods you are using currently.

Generally, however, I would start by checking the Database, Modding, & Lua logs for errors.

 

[ask]

Hi Laurana! I apologize for not making my original message more clear. I actually tried editing it almost right after I submitted it, but the web page said the message was blocked because it was spam-like. maybe this is what you get when attempting to edit the post right after creating it.

anyway,
the reason I claimed that those amazing UI mods were abandoned was that they are regularly in a broken state for many, many months after each big Cig release.
and when I say "broken state" I mean they had several deal-breaker bugs that effectively prevent their usage (like certain windows not shown, UI disappearing, cannot use some major game mechanics, etc).
e.g. CQUI "late summer update" is still pending https://github.com/Azurency/CQUI_Community-Edition/issues/397 (since April 2019, 8 months at this point)
same for "September update" - https://github.com/Azurency/CQUI_Community-Edition/issues/406 (since September 2019, 4 months at this point).

and while there are several pending PRs with varying degrees of readiness and of unknown quality, they have not been integrated into CQUI "master" branch yet.
that is what I mean by essentially abandoned...
good news though: I saw the maintainer of CQUI mentioned yesterday that he may be able to find time to review and merge pending PRs around Christmas time.
this does not change the overall state of UI mods though, with things staying broken for many months after each game update.

while I personally would be happy to pay money for better UX in Civ game (meaning for plugins like these),
I understand there is just not enough market demand to attempt to solve this via market methods, and we will have to rely on volunteers who are familiar with the game modding code.

side note - I looked at Concise UI on Steam after reading your message and I realized that there were a few recent releases indeed. alas, those did not fix the outstanding deal-breakers in my case, but hopefully those will be addressed in subsequent releases.


now, about the specific issue with disappearing UI - I tracked it down to "Extended Diplomacy Ribbon" plugin. with the plugin enabled, I can reproduce the issue 100% by clicking on any foreign leader icon at the top. the UI disappears and the game becomes unusable.
this is unfortunate because I find the extended info shown in those leader mini-panels to be quite useful.

I guess my frustration is mostly due to the fact that the original game lacks in UX so badly, while there are these great UI alternatives available, but they get broken when Steam pushes game updates with no way to opt out. I wonder if the game developers are unable to incorporate those ideas or implementations due to licensing considerations, or they do not believe that those UX improvements are useful.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

now, about the specific issue with disappearing UI - I tracked it down to "Extended Diplomacy Ribbon" plugin. with the plugin enabled, I can reproduce the issue 100% by clicking on any foreign leader icon at the top. the UI disappears and the game becomes unusable.
this is unfortunate because I find the extended info shown in those leader mini-panels to be quite useful.

You shouldn't have that issue. EDR is very stable. You likely have a conflict with another mod that is causing the issue. Try enabling EDR by itself w/o any other mod. If you still have an issue either post on the mod's Steam page or contact @Aristos directly on here. If it works correctly then you need to determine what other mod is conflicting with it. Again, w/o more info on the mods you're using or info that is contained in your logs nothing more can be done to help you.

 

[ask]

the problem is 100% reproducible with the following plugins setup:

enabled:
Better Report Screen
Better Trade Screen
Better Unit List
Community Quick User Interface
Environmental Skin: Sid Meier's Civilization
Extended Diplomacy Ribbon
Policy Change Reminder
Research Stop Reminder
Resources At A Glance
Simplified Gossip
Sukritact's Better Great Person Screen
Sukritact's Simple UI Adjustments


plus also several disabled plugins:
Concise UI (disabled)
HellBlazers City overview interface (disabled, marked "not compatible")
Improved Deal Screen (disabled, marked "not compatible")
Production Queue (disabled)
Unit Report Screen (disabled, marked "not compatible")
WASD Camera Panning (disabled)

--------------

UPDATE: found a log file with errors. they appear to be from "Concise UI" (?)

LoadScreen: OnLoadGameViewStateDone
TopPanel: Refreshing
TopPanel: Refreshing
Runtime Error: bad argument #2 to 'lCompare' (string expected, got nil)
stack traceback:
[C]: in function 'lCompare'
I:\games\steamapps\workshop\content\289070\1671978687\modules\_log\additions\cui_gameinfo.lua:110: in function '(anonymous)'
[C]: in function 'table.sort'
I:\games\steamapps\workshop\content\289070\1671978687\modules\_log\additions\cui_gameinfo.lua:101: in function 'SortMods'
I:\games\steamapps\workshop\content\289070\1671978687\modules\_log\additions\cui_gameinfo.lua:145: in function 'GetCuiGameInfo'
I:\games\steamapps\workshop\content\289070\1671978687\modules\_log\additions\cui_log.lua:92: in function 'LogGameInfo'
[C]: in function 'func'
[C]: in function '(anonymous)'
TopPanel: Refreshing​

 

[ask]

oh, I found the page where I saw someone mentioning that Concise UI is no longer maintained - https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/d6n35w/concise_ui_replacement_modlist/

 

[Laurana Kanan]

enabled:
Extended Diplomacy Ribbon
Simplified Gossip

These two mods are no longer compatible.

UPDATE: found a log file with errors. they appear to be from "Concise UI" (?)

Post the errors on the Steam page, 尤 will be able to tell you what those errors mean as they're not part of any of the modules. It's checking mods on the front end from what I can see so even though it's disabled that part will still function.

oh, I found the page where I saw someone mentioning that Concise UI is no longer maintained - https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/d6n35w/concise_ui_replacement_modlist/

That post was from two months ago. At one point, 尤 was deprecating the mod, but decided to come back and updated it. It's current as of Nov. 21.

 

[ask]

btw, I found another issue with Concise UI and a disabled (!) plugin - Production Queue. I could not place districts or wonders with Concise UI. I found that unsubscribing from Production Queue plugin (which was *disabled* in the game already!) solved this issue.
just a reminder that even disabled plugins can break others.