How do I get rid of BAT mod unit repeat production?

[Lemon Merchant]

Why do you need permission? It's not like anyone but Firaxis has copyright claims to any mod that's created. It would be polite to do so of course, but not really necessary IMO. As long as you're not depriving them of credit for the original work, I don't see why you can't just make a change to it if you like. They're obviously not doing anything more with it, so you wouldn't be stepping on anyone's toes. I'd certainly appreciate it if you could do it. I waited a long time for that feature after discussing the possibility with Emperor Fool, but it never materialized.

I'd need permission because it's not my mod. It's a politeness thing. EF and ruff handle BUG, I just dust the clubhouse.

 

[Willem]

Because it would by definition change the way the game works, albeit very slightly, and in a beneficial direction. It's not just displaying information in a better way, like most of BUG is about.

Well yes and no. While it's doing more than just displaying information, there's a few things that BUG does that already does more than that. The auto-build units option for instance, or having a unit go Sentry while healing. And since the player already has the ability to select which specialists to place, it wouldn't really be changing the game at all. It would just be making it more convenient for the player to manage that aspect of it.

 

[lymond]

As long is it doesn't change core gameplay or any mechanics that would somehow detract or provide advantages to gamplay then it's 100% fine in my book.

Yeah, folks over at RB get there hairs all bent by any of this stuff, but auto-hire spies is complete nonsense. I've seen cities do it even when I set the govnahs up to focus on things like food. I do a lot of micro but sometimes you just have cities set up to do there thing or focus on certain great people only to find later that spies have be running whole time. It's not gameplay or even mechanics for that matter - it's crap. It's also probably the top things about the game I've seen folks complain about.

Honestly though, I don't know what the "fix" would be. What is the alternate to auto-hire spies? Is it some other specialist like a scientist or really enforcing the governor to work tiles whether improved or not improved. Or as I think someone mentioned, providing an option to select a preference.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

@ lymond:

What is RB? And who are the folks over there that get their dander up with game changes? I'm curious.

 

[ruff_hi]

Firstly - thx to LM for buzzing me about this thread and the whole 'U' (for unaltered) aspect of it. There is a whole thread that discusses various improvements / changes and if they 'qualify' under 'U'.

As long is it doesn't change core gameplay or any mechanics that would somehow detract or provide advantages to gamplay then it's 100% fine in my book.

That is a pretty good definition. We also added 'provide information that the user cannot find'.

Yeah, folks over at RB get there hairs all bent by any of this stuff

The guys (not all, but some and maybe the more 'important' ones) certainly think that it changes game play. They can't argue that it presents new information, but they argue that the flow of information changes how people play. If you stick to that definition of unaltered, then you can't argue that they are wrong.

BUG has been so successful because it makes the game easier to play.

@LM = RB means Realms Beyond. there is a thread here about trying to get BUG approved as a mod under their informal adventures / epics reporting games. I still have plans to try one more time with a very skinny version of BUG.

Off topic - one of their main complains (IIRC) is that BUG tells you when to whip. It doesn't ... it just tells you when a 2-person whip will change to a 1-person whip. When playing a RB game, I have to break out the calculator and spend 2 minutes calculating the stupid change point instead of just looking at the progress bar.

 

[ruff_hi]

Anyway - LM is asking because we got into the habit of deferring to me when a question challenging the unaltered nature of BUG game up.

So - is a mod like this unaltered?

Well yes and no. While it's doing more than just displaying information, there's a few things that BUG does that already does more than that. The auto-build units option for instance, or having a unit go Sentry while healing. And since the player already has the ability to select which specialists to place, it wouldn't really be changing the game at all. It would just be making it more convenient for the player to manage that aspect of it.

So ... while I am thinking about the top question ...

• auto-build isn't game changing. It is annoying that the default is 'on' but the feature isn't game changing.
• sentry while healing isn't game changing either - you get the same impact by not selecting heal and then not moving the unit when it comes up in the cycle

Hmm - would we consider a change to how the governor assigned tiles game changing? We are basically saying that Firaxis got it wrong and we are fixing it.

I think that the answer to that question YES.

So ... if you say that changing how the gov changes tiles is game changing, then I think that you have to say fixing the stupid spy specialists is also game changing.

 

[ruff_hi]

Now, before everyone here gets their knickers in a knot ... let me highlight this suggestion ...

No idea if possible, but I would like, as option, an "Always Ask", i.e., when pop increases or shrinks, or a tile ocupied by enemy or developed, the game takes the player to said city and asks for civilians placement.

I would not consider this feature game changing. So ... if we put in code that generated an alert (or a pop up for a city) when the number of specialists changed that that would be fine (or you could be more exacting and generate something even if the type of specialists changed).

The game already gives you the ability to force specialist types (select one scientist and the game will make the next one a scientist too) ... well, I think it does.

So ... a pop up or alert is fine.

 

[ruff_hi]

Another thing I would like is info on the real cost of civic changes. For example how will you come out by changing to Bureaucracy, or Vassalage, or Free Speech. It would be neet if the free units, commerce from towns and such were part of the calculation too.

This is a good discussion point. To do this manually would involve a lot of painful calculations (savings from free unit support, loss of bureaucracy multiplier at the capital, extra hammers from towns, etc). To be honest, I am not sure that even high level players would be able to do this and generate the correct answer.

Or you make the change, see the impact and the reload to before you made the change.

The reload option is fine for BUG but a huge NO-NO for BUFFY.

So - should this feature be considered unaltered and become a candidate for adding to BUG?

 

[Willem]

So ... while I am thinking about the top question ...

• auto-build isn't game changing. It is annoying that the default is 'on' but the feature isn't game changing.
• sentry while healing isn't game changing either - you get the same impact by not selecting heal and then not moving the unit when it comes up in the cycle

I wasn't trying to imply that it was game changing. The previous point was that BUG is all about providing information to the player in a sensible manner. I was trying to point out that it was about more than that. It's making management of the game easier all around, not just providing statistics and values.

The game already gives you the ability to force specialist types (select one scientist and the game will make the next one a scientist too) ... well, I think it does.

No it doesn't, that's the problem. You can have plenty of room for Scientists, and even have 1 or 2 selected, but the governor will still stick in a Spy if it feels like it. It requires a fair bit of micro-management to ensure that a city produces a "pure" specialist output. I don't know how many times I've had to cycle through every single city in my empire in order to ensure that they're utilizing the specialists that I want them to.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

So what do we do ruff?

 

[ruff_hi]

So what do we do ruff?

Sorry - was all my talking-to-myself a little unclear.

Summary ...

• BUG code that changes how specialists are assigned by the game - ALTERS GAME PLAY ... BANNED
• BUG code that fires off a player alert when the number or type of specialists assigned in a city changes - Doesn't alter game play ... not banned.

So ... how do do this?

Here is what I thought ... and, note, it is just shooting from the hip ...

• add some python code that cycles through each city and stores a string representing the type and count of specialists in each city ... probably during the end-player-turn segment
• then, add some code during the start-player-turn segment that generates the string using the current specialist configuration (same subroutine), compare that string to the stored string (from the end of the prior turn) and firing off an alert if the strings are different.

String could be SS-EE-MM-Sc-Ar-Pr-Cz were the two letters represent the count of Spies (SS), Engineers (EE), Merchants (MM), Scientists (Sc), Artists (Ar), Priests (Pr) or Citizens (Cz).

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Sorry - was all my talking-to-myself a little unclear.

Summary ...

• BUG code that changes how specialists are assigned by the game - ALTERS GAME PLAY ... BANNED

Good. Too hard to do. Requires SDK and Python and a lot of time to debug.

• BUG code that fires off a player alert when the number or type of specialists assigned in a city changes - Doesn't alter game play ... not banned.

Easier. I like easy.

So ... how do do this?

Here is what I thought ... and, note, it is just shooting from the hip ...

• add some python code that cycles through each city and stores a string representing the type and count of specialists in each city ... probably during the end-player-turn segment
• then, add some code during the start-player-turn segment that generates the string using the current specialist configuration (same subroutine), compare that string to the stored string (from the end of the prior turn) and firing off an alert if the strings are different.

String could be SS-EE-MM-Sc-Ar-Pr-Cz were the two letters represent the count of Spies (SS), Engineers (EE), Merchants (MM), Scientists (Sc), Artists (Ar), Priests (Pr) or Citizens (Cz).

So would this show up at the top of the screen like a Civ alert message, or would there be a popup that the player would need to dismiss? I think a popup would get annoying after a while, but that's just me.

 

[ruff_hi]

I was thinking of folding it into the alert system. The funny thing here is that I typically turn all of these off as they get annoying.