incremental patch discussion

[davidlallen]

Here is patch 1.4.8. I have only spent a few hours on it, to fix a number of easy issues reported by Ahriman. Please install over the 1.4 release; the patch does not contain the original art files. If you have any of the 1.4.x patch releases, you may install this on top. In this release I have experimented with an installer script written by phungus420 and others, so you will see this is a self-extracting executable which automatically knows where your mod directory is.

Please get the 1.4.8 release from this link. You can get the original 1.4 release from this link.

Unit changes
* Scout thopter now upgrades to light carryall instead of hawk thopter (AH57)
* Previously the help text "Ignores building defense" was placed manually and got out of sync with the units that actually have the ability. Moved this into sdk (CvGameTextMgr.cpp) so it will always be in sync. (AH61)
* Suspensor gunship now upgrades to suspensor destroyer (AH64)
* Remove worm rider +25% vs guardsman (AH76)
* A unit may now load into a transport even with no moves remaining (AH78)
* Sandworms now disappear after destroying an improvement. They already disappeared after destroying units. (AH79b)
* Mongoose returned to anti-tank duty: remove thopter/hornet/intercept bonus, add free ambush promotion
* Add low end vehicles: quad and roller; adjust vehicle strengths (AH63, DA55)

Tech tree, civics changes
* Trade on deep desert and desert waste now at dune topography, along with map trading (AH41)
* Fanaticism tech no longer gives -1 happiness (AH51)
* Desert Rovers tech now required for Suspensor Devices (AH52)
* Faufreluches civic now gives unlimited engineers instead of scientists (AH58)
* Arrakis Spice civic now at Spice Industry tech, much earlier (AH67)

Terrain, improvement, building changes
* Turbine now gives +1 commerce (AH47)
* Remove fort improvement, same as outpost (AH63b)
* Core Mine had +1 hammer bonus, was supposed to be +3 (AH66b)
* Salt flat no longer gives +50% defense and no longer spreads (AH67, AH72)
* Ecaz civ was prevented from building landing stage in civilizationinfos.xml (AH68)
* Scale build times of turbine, well, mine improvements: level 1 is 4 turns, level 2 is 8 turns, level 3 is 12 turns (AH74)
* Solar Farms get +1 hammer at Refining Techniques and another +1 at Military Complex (AH74)
* Catchbasin and Reservoir of Liet now cost -3 water, not -2 (AH79)
* Water Seller building now gives +2 water with ice, not +25% (AH79c)
* Diamonds required Imperialism tech to trade, should be mining (AH80)

Miscellanous changes
* Put current DLL source code into directory CvGameCoreDLL

Most of the remaining feedback items require discussion and/or debugging. The current spreadsheet is attached.

 

[Deliverator]

The 1.4.8 link is broken...

 

[davidlallen]

Thanks, fixed filename on ftp site. Works now.

 

[Ahriman]

Cool. I may not have time to test this much for a while though, lots of work to do.

 

[keldath]

great work david!

hope ill be able to help soon,

i gotta do the promotions right?...

 

[davidlallen]

Yes, doing the promotions would be great.

 

[keldath]

bad news....

i had a ctd...
game setting:
dual map size
custom continents
era - desert bloom
normal speed
conquast + terra + holy war + religious + diplomatic victories.
2 nations

ran an autoai for like 10 turns - and bang had a ctd.

 

[davidlallen]

Was there anything in PythonErr.log?
Have you played other games which did not crash?
Does it happen every time?
Which nations were in the game?

I have just tested with the same settings and it autoplayed 100 turns fine.

 

[keldath]

weird.....did a reload of autosave, nothing happened, ill run some more games,
so far so good,

if ill have another ctd, ill upload a savegame.

 

[Deliverator]

When we get up to 1.5, I think we should make a publicity push.

a. Put into the download database.

This was done for 1.3. See here. The presentation is a bit messy and it doesn't have a picture attached, but it has over 600 downloads.

b. Announce on the release dates thread. This is what the moderators read, to decide what to mention on the main civfanatics page. They only add posts once a month or less, but it can give us a big spike in downloads

This was done for 1.3 also.

c. Every new unit art should also be announced in the download database with a link to the main mod page, so people who see cool artwork will download the mod.

I can do more of this definitely.

d. We should keep the 1.5 playtest feedback in a thread under the modpacks forum. I am pretty sure people look here first to find out about new mods. Many people do not know to look in the subforums separately. All of the main mods such as FFH have both, a thread there and also a subforum.

Agreed - the number of people hanging out in that section is usually high. We should just resurrect this thread - a thread showing lots of activity is more likely to attract people. The opening post will need tidy-up and screenshots added.

Anything else people can think of for the launch?

Upload to ModDB. This is the biggest site for general modding it seems and a few Civ4 mods are there. Break out of the civfanatics bubble.

We should come up with a good description of the mod that can be copy and pasted into (i) the sub-forum download thread, (ii) the modpack thread opening post and (iii) the download database page. This should set the scene, describe the features and have some choice screenshots. I think the descriptions in the current pages are too long and disjointed, have some irrelevant/boring information, too many typos and...
too much of this!

 

[keldath]

hey.....

d' you dont like my font colors?......

dont make me send a face dancer on your tale...))))))))))

 

[davidlallen]

Putting the release into the announcements threads once, two months ago, is not enough. Many people read the list of recent downloads. So it is important to have multiple announcements, of different art or different versions.

My thought was to basically empty out the first post, and point to the web page I created:

I took Deliverator's art and some of keldath's original text to put together the following simple website to advertise Dune Wars: this link

If you have feedback, I can make changes. This can be linked from anywhere, such as the download page, the main thread in the forum, any other threads we have, other sites, etc. There is no reason to have multiple sources of the same information.

 

[The_J]

Upload to ModDB. This is the biggest site for general modding it seems and a few Civ4 mods are there. Break out of the civfanatics bubble.

Holy s***, didn't know, that there's a StarCraft mod.
no units, but there's building art in it .

 

[Deliverator]

Putting the release into the announcements threads once, two months ago, is not enough. Many people read the list of recent downloads. So it is important to have multiple announcements, of different art or different versions.

I agree. From 1.5, we should forget about patches being "non-official" and add a post to the announcements every time IMO. I'll have a think and come up with some feedback/suggestions for the web page.

Holy s***, didn't know, that there's a StarCraft mod.
no units, but there's building art in it .

Good spot the J. There are 18 buildings in there - definitely some usable stuff. Makes you realise there is probably a fair amount of art in old, forgotten mods that isn't uploaded to the database as separate files. Might have to trawl the Modpacks subforum sometime...

 

[davidlallen]

I guess I agree with Adjica's post on the main thread that it is too confusing for the rest of the world to follow what we are doing with releases.

@ koma13, when do you think the mercenary system will be ready? You had asked us to hold 1.5 for that.

One possibility is to announce 1.4.8 on the main page. Another possibility is to rebuild it as 1.5, to follow the "major release" convention, and then announce that.

Any thoughts?

 

[Deliverator]

I think the two most important things to do are:

1. Get a Dune Wars thread in the Modpacks forum - this is where you are most likely to reach new players. It might be better to start a new one, rather than resurrect the existing one.

2. Get the Opening Post of the welcome thread sorted out so that it sells the mod better and clearly links to the latest version. I am updating links in the install thread and art thread as new versions are released, but the welcome thread is the proper place.

I think we should wait for Koma's changes for 1.5.

 

[koma13]

So far I have done:

AH56b, AH56e, AH81, DA32, DA34, DA35, DA37, DA39, DA40

Current screenshot

Spoiler :

As you can see I mixed the homeworld screen with the main view. This way it should be easy to decide where to send your reinforcements.

There is more to do, mainly AI and cleaning up the unit pool concept.

How long it will need? Not easy to say. Maybe 3-4 days...?

Anyway, before releasing 1.5 we really should address the problems ai is not settling and the absence of unit action.

 

[Deliverator]

Looks cool. I like the concept.

Not sure "Secret Report" is the best title for the screen. The Secret Report in the film is *within* the Guild, whereas this is your faction dealing with the Guild to pay for transport from your homeworld.

Ideally, I'd like the title to contain the name of your civ's homeworld for flavour so it says "Ship Reinforcements from Caladan" or something to that effect. I posted a list of the homeworld names here.

Graphics-wise, I'm sure we can squeeze a Heighliner in there amoung the stars... but that can wait.

I may do unit icons before the building sweep since the existing unit icons are really unhelpful and the building sweep is going to take longer. That way we'll have better icons for the shiny new unit queue.

 

[davidlallen]

So far I have done: AH56b, AH56e, AH81, DA32, DA34, DA35, DA37, DA39, DA40

One of the other issues is DA33, the screen allows you to select units which require unique bonuses. I can think of several different ways to design this. One could argue that offworld unique bonuses can still be purchased. So you should still be allowed to recruit Ginaz Swordmasters from offworld, even if somebody else grabbed the unique bonus already. However, recruiting from offworld should not help get Fremen Water Debt based units.

What is the right restriction for units requiring UB?

 

[Ahriman]

What is the right restriction for units requiring UB?

I think you should have to have the unique resource in order to build the unit. So, no ordering Swordmasters unless you have the resource, no ordering Sardaukar unless you have the resource, etc.
Otherwise those resources are a bit too weak, relative to grabbing say +2 happiness instead.

If we're happy for Fremen to still have access to the screen, then Wormrider/Fedaykin could be purchasable with the resource. If Fremen don't get access to the screen, then Wormrider and Fedaykin shouldn't be purchasable.

I don't remember the specific issue numbers, but hopefully you also wont' be able to buy any unit that you don't have the tech for, or can't build normally. So if Fremen have the screen but we remove their access to building air units for eg, then they will also be unable to buy air units.

Are we abandoning the idea of having different pictures for each factions with a graphic of their home planet on it? I thought that was really awesome in some of the earlier concept art, though I understand it is obviously more work.