incremental patch discussion

[EnzoLuca]

grazie Deliverator.

Does this incremental update include the fix to the "multiple production" modcomp issue which davidlallen mentioned earlier in this thread? As i think this is why i get CTD late in-game

 

[Deliverator]

Does this incremental update include the fix to the "multiple production" modcomp issue which davidlallen mentioned earlier in this thread? As i think this is why i get CTD late in-game

No, sorry. I missed that one.

There is one other point I want to address regarding AI interest in building spice harvesters, but I have had some trouble fixing that. My plan was to release 1.7.2 with both of these fixes. But perhaps I should stop trying to figure out the harvester problem and release 1.7.2 with only the hang fix.

Can we reinstate the house spice corporations for now, but make the palaces the corporate HQs so there is no need to build a separate building?

 

[EnzoLuca]

Dune Wars!!!

 

[Ahriman]

Can we reinstate the house spice corporations for now, but make the palaces the corporate HQs so there is no need to build a separate building?

Reinstating corps sounds good, but making them palaces is problematic: there were individual corps for each house, so you'd need a UU palace for each faction to found the appropriate corp. No easier than the old method with a 1 hammer corp hq building.

Also, I'd really like to address the issues from:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8844082&postcount=917

in our next incremental patch. The too-large anti-spice zone from wells is a big thing holding spice economy back. Terraforming should significantly reduce spice, just digging a well for underground water should not.

And lets try pushing the bonus water for mesa from arrakis habitation back to climate controls tech.

 

[orlanth]

To make the AI want spice more, you could try setting a high iAIObjective for BONUS_SPICE in bonusinfos (it's currently 0), and setting high positive ImprovementWeightModifiers for the harvester improvement on all the leaderheads. Not sure it would help but its worth a shot.

BTW I harnessed my OCD powers to stop all the "you have built your first Gunpowder unit" popups at game start by adding return False to unitBuiltFeats in cvadvisorutils.py.

 

[EnzoLuca]

Is this a major patch?

can't wait for it, but I'll have to.

 

[Deliverator]

Thanks for tracking down the advisor popups thing, orlanth.

For the next patch, I know david has some local changes/fixes which he has talked about putting into a 1.7.2 patch.

Myself, I'm going to look at the late game tech tree redesign.

 

[Ahriman]

Guys,
Can anyone tell me please which files govern terrain tile yields, improvement yields and which tile types improvements can be built on?

I have some ideas for tweaking improvement yields (so that we actually get solar plants and turbines) that I'd like to mock up and test out.

* * *
Edit: Also, which file controls starting techs?

 

[EnzoLuca]

How far is the patch now? (i.e 80%)

 

[Ahriman]

Unknown. Depends what we put in it

 

[davidlallen]

Can anyone tell me please which files govern terrain tile yields, improvement yields and which tile types improvements can be built on? ... Edit: Also, which file controls starting techs?

Tile yields are in terrain/civ4terraininfos.xml. The order is water, hammers, commerce.

<TerrainInfo>
	<Type>TERRAIN_POLAR_COAST</Type>
	<Description>Polar Desert Waste</Description>
	<Yields>
		<iYield>1</iYield>
		<iYield>1</iYield>
		<iYield>1</iYield>
	</Yields>

Improvement yields are in terrain/civ4improvementinfos.xml.

<ImprovementInfo>
	<Type>IMPROVEMENT_SOLARFARM</Type>
	<YieldChanges>
		<iYieldChange>-1</iYieldChange>
		<iYieldChange>2</iYieldChange>
		<iYieldChange>0</iYieldChange>
	</YieldChanges>
	<TerrainMakesValids>
		<TerrainMakesValid>
			<TerrainType>TERRAIN_TERRA_GRASS</TerrainType>
			<bMakesValid>1</bMakesValid>
		</TerrainMakesValid>
	</TerrainMakesValids>
	<TechYieldChanges>
		<TechYieldChange>
			<PrereqTech>TECH_REFINING_TECHNIQUES</PrereqTech>
			<TechYields>
				<iYield>0</iYield>
				<iYield>1</iYield>
				<iYield>0</iYield>
			</TechYields>
		</TechYieldChange>
	</TechYieldChanges>

I have deleted some syntax items but left a couple of others you may want. YieldChanges is the basic yield change for the improvement. There is a section on terrain or bonus "makes valid" which indicates where the improvement may be legally built. The TechYieldChanges section as you may guess from the name, lists the names of techs which further change the yield of the improvement.

Starting techs are controlled by civs, so they are found in civilizations/civ4civilizationinfos.xml:

<CivilizationInfo>
	<Type>CIVILIZATION_ATREIDES</Type>
	<Description>House Atreides</Description>
	<FreeTechs>
		<FreeTech>
			<TechType>TECH_WATER_CONSERVATION</TechType>
			<bFreeTech>1</bFreeTech>
		</FreeTech>
		<FreeTech>
			<TechType>TECH_DESERT_SURVIVAL</TechType>
			<bFreeTech>1</bFreeTech>
		</FreeTech>
	</FreeTechs>

 

[Ahriman]

Thanks David, very helpful.

Also, which section determines the tech requirements for improvements (or is it self-evident)?

I am toying with removing the higher level turbine upgrades, and just having the basic one upgrade automatically through tech; is there a TECH_NONE or some way to comment out those improvements?

[Also; any thoughts on the high-end tech tree thread and changes?]

 

[davidlallen]

If there are improvements you don't want, it is easier to just remove them from the xml. Whether you remove them or comment them out, you should remove the worker build actions from units/civ4buildinfos.txt and then remove those from the unit build lists in units/civ4unitinfos.xml. (Or use civcheck, which will flag the undefined references for you.)

Now that you are well on the way to reading and modifying xml, the next "level" is to find things on your own. One person's "self evident" is another person's "I have no idea how", I guess. The improvementinfos file also has the PrereqTech field which sets the prerequisite tech.

As you may have gathered, I haven't actually done anything on Dune Wars in some few weeks. There are several files which have been submitted that I could collect together into a patch. I have mostly given up on figuring out how to make the AI interested in building harvesters with spice corporations removed, so I will add back the corporations. That is just a lot of "scutwork" to dig out the archived files, remember which changes go to corporations, and add them back. That, plus the bug fix for "multiple production" which is causing pain to multiple new players, would be the contents of 1.7.2. I do not have any specific release date for it.

 

[Ahriman]

Ok, here are XML files with some changes then that could go into a patch.
[Sorry, not in the right subfolders]

They will work even better I think once we merge with some of Deliverator's changes, like merging the wind power, solar power and crystal techs (at the moment the AI rightly sees each individual tech as weak and so doesn't bother researching them much).

Changes:

Spoiler :

Pilot school cost reduction from 190 to 90. [190 is far too expensive for an early game building]
Spice silo cost reduction from 130 to 70. [It takes 14 spice to get 2 gold. Needs to be cheaper.]
Feudal estate culture increase 2 to 3. [Was slightly too weak.]
Make computerized research facility and automated factory require Tecnocracy religion (these are the Technocracy temple buildings)

Cottages give +1c (not +1h) with fresh water
[Goal; make cottages more specialist, less pro-everything, reduce hammer yields slightly in early game to stop too-large armies and running out of buildings]

Remove multiple level turbines, now just a single turbine.
Turbine. On mesa only. 2h, +1 hammer with 2 tech.
Solar plant on graben, flatland. 1h1c, +1 hammer with 2 tech.

Change polar terrain to 1w1h instead of 2w.
[Make polar cities smaller, but actually able to build some stuff.]

Push windtrap water bonuses back to climate controls and arrakis transformation (was arrakis habitation, desert industry).

Push deep mine, desalination to refining techniques.
Move first hammer bonus for turbine and solar farm to desert industry, second remains at military-industrial complex.

Change Atreides starting tech desert survival to exploration, start with a scout.
Change Fremen to start with mysticism instead of exploration (to make more competitive for Shai Hulad with BGs). Stay starting with a single scout though.

Change Fremen_Scout from class guardsman to class melee.
Change Fremen scout tech pre-requisite to exploration.

Remove Slavery civic bonus to deep mines and core mines (the AI thinks the slavery civic is better than it really is, and uses it far too much, because it thinks it gives bonuses to 4 improvements; hopefully this will help). Also, change harvester bonus to commerce not hammer (logic; more spice production, also better distinguishing between commerce and hammer yields).

I think slavery still has some issues, the AI still likes it too much relative to other civics in the same category, and I think it still has a tendency to over-whip its population sometimes.

Also, the AI still generally seems a bit slow at building improvements; I wonder if somewhere there is a parameter we can tweak to make it build more workers?]

 

[Ahriman]

Another thought for slavery; I think the AI over-evaluation comes because it places a high value on improvement yield increases, without being able to evaluate how many tiles that improvement is actually buildable on, or whether or not it is mutually exclusive with another improvement (mine1 vs mine2 vs mine3).

So perhaps a better solution would be a global +X% hammer bonus in all cities.

So, slavery could be say +15% hammers in all cities, +1 unhealth in all cities.

A couple of little things I wasn't sure how to fix;
Carryall class units should not get terrain defensive bonuses.
Atreides Hawk Thopter should be able to attack cities.

 

[davidlallen]

If you take the contents of that zip, and re-arrange it so that it can be unzipped directly over an existing mod installation, then you could be the proud distributor of a 1.7.2 patch! There are several ways to create this zipfile. One way is to click the button in the winzip interface which says, "only add changed files". Another way is to make a full zip file, and spend a few minutes to group-select and delete all the files you don't want, from the zip. If you sort by date, this is usually easy.

So, slavery could be say +15% hammers in all cities, +1 unhealth in all cities.

It is easy to try. In gameinfo/civ4civicinfos.xml, add a <YieldModifiers> group for slavery; you may need to look in the vanilla file to see the syntax. I believe the order is water, hammers, commerce; but I never remember. One trick is to put a different unique number into each field, such as 17, 29, 37; and then look in the civilopedia to see which number went where. The health penalty is done with the iExtraHealth field. To remove the whip ability, you may recall, you change:

<Hurrys>
	<Hurry>
		<HurryType>HURRY_POPULATION</HurryType>
		<bHurry>1</bHurry>
	</Hurry>
</Hurrys>

to just <Hurrys/> which means the hurry section is empty.

Carryall class units should not get terrain defensive bonuses. Atreides Hawk Thopter should be able to attack cities.

In units/civ4unitinfos, flag bNoDefensiveBonus controls terrain defensive bonuses. I'm not sure what problem you are referring to about the Hawk; it is the same as other thopters. A bug was reported a while back regarding *all* thopters being unable to perform some attack. I think it was in the modpack thread. But I don't think the Hawk is any different from other thopters.

 

[Ahriman]

Ok, I will take a look.
I don't recall if it were all thopters, I only noticed it with the Hawk.

The spice reversion would be good too though, the game is much weaker when the AI isn't benefiting from spice at all.

 

[Deliverator]

As you may have gathered, I haven't actually done anything on Dune Wars in some few weeks. There are several files which have been submitted that I could collect together into a patch. I have mostly given up on figuring out how to make the AI interested in building harvesters with spice corporations removed, so I will add back the corporations. That is just a lot of "scutwork" to dig out the archived files, remember which changes go to corporations, and add them back. That, plus the bug fix for "multiple production" which is causing pain to multiple new players, would be the contents of 1.7.2.

I'm chipping away at the tech tree XML - there's quite a bit to do. I can take the scutwork of putting the corporations back in seeing as I'm all over the XML already.

The one thing it would be good to have from you is this "multiple production" bug fix. Then I'd be happy to assemble the 1.7.2 patch when the tech tree overhaul is done if you want.

 

[davidlallen]

The multiple production bug is small by itself. I had reduced my expectations, but still hoped to work on the corporation replacement. Perhaps I should reduce further and just put up the multiple production bug fix, since that is in sdk.

 

[Ahriman]

I'm chipping away at the tech tree XML - there's quite a bit to do.

Cool. Did you have a redesign in mind after some of the feedback?

I'm happy to hold off on economy tweaks until the tech tree is finalized.

David, perhaps you could do the multiple production bug-fix and then give some design feedback on the tech-tree and late-game changes?

Or we could do this in 2 patches; one with economy tweaks and re-adding spice corps, and then a second one which includes the larger overhaul.