incremental patch discussion

[keldath]

dont worry, i can merge dales code without a problem - ive checked some mods that imported dales code with the revolution modifications without revolution stuff.
(merged mod for example). that why i wrote that i can add dales code easily.
plus i have the original dales code for 3.19.

merging dale is my specially

yeah some of the missions are not in use.
the accuracy - well that's a feature that i really like.

ok then ill put it in.

another thing,
i see that david wrote some stuff ontop of super spies, espionage diplomacy and another, so i think we need this part too.

 

[Ahriman]

Do people like or use the Airbomb missions?

I use the airbomb terrain mission, as does the AI. If you don't have interceptors up, your improvements can get blown away by bombers.

I think bombers are already very good, so I wouldn't cry if we lost them.

Whether all these tweaks are documented anywhere but in the code I don't know, but there seems to be more complexity to the implementation of Ranged Bombardment we currently have than I thought.

Weird changes, it really seems designed for a bombard system beyond our purposes.

I don't mind losing bombard, but we might then rework the siege units without it. I think we already have some rework issues; the AI (correctly) recognizes that rocket launchers and missile launchers are often better than shield troopers.

I rarely see many shield troopers, the AI tends to use vehicles, guardsmen and siege units instead.

I suspect though that this is a mix of tech cost issues (shield troopers have a lot of pre-req techs to get through) and maybe too much city attack bonus on the siege units.

In short, we could lose the DCM ranged bombardment, I don't think it works well for our purposes and it is quite complex.

*edit*
If Keldath likes it we should keep it; I'm happy to defer.

 

[Deliverator]

i see that david wrote some stuff ontop of super spies, espionage diplomacy and another, so i think we need this part too.

Yeah, super spies we definitely want. We are discussing some changes to espionage units in the civs thread.

Era values tweaked, and a couple of minor tech cost changes (though nothing major; this could still be done)

Cool. Thanks.

 

[davidlallen]

Era values tweaked, and a couple of minor tech cost changes (though nothing major; this could still be done)

I recall that in 1.7.2.1 I integrated your changes to add religion flavors to the tech tree, but that was not in 1.7.2.2. Are the religion flavors in the current tech file? If not it may be worthwhile to re-add.

 

[davidlallen]

[I note we seem to have lost whatever changes we had that made the AI unload transports instantly, many times in game I am able to destroy transports on land tiles.

This is why I write detailed release notes. Please see this comment in 1.7.1:

+ In the 1.7.0.2 patch, I added a capability for the AI to unload transports on land if there is any threat; but it frequently causes a hang, so this is removed from 1.7.1.

The original code by Sephi is very simple. Please see this post and the following discussion. In order to reduce the changes to header files, I put the code in a different place than he suggested, and my change did not work. I never analyzed exactly why. It may be worthwhile to just put his code, where he suggested in the first place.

 

[Jester Fool]

It doesn't work very well though here, they seem to miss way more often than their theoretical "accuracy" score would entail.

My experience (1.7.2.x) is that the theoretical 'accuracy' doesn't match the actual results. I have 'new random seed on reload' set (yes I cheat) in the options, and even with >70% probability to range attack successfully, the ranged attack misses, no matter how many times I reload. Ranged attacks make sense, add a fun element to playing, and should be made to work correctly IMO.

my understanding of the code was that the transport was supposed to unload immediately only if it was adjacent to the target city. I can't observe the AI's target always, so its possible that in all the cases I am able to eliminate transports without them being unloaded first, that they were en route to somewhere else, so the unload condition hadn't been met.

The player can move transports and then unload any land units with remaining movement points. Is the AI loading land units and then moving? That would explain why the units are not being unloaded. If possible to code, maybe transports should NOT move prior to the loaded units being able to move.

 

[davidlallen]

The player can move transports and then unload any land units with remaining movement points.

There is a long discussion following the link I gave above. Basically, the human can move, unload, wait for other players to attack, reload and then move. This is not cheating, although it is a little strange, and it is the best way we can find to implement land transport. The AI never thinks to unload when it can. So we just need to upgrade the AI to do the same unloading "trick" that the human player can do.

 

[Ahriman]

Are the religion flavors in the current tech file? If not it may be worthwhile to re-add.

Yes, they were in one of my changes above that tweaked tech costs I re-added them and they were merged in, they are in 1.7.3 (I think?).
[Though; Technocracy flavors seem to be missing, probably because when re-adding them I only looked for Flavor_Religion entries, and the Technocracy techs didn't have one, and there is an error with Theocracy where the Qizarate flavor is listed twice; I will fix these when I get a chance.]

This is why I write detailed release notes. Please see this comment in 1.7.1:

Sorry, must have missed that one.

It may be worthwhile to just put his code, where he suggested in the first place.

This sounds like it is worth looking into.

 

[Deliverator]

The original code by Sephi is very simple. Please see this post and the following discussion. In order to reduce the changes to header files, I put the code in a different place than he suggested, and my change did not work. I never analyzed exactly why. It may be worthwhile to just put his code, where he suggested in the first place.

I tried doing the change as originally suggested by Sephi, but the game seems to go to an infinite loop at the very start of the game. I presume there is a common circumstance where his for loop can loop forever.

 

[Ahriman]

Though; Technocracy flavors seem to be missing

Technocracy flavors fixed.

 

[Deliverator]

I'm done making changes for the next patch and will post it within the next 24 hours. It's a biggie, so it will take a little bit of writing up.

 

[Ahriman]

Awesome! I look forward to giving it some playtesting tomorrow.

 

[Deliverator]

Incremental Patch 1.7.3.2

Install sequence: 1.7 -> 1.7.3 -> 1.7.3.2
(Can also be installed over 1.7.3.1)

A bumper load of changes....

Moisture and Terraforming

+ Fresh Water is rebranded as Moisture
+ There is a new tag in Civ4ImprovementInfos called iAddsFreshWaterInRadius. A value of -1 means the improvement adds no Moisture to tiles, a value of zero means the improvement adds Moisture only to its own tile, a value of 1 means that Moisture is added to the improvement tile and 8 surrounding tiles, a value of 2 means that Moisture is added to a BFC around the improvement tile. The diagram shows what happens for value 3.

Spoiler :

+ Shallow Well and Wind Trap add Moisture to only their tile (radius = 0). Deep Well and Aquabore have the moisture radius set to 1.
+ A new Moisture Lens improvement is available, can only be built on the Polar Ice bonus, provides +3 water, +2 commerce, adds moisture in a 2 tile radius (BFC). Polar terrain will now terraform straight to grassland (Perhaps Polar Desert Waste should change to Desert Waste too? Although this is actually a terrain downgrade it would look more natural...)
+ Catchbasin now adds moisture in a 2 tile radius (BFC) and Reservoir of Liet in a 3 tile radius.
+ Because each tile now has an internal count of how many times moisture has been added to it, the removal of improvements and buildings should leave moisture in place if there is an overlapping source. (There may still be issues with the removal of individual buildings, the final remedy for this will be to add an iAddsFreshWaterInRadius to BuildingInfos and deal with the adding and removal of moisture in the SDK rather than Python, as has been done for Improvements).
+ Terraforming can occur on any tile that has moisture.
+ Civ4TerrainInfos has a new tag, bWormFriendly which is only set to 1 (=true) for Deep Desert and Desert Waste. This controls whether spice can appear on a terrain and whether worms can enter it. This is also used to switch Sandrider units to being wormless on non-worm-friendly tiles (i.e. Polar Desert Waste).
+ The test for whether spice or worms can appear in a tile is not longer based on whether the tile is adjacent to fresh water, but whether the plot contains Moisture. This is I feel much more transparent particularly to new players. If spice disappears then I can mouse over the tile and see that it is because the tile now has Moisture in it. For a tile to have spice and worms entering it must have worm friendly terrain and no moisture. (Sandrider units will still have the worm graphic on moistured Desert Waste or Deep Desert as it was thought it would look odd otherwise.)
+ A Forest terrain feature has been added, movement cost +2, defence +50% as vanilla forests, also adds +0.50 health to nearby cities (In other words, two forests gives +1 health.) Forest will only appear on Grassland at the Sink elevation.
+ I have stopped the Open Water feature from being placed by Terraforming mostly because the Oasis graphic really doesn't work in Sink terrain. It seems that Open Water would most likely appear in Sinks and, with Forests, we'd have two different possibilities for Grassland upgrade features. Should we keep the Open Water feature? Or lose it and just keep the new forests?

Offworld Trade Goods

+ Semuta (controlled by Ecaz) now works by giving a Semuta Supplier building, gives 3 Semuta bonuses and collects +1 gold per Semuta Den. Semuta Dens give +2 happy, -1 gold to the city they are built in and may be built by anyone who has access to the Semuta resource either directly or via trade.
+ Slig (now controlled by the Tleilaxu) now works by giving a Slig Breeders building, gives 3 Slig bonuses and collects +1 gold per Slig Charcutery. Slig Charcutery gives +1 happy, -1 gold to the city they are built in and may be built by anyone who has access to the Slig resource apart from the Tleilaxu themselves.
+ The four civs that currently have a unique resource via Landing Stage (Ecaz - Semuta, Tleilaxu - Slig, Corrino - Sardaukar, Ix - Ixian Weaponry) are forced to pick their unique resource from their second landing stage if they do not pick it with their first. So, if I am Corrino I can take Sapho Juice from my first landing stage, but I must then pick Sardaukar from my second.
+ Unique resources for Atreides and Ordos and further development of offworld trade goods pending.

Art Changes

+ New unit art for a number of units; Soldier, Infantry, Great Prophet, Shai Hulud Sayyadina and Mentat by myself; Ducal Guard, Ducal Trooper, Bene Gesserit Instructress, Harkonnen and Ordos Heavy Troopers, Kindjal Infantry by Deon. For more see the Unit Art thread.
+ Reorganized Vehicle and Siege Weapon art so it made a bit more sense. This includes new models for the Roller, Missile Launcher, Heavy Scorpion and Devastator.
+ Lots of new building buttons and some new tech buttons.

Other Changes

+ includes Ahriman's various XML tweaks and fixes since 1.7.3.
+ reduced the Fremen vehicle capture chance to 20% from 50%.
+ Added some more post-processing to Arrakis mapscript. Wherever any 2x2 square of flat ground with no adjacent Mesa tile will now have a Mesa added randomly within that 2x2. This is to reduce the amount of useless areas on the map.
+ Spice Purifier now gives 1 Spice and requires Spice, no longer removes all building unhealth.
+ Polar Water Shipper moved to Water Economy tech.
+ Irulan is now Protective rather than Charismatic.
+ Spice no longer slows down Sandriders.
+ New Remove Outcrop worker task available at Chemical Explosives. Yields some hammers just like chopping forests in vanilla.
+ Razzia Raider upgrades to Naib's Chosen
+ Palmery no longer provides Date bonus. (This is Dune Wars, not Date Wars... )
+ Renamed some units and buildings here and there for a bit more flavour.
+ I wasn't sure how to make the Marauder promotion unavailable so I've made it require Lead by Warlord.
+ Some XML tag renaming for ease of development
+ removed Ginaz Swordmaster unit.
+ Fixed RevDef.py reference to BUILDINGCLASS_WEATHER_SCANNER.
+ Removed all "Celebrity Happiness" functionality that was brought in with TLOTags in 1.7.3.1.

I'm bound to have missed something from the list, so let me know if you find anything weird or unexpected.

I have made an installer for 1.7.3.2.
Steps to install:
1. Download 1.7.3.2 installer here.
2. Delete or rename your Dune Wars directory.
3. Run dune-wars-1-7.exe. (Say "OK" to do you wish to uninstall)
4. Run dune-wars-patch-1-7-3.exe.
5. Run the newly downloaded dune-wars-patch-1-7-3-2-incremental.exe.

Before we bundle up 1.7.4, I think the pedia really needs some love...

 

[Ahriman]

Wow! An amazing set of stuff. I look forward to testing it out. Some thoughts:

+ Shallow Well and Wind Trap add Moisture to only their tile (radius = 0). Deep Well and Aquabore have the moisture radius set to 1.

Wind traps need to not add moisture. Otherwise fresh water becomes meaningless, because nearly every tile in the game is adjacent to either a well or a windtrap.
And cottage bonuses from irrigation do not require that the cottage tile has fresh water, merely that it is *irrigated*, it it is adjacent to a tile with fresh water.
[I see that range 0 shallow wells will make only their own tile subject to terraforming, rather than adjacent. This is fine.]

Polar terrain will now terraform straight to grassland (Perhaps Polar Desert Waste should change to Desert Waste too? Although this is actually a terrain downgrade it would look more natural...)

Polar desert waste should definitely not change to desert waste, that would kill polar cities. However, we could make a "coastal" grassland variant tile that they could change into that gave say 1w1h1c. Terraforming should never be a downgrade.
Also, lets make sure that the melting lens has a high build time (8 turns on normal? Maybe 12?)

+ Catchbasin now adds moisture in a 2 tile radius (BFC) and Reservoir of Liet in a 3 tile radius.

I'd leave the catchbasin at 1 tile. Otherwise it irrigates your whole big cross, so you get almost all the benefits from terraforming immediately. I think its better if full terraforming has to wait until reservoirs.
The best solution I think is for catchbasin to give the +1 happy, -1 or -2 water, and 1 range moisture.
Then Reservoirs gives +1 happy, -2 water, 3 range moisture.

Remember that at least half the benefit from catchbasins is their increase in your terraform probability.

The test for whether spice or worms can appear in a tile is not longer based on whether the tile is adjacent to fresh water, but whether the plot contains Moisture. This is I feel much more transparent particularly to new players.

Excellent! So shallow wells will not displace any spice, deep wells will displace spice in 1 tile radius.

+ A Forest terrain feature has been added, movement cost +2, defence +50% as vanilla forests, also adds +0.50 health to nearby cities (In other words, two forests gives +1 health.) Forest will only appear on Grassland at the Sink elevation.

I think it should probably only be +25% defense bonus. Otherwise great.
Also will need to check; make sure that you can still build improvements in the tile without destroying the forest. Otherwise we risk a situation where if the tile gets pillaged, you are unable to rebuild there.

Should we keep the Open Water feature? Or lose it and just keep the new forests?

I think we should keep the open water feature; I like it. Its a feature, so it will be mutually exclusive with forests, which is fine. Its more a little lake, so it could occur on flatland or in sinks. Its pretty rare. The main purpose of the forest is of course flavor, but also to reassert the superiority of sinks over flatland, which is otherwise removed removed by terraforming because sink grassland is the same as flatland grassland (whereas graben is superior to flatland).

Semuta (controlled by Ecaz) now works by giving a Semuta Supplier building, gives 3 Semuta bonuses and collects +1 gold per Semuta Den.

And this is any Semuta den in the world?

+ Slig (now controlled by the Tleilaxu) now works by giving a Slig Breeders building, gives 3 Slig bonuses and collects +1 gold per Slig Charcutery. Slig Charcutery gives +1 happy, -1 gold to the city they are built in and may be built by anyone who has access to the Slig resource apart from the Tleilaxu themselves.

Hmm. Interesting. Charcutery feels a little weird (the french is charcuterie), but maybe I'll get used to it.

I wonder; maybe semuta and Slig resources should give no base bonus; just the ability to build extra very cheap buildings? We don't want to over-saturate with happiness possibilities.

+ Added some more post-processing to Arrakis mapscript. Wherever any 2x2 square of flat ground with no adjacent Mesa tile will now have a Mesa added randomly within that 2x2. This is to reduce the amount of useless areas on the map.

Interesting, I think this might be very good, we'll have to check to make sure we don't over-mesa.

New Remove Outcrop worker task available at Chemical Explosives. Yields some hammers just like chopping forests in vanilla.

Huh! Great solution! Will the AI use it? They should I guess, just by building an improvement over the top of it.

not Date Wars...

Maybe next mod?

 

[Deliverator]

Wind traps need to not add moisture. Otherwise fresh water becomes meaningless, because nearly every tile in the game is adjacent to either a well or a windtrap. And cottage bonuses from irrigation do not require that the cottage tile has fresh water, merely that it is *irrigated*, it it is adjacent to a tile with fresh water.

As far as I can see only Cottages that are actually on Moisture are showing up as Irrigated. Am I missing something? This image shows a Cottage within 1 and 2 tiles of an Aquabore and a Cottage next to Wind Trap. The moisture in the Wind Trap/Shallow Well is slightly redundant I suppose, its only functional effect would be enable terraforming in that tile. In fact, Wind Traps only appear on Mesa which can't be terraformed so the moisture is completely redundant.

The good thing is you can now easily change the iAddsFreshWaterInRadius in the XML and see how it plays.

Excellent! So shallow wells will not displace any spice, deep wells will displace spice in 1 tile radius.

That's right.

I think it should probably only be +25% defense bonus. Otherwise great.
Also will need to check; make sure that you can still build improvements in the tile without destroying the forest. Otherwise we risk a situation where if the tile gets pillaged, you are unable to rebuild there.

Haven't tested building improvements yet. The defense bonus is easily changed in the XML.

And this is any Semuta den in the world?

Yes.

Hmm. Interesting. Charcutery feels a little weird (the french is charcuterie), but maybe I'll get used to it.

I did have Charcuterie at first, but I thought Charcutery was a bit more Dune like for some reason - more medieval sounding. We might want to tweak the AITradeWeight of Slig to make the Tleilaxu trade it away more readily.

I wonder; maybe semuta and Slig resources should give no base bonus; just the ability to build extra very cheap buildings? We don't want to over-saturate with happiness possibilities.

I removed the base bonus from both already.

Interesting, I think this might be very good, we'll have to check to make sure we don't over-mesa.

Yes, let me know if it is too much. You've also mentioned removing the tiniest islands, if I can figure out a good algorithm for that I can do it.

Huh! Great solution! Will the AI use it? They should I guess, just by building an improvement over the top of it.

I presume the AI will use it. I don't know why it wouldn't.

I'd leave the catchbasin at 1 tile. Otherwise it irrigates your whole big cross, so you get almost all the benefits from terraforming immediately. I think its better if full terraforming has to wait until reservoirs.
The best solution I think is for catchbasin to give the +1 happy, -1 or -2 water, and 1 range moisture.
Then Reservoirs gives +1 happy, -2 water, 3 range moisture.

If you want to drop the Catchbasin to one tile radius then there are two lines in DuneWars.py that read "r = 2". If you change both of them to "r=1" then Catchbasins will only add moisture to a 1 tile radius.

 

[Deliverator]

Post now redundant.

 

[Deliverator]

Post now redundant.

 

[Ahriman]

As far as I can see only Cottages that are actually on Moisture are showing up as Irrigated. Am I missing something? This image shows a Cottage within 1 and 2 tiles of an Aquabore and a Cottage next to Wind Trap. The moisture in the Wind Trap/Shallow Well is slightly redundant I suppose, its only functional effect would be enable terraforming in that tile. In fact, Wind Traps only appear on Mesa which can't be terraformed so the moisture is completely redundant.

I haven't had a chance to test in-game yet, and perhaps I don't understand your moisture design properly.
Lets consider by comparison a vanilla Oasis. The Oasis provides fresh water in the tile of the oasis itself, which allows farms to be built (and gives them irrigation bonus with biology) in any tile adjacent to the oasis.
However, tiles adjacent to the oasis, though irrigated, do not have fresh water. A city adjacent to an oasis will get the fresh water health bonus, but a city that is 2 tiles away (ie adjacent to an adjacent tile) will not.

It looks from your screenshots like this is slightly different, and that moisture in a tile does not even provide irrigation in adjacent tiles.

In this case, the windtrap is fine but merely redundant. But the 0 range shallow well is a problem. Shallow wells *should* provide the commerce bonuses for cottages in adjacent tiles, IMO. This is a deliberate mechanic to get the AI to build cottages next to wells, and solar farms not adjacent to wells. Otherwise the AI doesn't tend to build cottages, and cottages are a bit too weak in the early game when compared to solar farms; remember the AI thinks that hammers are better than commerce.

So, best fix is probably to remove (redundant) moisture from windtrap (or keep it, I don't mind), but to return shallow well to range 1.

but I thought Charcutery was a bit more Dune like for some reason - more medieval sounding

I don't feel strongly in any case. Butcher doesn't feel right though. Slaughterhouse... maybe.
Is there a way we could get this building to provide gold for the Tleilaxu player rather than happy? They don't eat the Sligs. Very minor fluff issue though, might be simpler to leave it as is.

If you want to drop the Catchbasin to one tile radius then there are two lines in DuneWars.py that read "r = 2". If you change both of them to "r=1" then Catchbasins will only add moisture to a 1 tile radius.

Ok. I can test.

 

[Ahriman]

OK, here is a link to a new CvGameCoreDLL.dll that has the celebrity happiness stuff completely removed. Please overwrite the 1.7.3.2 file in Dune Wars/assets with this one.

Sorry, I don't understand how these files work. This file has a CvGameCoreDLL.dll file.

But my CvGameCoreDLL folder doesnt' have this file, it has a CvGameCoreDLL.h file??

Having pasted this in, the mod CTDs when trying to start a new game.

I will try reinstalling the whole mod.

 

[Ahriman]

Deleted entire mod, installed Dune Wars 1.7, 1.7.3, Patch 1.7.3.2.

Still get CTD when I start a new game.