[BNW] Iska's Stones to Stars and Empires Ascendant (Multi-Expansion Sized Mods)

Thanks Nappa!

Another update:

-Added a Notification for imminent Mercenary and Holy Order disbandment
-Added a button to rehire Mercenaries when they're about to expire
-Added a dropdown menu to the Religion Overview that allows automatic Favor purchasing, mirroring the Faith one
-Added a Notification for when you may purchase with Favor, and don't have it auto-set
-Fixed an issue that prevented Missionaries and Inquisitors purchased with Favor from functioning properly
-Added popup text for Favor purchases to make a little more apparent
-Fixed an issue that prevented the Dynamic Fog of War Advanced Gameoption from working
-Fixed an issue where Building Tooltip Authority as being miscalculated
-Fixed minor issues with Mercenary buttons re: pressability
-Truncated Active Player's Name and Civilization text in Diplolist to match other Civilizations
-Cleaned up Citizen Classes Panel in CityView
-Reverted some modded base Fixaxis Civ UAs in StS to their original forms
-Added Great Sculptors to list of GP that increase Majesty when expended
-Changed Rubber prereq to Manufacturing
-Fixed broken Private Military Contracter Unit, subsequently fixing a number of late-game Mercenaries
-Changed Swiss Guard prereq to Flintlock
-Slave Economy renamed Captive Taking
-Jury Systems buffed to 5 Culture and Latrine Systems to 3 Health / 5 Citizens
-Fixed a bug that didn't refresh Holy Orders UI after Holy Orders tech was researched
-Fixed an issue in Holy Wars UI that listed unmet Civilizations and has issues with unmet CS
-DiploCorner Religion Icon now switches to Favor Icon after State Religion is adopted
-Fixed an issue that prevented the Cviilization Overview Panel from the InfoCorner from working
-Clarified Theocracy Policy's Tooltip re: bonus Piety/Karma
-Removed "Golden Age Has Gegun" and "Golden Age Has Ended" notifications that both popped every turn of Glory Tier 3 perma-Golden Age
-Amended TopPanel text for Golden/Heroic Ages while perma -> GLORIOUS
-Added code to allow AI to rehire Mercenaries when they're about to expire
-Changed Civil War code to give Cities to dead Civilizations rather than Barbarians -> may prevent carshes from Barb Cities if that's indeed a thing
-Removed nothing's units cost 1 maintenance mod, Unit maintenance costs revrted to BNW calculation
-Gave Civs and Leaders additional names/titles for when they're Vassals (Duchy, Feif, Province, etc.)
-Expanded on Currencies mechanics; added Currencies Overview, which allows Players to Buy/Sell/Spend Currencies and to view World Currencies.
-Reverted DLL again, hopefully this fixes Vassal cost, and finally fix empty trade deals
 
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Thanks for the report! I've fixed this for the next update. (Issue in GamePlayUtilities.)
 
Hey subs, another update. Highlights are I fixed Favor purchasing, added JFD's excellent Nationalism mod (with some EA-specific methods of acquiring Nationalism), started adding info to the Pedia, and finally got around to fixing all of the many many database references issues. (Mostly under the hood stuff.)

-Went through failed validation in database.log and fixed all the many (~60) minor probably unnoticable issues relating to bad references and sorted many more under the hood things, hopefully this helps with stability
-Many, many other non-database minor fixes that were hopefully too small to be noticed anyway
-Hid a bunch of dummy Buildings, Wonders, Units, Promotions, etc. from Pedia
-Added Civlopedia section for Government, lists Civic Policies and Civic Tenets
-Misc Civlopedia improvements; added Rituals section to Beliefs and removed duplicate entries in Resolutions that already existed in Projects
-Added historical pedia text for many existing new Social Policies and for all Civic Policies/renamed a bunch of Social Policies
-Corrected a bunch of spelling inconsistencies in EE / Race for Religion
-Removed extra scenario CS from StS and included CS Leaders and CS Colors mods
-Allowed Scribal Orders Policy to unlock Repubic Policy and Magnificence to unlock Monarchy Policy
-Holy Orders no longer hireable after Units become obsolete
-Slight buff to City Strength
-Included JFD's Nationalism, added Nationalism as bonus from Government Ruling Faction, after Secularizing, and from World Wars
-(Please bear in mind this is a little buggy, I'll work on making some currently non-working Nationalized Policies actually give bonuses)
-Added additional bonus from Ruling Faction: Nationalism equal to half of bonus Authority
-Civs can now Secularize after adopting any non-Heritage Ideology -> all Piety/Karma converted to Nationalism instead of Favor
-Changed World War entrant bonus from +Production/-Culture to +Culture/Nationalism/Authority
-Added pPlayer:SetNumFreePolicies(1) pPlayer:SetNumFreePolicies(0) ammendments before dummy Policies to prevent cost increase
-Fixed Favor Purchases from malselection and added additional option (Virtue)
 
Hello, fellow modder here. I vaguely recall looking thru either the EUI logs or somewhere in the code and seeing something that indicated lua memory usage. Just wondering how I can access those functions or what the other good ways of optimizing large mods are.
Optimization is quite time consuming, and I would advise to concentrate on the mod game play mechanics.
EUI is special because it has no gampe play mechanics, it is a part of the game's framework; to decide on lua caching implementation I needed to do some benchmarking, and I left some of the benchmarking code.
Cheers
 
I have just finished a week+ long game on emperor and here is my full report on bugs/features suggestion/critique, compliments etc.
PS: This does not include the upper right corner interface bug I previously reported.

Bugs:

-ICBMs crash the game. You can build them but once you try to deploy them the game freezes and closes.
-Polynesia in my game was impossibly allied with ALL city states ALL the time. Even when we were at war, soon after peace he re-allied with all city-states i had previously bought IMMEDIATILY. Idk what causes this bug but it is obviously a bug, since even after I annialited him from the face of the planet he somehow remained allied with ALL City states, surviving only by probably some far away unit. (Complete kill was enabled)
-"Right to bear arms" civic policy had no description. Just blank.
-After my mercenaries expired they went back to being hirable, and another civ hired them. It did not had any major repercussions but it was weird.
-On the very late game wonders and buildings will randomly dissapear and reappear. Ex: Great Firewall, Perpetual motion engine, Twin towers, Pentagon, alternate reality, Silos, Supermarket. One turn I will be able to build them, the other turn the city will stop production and they will no longer be avaliable to build, this repeats many times. There seems to be no pattern in this.
-Pretty sure there is a bug in the Civic that gives you a great artist/writer/musician at a declaration of war. It worked fine just as intended for most of the game, but towards the end something happened that when i made PEACE w/ a.is I was at war with, i for some reason got a BUNCH of great artists/writes/musicians.

Suggestions:

-Add Organize crime component from JFD, I think its the only major feature from other mods that is missing here.
-Make units be able to walk through deserts as if it were plains again. Hills in desert already exists as rough terrain.
-Expand on the "Great Dignatary" great person. The found new government option seems incomplete.
-Maybe make an "End in era X" option? I don't know how hard that is to do though. So maybe it's not worth it.

Compliments:

-Mod is really good.
-No really, it is REALLY good, it felt as if one were in charge of a government, and not a pumped up warcraft 3 like some other mods.
-I liked that cities are not overpowered, I understand that cities should be hard to conquer, and they currently are as the mod stands.
-I don't know what happened to CS A.I but it is really awesome. CS kicks ass in this mod and it is glorious.
-Really like the government system, it really is the main awesome thing in the mod.
-Really like the not-annoying loyalty system. Works efficient enough so its a factor, and its not a fricking annoying like in JFD.
-Really like the new units.
-Civics are very good. It really feels like passing laws that actually change stuff.
-A.I is not stupid and even in Emperor it was really challenging (in a good way) most of the time.

Couple of screenshots of 2 bugs:

20210509125327_1.jpg 20210509222015_1.jpg
 
Another suggestion i forgot to add: The mod already has "Quick Turns" included, it would be nice if it had "Quiet Diplomacy" or some other variant that makes a.i stop interrupting the game in between turns with random nonsense (i'm dissapointed in you/ give my regards to X civ, that kind of useless stuff).
 
EUI is special because it has no gampe play mechanics, it is a part of the game's framework; to decide on lua caching implementation I needed to do some benchmarking, and I left some of the benchmarking code.
Cheers

Thanks for the reply :)

I have just finished a week+ long game on emperor and here is my full report on bugs/features suggestion/critique, compliments etc.

Thank you so much for the feedback! Really appreciate it.

-ICBMs crash the game. You can build them but once you try to deploy them the game freezes and closes.
Someone was mentioning this on Steam, strange because I thought this bug had disappeared. Guess not - I'll try to fix this for the next update.

-Polynesia in my game was impossibly allied with ALL city states ALL the time. Even when we were at war, soon after peace he re-allied with all city-states i had previously bought IMMEDIATILY. Idk what causes this bug but it is obviously a bug, since even after I annialited him from the face of the planet he somehow remained allied with ALL City states, surviving only by probably some far away unit. (Complete kill was enabled)
I haven't seen this, I'll keep an eye out for it.

-"Right to bear arms" civic policy had no description. Just blank.
A couple of the very end-game Tenets aren't implemented yet :/

-After my mercenaries expired they went back to being hirable, and another civ hired them. It did not had any major repercussions but it was weird.
Why is this weird? You stopped paying them, they went to fight for someone who can.

-On the very late game wonders and buildings will randomly dissapear and reappear. Ex: Great Firewall, Perpetual motion engine, Twin towers, Pentagon, alternate reality, Silos, Supermarket. One turn I will be able to build them, the other turn the city will stop production and they will no longer be avaliable to build, this repeats many times. There seems to be no pattern in this.
Sounds like an issue with Power. Strange, I'll investigate.

-Pretty sure there is a bug in the Civic that gives you a great artist/writer/musician at a declaration of war. It worked fine just as intended for most of the game, but towards the end something happened that when i made PEACE w/ a.is I was at war with, i for some reason got a BUNCH of great artists/writes/musicians.
Thanks for the report, will fix.

-Add Organize crime component from JFD, I think its the only major feature from other mods that is missing here.
Yes.

-Make units be able to walk through deserts as if it were plains again. Hills in desert already exists as rough terrain.
Maybe? Kinda like it.

-Expand on the "Great Dignatary" great person. The found new government option seems incomplete.
Yep, in the works.

-Maybe make an "End in era X" option? I don't know how hard that is to do though. So maybe it's not worth it.
Been considering this for a while.

-Mod is really good.
-No really, it is REALLY good, it felt as if one were in charge of a government, and not a pumped up warcraft 3 like some other mods.
-I liked that cities are not overpowered, I understand that cities should be hard to conquer, and they currently are as the mod stands.
-I don't know what happened to CS A.I but it is really awesome. CS kicks ass in this mod and it is glorious.
-Really like the government system, it really is the main awesome thing in the mod.
-Really like the not-annoying loyalty system. Works efficient enough so its a factor, and its not a fricking annoying like in JFD.
-Really like the new units.
-Civics are very good. It really feels like passing laws that actually change stuff.
-A.I is not stupid and even in Emperor it was really challenging (in a good way) most of the time.
:):):):):)
 
Ohh my bad so the mercenary thing was not a bug its a feature, makes sense haha. Thanks for the reply and the really great mod! :)
 
I'm trying playing the mod too many times, but I always end with a ctd, sometimes is in beliefs choice, or is a random crash after do something. I loved so many features in the mod, but has I said is impossible to playing for me, I never got pass through one era without a ctd.
 
The next update is planned to be large under-the-hood rewrite, I too am getting sick of crashes and want to reduce them.
 
So I've been playing a 3 day game on Immortal but I don't think I'll finish because its very laggy (this part probably my fault since no city razing is on) and a bit buggy.

-Found a bug that I'm unable to enact social policies, since I have "allow policy saving" on I was able to continue the game, but couldn't select any more social policies, this was probably due to nationalism, the version I played without nationalism did not bug. (screenshot below)
-Nationalism is very buggy, it probably caused the one I mentioned above, and some policies I used it in didn't have any effect.
-Found a bug where I have infinity golden age that permanently says it will only last 01 turn, after I used an artist when I was already at a golden age. (screenshot below)
-I think what causes the many great artist/musician/writer bug I previously mentioned is due to CS declaration of war.

-----The main issue I found however was with the new currency system:-----

-I could not select more than one currency policy. (screenshot below)
-Could bypass the red lock on future era techs. (screenshot below)

My main issue with currency however is not these small bugs, but that its very broken and OP, I found myself always saving money to buy tech since it was relatively cheap and basically broke the game, A.I also abused it, alexander was behind me in science but bought his way up atomic era.

My suggestion is to dial it down a bit, there are too many moving parts in the mod and if it had a few less (but working and not buggy/broken) features I think it would benefit.

I would remove nationalism completely, and also the "Spend" section of currency (the one you use to buy techs, culture, civis, etc). The currency speculation in "Sell" button in the currency overview and prospect to buy it cheaply and try to sell it for profit I think is enough and very interesting. Maybe add some culture/tourism bonus to countries w/ strong currency but idk.

-Other suggestions I have:

Add organize crime (please I'm begging it)
Add end in era
Add Quiet diplomacy

Side not I don't mean to be a jerk and love the mod! Just trying to help by reporting bugs, pointing out stuff, makes sugestions, etc.
Thanks!
 

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Side not I don't mean to be a jerk and love the mod! Just trying to help by reporting bugs, pointing out stuff, makes sugestions, etc.
No, I know, I really, really appreciate the feedback and bug reports! Thank you so much!

Found a bug that I'm unable to enact social policies
This means something broke in SocialPolicyPopup, idk without lua logs what. Secularism was breaking a number of tings that I've since fixed for the next patch, I'm gonna try and play a full game before I publish the next patch to try and find any obvious bugs.

My main issue with currency however is not these small bugs, but that its very broken and OP
Yeah it was just the kinda make-sure-it-works. I'll try and balance the costs a bit for the next update, I've already changed how AI gets free Tech and Policies to make it less buggy.

I would remove nationalism completely
To be fair it's not my mod, but I love it so much, it's so flavorful and fills the role of late-game-yield-that-replaces-an-earlier-one that isn't piety or currencies.

also the "Spend" section of currency (the one you use to buy techs, culture, civis, etc). The currency speculation in "Sell" button in the currency overview and prospect to buy it cheaply and try to sell it for profit I think is enough and very interesting.
I like the purpose of the spend section, because I've honestly started to feel like the StS Tech Tree is too long, I like being able to speed up the pace of the game a bit. I'll try and make it a bit less OP for the next patch. I also want to make the buy and sell values of currencies different, so like as you said you can maybe invest in the future and sell for profit.

Add organize crime (please I'm begging it)
Yes, soon <3

Add end in era
This takes work, but I do like the idea

Add Quiet diplomacy
Probably not, it's a DLL thing

Other things:
-Republic/Monarchy don't need Tribalism, it's just a different thing you can get before either that neither requires. I guess it's not obvious cause you're not the first to ask.
-The tier II Eco Policies weren't implemented last patch (again not obvious, sorry), I've added 2 more and made selectable, but haven't enabled (might do before I publish next patch)
-I think I;ve fixed the blocked Techs purchasable by Currency thing
-Eternal Golden Ages are a bonus from Tier 3 Glory, I tried to fix the TopPanel so it shows as "PERMANANET GOLDEN AGE" but still needs work :3
 
No, I know, I really, really appreciate the feedback and bug reports! Thank you so much!

My pleasure xD I'm really enjoying playing it repeatedlly (cause its just really fun) and glad I might be able to help in anyway by reporting stuff.

This means something broke in SocialPolicyPopup, idk without lua logs what. Secularism was breaking a number of tings that I've since fixed for the next patch, I'm gonna try and play a full game before I publish the next patch to try and find any obvious bugs.

Yes! I had enacted secularism and I think (not sure) I used nationalism on it, can't confirm 100% nationalism because I can't enter policy screen due to bug I previously mentioned.

To be fair it's not my mod, but I love it so much, it's so flavorful and fills the role of late-game-yield-that-replaces-an-earlier-one that isn't piety or currencies.

I don't see what you mean but I respect your opinion.

I like the purpose of the spend section, because I've honestly started to feel like the StS Tech Tree is too long, I like being able to speed up the pace of the game a bit. I'll try and make it a bit less OP for the next patch. I also want to make the buy and sell values of currencies different, so like as you said you can maybe invest in the future and sell for profit.

I think the exact opposite haha xD I think Sts tech tree is waay too fast, if you see my screenshots I was on turn 300+ and already entering atomic era, which should be in like turn 500~~ ish (even at Epic speed). I especially like the industrial era of this mod which has the "Potsdam Giants" mercenaries and the Biplanes and stuff, wish I could spend the entire game on it I like it so much. And I think currency bought tech speeds that up even more, especially on harder difficulties like Immortal or Deity when if you don't focus on science your basically dead meat.

Yes, soon <3

:D:D:D

Other things:
-Republic/Monarchy don't need Tribalism, it's just a different thing you can get before either that neither requires. I guess it's not obvious cause you're not the first to ask.
-The tier II Eco Policies weren't implemented last patch (again not obvious, sorry), I've added 2 more and made selectable, but haven't enabled (might do before I publish next patch)
-I think I;ve fixed the blocked Techs purchasable by Currency thing
-Eternal Golden Ages are a bonus from Tier 3 Glory, I tried to fix the TopPanel so it shows as "PERMANANET GOLDEN AGE" but still needs work :3

Oh okay I figured the Republic/Monarchy thing must be on purpose. I would honestly leave it like that its way better! I almost didn't report it because I think needing tribalism would be silly.

Well thats kinda weird because I didn't have Tier 3 Glory haha xD I unfortunately can't screenshot the policies I enacted because of the bug I can't enter it, but I enacted some tradition policies, the whole knowledge tree, and a few rationalism, and order tenents. I'm not exactly sure which I used nationalism on, but I think the ones that didn't work were: "Market Regulation" (Tradition) "Foreign Emissaries" (Knowledge) "Secularism" (Rationalism) and the one I'm vaguely sure it worked was "Scribal Orders" (Knowledge). I'm not 100% sure about these though.

Thanks again! :)
 
Update:

-Various bugfixes
-Fixed issues with Autocephaly and Slave Markets Policies
-Fixed issue where new Policy effects weren't being correctly duplicated by Nationalism
-Added text to Building ToolTips to show additional Yields from Policies (dynamic, not just CityView)
-Fixed issue where Heroic Ages devolved to regular Golden Ages with 1 turn remaining
-Changed how AI acquire free Policies and Techs from Currencies to make less buggy
-Included JFD's Spirit Ideology
-Updated all my custom/A0K's Civilizations to have unique Mercenaries/Holy Order and specific Currency preferences
-Heavily optimized code in A0K's Civilizations, no longer runs like a stuck pig
-Quick DLL edit to hopefully (once again) fix empty trade offers
-Fixed a number of issues with Virtues/Prestige, most obvious being no Wisdom gained from Tech research.
-Fixed minor Festival issue and fixed China (Zhou) new Festival UA - Spring Festivals of the New Year
-Cleaned Economic Policies panel and functionalized Tier 2 Policies (Social Credit/Cryptocurrency)
-Rearranged TopPanel Items and rewrote text for Authority, added ToolTip for Nationalism
-Wrote pedia entries for some things
 
A couple of updates:

-Bugfixes, optimizations, balance changes
-Rewrote World Wars under the hood, no new features but should be less buggy; Heritage and Neutrality can't start WWs (Freedom, Order, Autocracy, Spirit can) but now any non-Neutrality Ideology civ can join either side (choice depends on diplo). War beteen opposing side members now permamnent until war's end.
-Included JFD's Neutrality Ideology
-Added Casus Belli (Just Wars)
-Gave Great Dignitary and Great Architect new Era variant Icons
-Changed Great Dignitary's Reform Government Mission to Enact Unique Tenet Mission
-Added Great Director Nationalism Mission
-Added additional ways to acquire Nationalism (Virtues, Tenets)
-New pedia entries
-Added Devotion as an alternative to Piety/Karma (Autocephaly Policy)
-Changed Bonded Labour Policy to allow Liberty Tree access to Slaves
-Changed Supply calculation numbers, overall Civilizations have much less, reducing the size of Armies and making individual Units more important. (Also makes the game much, much faster. Hopefully helps with stability.)
 
Hey all, not sure if anyone actually plays this anymore, but I finally got around (5 months later) to uploading the last patch I worked on, which includes Tribes, some new Myths, Devotion, various bugfixes, and some other stuff that I honestly can't remember. Cheers!
 
Hey all, not sure if anyone actually plays this anymore, but I finally got around (5 months later) to uploading the last patch I worked on, which includes Tribes, some new Myths, Devotion, various bugfixes, and some other stuff that I honestly can't remember. Cheers!
Excited for the updates, can't wait to start a new game now!
 
Hey all, not sure if anyone actually plays this anymore, but I finally got around (5 months later) to uploading the last patch I worked on, which includes Tribes, some new Myths, Devotion, various bugfixes, and some other stuff that I honestly can't remember. Cheers!

Yeah my friend! Great news!
 
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