K-Mod: Far Beyond the Sword

no oos on kmod.

just dl the mod form the first thread, install, on both cpus, and your good to go.

to load a mod from start look for "mod chooser" in the utilities thread.

enjoy.

Right...but does it somehow include Buffy? Are the games using this Mod HoF acceptable? I wouldn't want to play without the additions of Buffy, anymore. I see how add a line in the Config for it to auto start, but wonder how Buffy is integrated....don't see any mention of it, in the notes.
 
Right...but does it somehow include Buffy? Are the games using this Mod HoF acceptable? I wouldn't want to play without the additions of Buffy, anymore. I see how add a line in the Config for it to auto start, but wonder how Buffy is integrated....don't see any mention of it, in the notes.

It includes BUG (I don't know about BUFFY) and AFAIK K-Mod games aren't HoF acceptable because many gameplay elements are different from the vanilla BTS.

Also, if installed on both computers....will our current save files work, or would we only be able to start anew? Is there a command line listed somewhere to auto start this mod, like I do with Buffy? I assume this works on top of Buffy....I hope.

Your old saves won't work in K-Mod.
 
It includes BUG (I don't know about BUFFY) and AFAIK K-Mod games aren't HoF acceptable because many gameplay elements are different from the vanilla BTS.



Your old saves won't work in K-Mod.

Ok....of course the multiplayer aspect is what I'm here for, so not that big a deal...but does this Mod have the vital info come up on screen like Buffy does...in other words, what the game should have had, but didn't, that Buffy added?:) Guess, worst case, we can just try it and see.....getting rid of the Out of Sync errors will probably overcome any possible negatives!
 
but does this Mod have the vital info come up on screen like Buffy does...in other words, what the game should have had, but didn't, that Buffy added?:)!

K-Mod contains BUG mod so it does have additional info displayed. AFAIK, most of the things BUFFY displays is from BUG.
 
Trying to teach my son Civ and getting very tired of OOS errors...every time there's an attack, every time we land a unit on another land mass....etc. So, I've seen multiple mentions of this mod to maybe alleviate these problems. So, here I am.

Questions....so the 2011 file is the most recent? Also, if installed on both computers....will our current save files work, or would we only be able to start anew? Is there a command line listed somewhere to auto start this mod, like I do with Buffy? I assume this works on top of Buffy....I hope.
The download page says "Date Added: Jan 08, 2011"; but that' just the date that the first version was uploaded. I've been using the same page to update the mod rather than creating a new page for every new version. If you look a the description, it says "Current version: 1.44b; Last Updated: 10/Dec/2014". That's the most recent "official" version. There is also a more recent 'beta' version a couple of pages back in this thread. Here. That version is generally better than 1.44b, but it also has some potentially controversial changes that are in there for testing purposes. That's the version I've been playing recently, and I'm still hoping to get some more feedback on how people are finding it. (* some more thoughts about that at the end of this post.)


The shortcut I use to launch K-Mod has this command:
"C:\games\Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe" -mod="K-Mod"

Without looking through the code of Buffy, I don't expect that K-Mod work at the same time as Buffy. (I'm sure you could have both installed; but you could only run one at a time, I'd assume.)
A question from a guy who mainly works with XML and very occasionally dabbles in Python. As you probably know, a version of K-Mod is included in Realism Invictus. Lately I have seen, for instance, that all leaders raze cities, regardless of appropriate XML variable being set to 0 for them - so I guess that variable is no longer exposed to any meaningful code, or at least not in the way it was.

So, my question is: could you provide a list of vanilla XML variables that no longer have any meaning in K-Mod? I have a suspicion that at least various WarRands might not be working anymore as well.
The raze probability in the xml is still used; but it is no longer the only thing taken into account. Some AI leaders will raze cities just because they feel like it (base on that xml value), but the others will generally just do it for strategic reasons - such as to prevent a cultural victory, or because they can't afford the maintenance costs. ... It's an AI decision which could probably use a bit more flavour and variation, but that's roughly how it works.

As for unused xml; the only one that comes to mind is the number-of-cities maintenance cap in the handicaps file (and even that one probably should have been changed rather than completely disabled - just for moddability reasons). Some xml values have changed their meaning, such as unit upkeep in the civics file; and great work culture; but I can't think of any that are disabled right now. (I haven't maintained a list of those kinds of changes, sorry.)

Hey, Karadoc, I was wondering if you have played any Civ 5 and thought of doing any work on the AI there. I had only dabbled in Civ 5 and I just played a game the other day on emperor difficulty and it was a complete joke... I was just toying with the AI by the end, hitting them with giant death robots, nukes, and Xcom squads while they had WW1 units.

I don't want to turn up the difficulty because, as in Civ 4, that makes certain strategies impossible, like building any of the early game wonders. I have fond memories of Kmod for Civ4... wow was it difficult, you did such an excellent job. If you've done any work on the Civ5 AI I'd love to try it. Otherwise, how's it going? What are you up to these days? Designing AI for those new military robots? ;)
The short answers is that I won't be working on Civ5. I was one of the beta-testers for Civ5. There were some things that I didn't like about the beta process; and I'm not a great fan of the core game. Although I haven't looked at the current state of Civ5, I'm currently of the opinion that Civ4 is a better base game to build on. (For various reasons.)


--
* Re: experimental balance changes. I've played around 6 games on the the test version. From my point of view, although the Scientific Method change sounds huge, it hasn't hasn't made a huge impact on how the game plays out. Rough calculations show that even with the +1:science: to all specialists, you will typically still lower your science output by researching Scientific Method; especially if you have University of Sankor. (And working towns still gives more total yield than using specialists with Representation.)

The reason I'm testing +1:science: to specialists rather than +10% to all cities is that I was hoping to give it a boost that transforms how science is done, rather than just increasing it. I wanted it to be a somewhat complex choice, which transformed the economy... Also, I wanted to give a bit of an indirect boost to the +:food: corporations. In any case, adding the back-end stuff to allow that bonus in the xml was actually more work than I expected; and I'd have to do it again to get +10% in all cities. So that's one strong reason why might not even test that other change. (Neither of those boost were possible in the original xml.)
Anyway, if that +1:science: to specialists is too powerful for Scientific Method, I might give it to Computers instead, just so that I don't feel like the new feature is going to waste. :crazyeye:

As for lumbermils... Maybe it's just the way I play, but I've found that with the lumber-mill change, I'm using a lot more lumber-mills... a lot more to the point that I'm wondering if the change is a bad idea. Lumber-mills with just the +1:commerce: are decent - especially in cities which lack hill. And the health and pollution offsets later in the game make them quite a good improvement. ... But it's still pretty powerful to chop early for a surge in production; so I guess that's the trade-off.

In any case, I'm still interested in thoughts about those things.
 
[...] working towns still gives more total yield than using specialists with Representation.

Anyway, if that +1:science: to specialists is too powerful for Scientific Method, I might give it to Computers instead, just so that I don't feel like the new feature is going to waste. :crazyeye:

As for lumbermils... Maybe it's just the way I play, but I've found that with the lumber-mill change, I'm using a lot more lumber-mills... a lot more to the point that I'm wondering if the change is a bad idea. Lumber-mills with just the +1:commerce: are decent - especially in cities which lack hill. And the health and pollution offsets later in the game make them quite a good improvement. ... But it's still pretty powerful to chop early for a surge in production; so I guess that's the trade-off.

Well, it's a game, and it's supposed to be fun for a lot of different types of players, from the guy who likes it easy and peaceful and enjoys micromanaging every little thing in a hundred cities on a gigantic map to the gal who wants the challenge of conquering the world against an AI that not only gets unfair bonuses but also rivals human players in terms of cunning and ruthlessness. I think K-Mod does a god job of balancing things in that regard. However, when it comes to balancing game elements against each other, you really have to look at how powerful they are rather than how often they are used (by anyone other than the most successful players). Now I'm not a great player (yet and probably never will be because I'm playing too rarely), but I think I recognize you making a key mistake I used to make while playing at the Monarch/Emperor level (of stock BtS). Towns and Lumbermills should be way more powerful sources of beakers and hammers than Specialists and Workshops because running the former sacrifices the adaptability and explosive power of the latter option, not to mention the other drawbacks of Cottage-type improvements and of having Forests near your cities. I think you're overestimating long-term benefits (especially with regards to forests) and underestimating short-term benefits (especially with regards to turning armies of Scientist specialists into literal armies equipped with newly developed weapons). If I had to guess, I'd say you're probably playing K-Mod at Emperor with a preference for peaceful late-game victories. Maybe you'll posts some save states someday, if you're in the mood. Anyway, moving the bonus to Computers sounds interesting. That tech has always been weak.

On a different note, have you considered adding reforestation, desert greening, and such? Since you seem open to more drastic changes and since a number of mod packs in that area are available... As I said before, I really like K-Mod's changed global warming system, but feel it's underused. I think the late-game could potentially be enriched a lot if it routinely featured ever larger armies of Workers fighting a (losing) battle against the effects of global warming. Maybe Worker upkeep could even become an alternative to Inflation.
 
If you're going to win the game with early rush wars, then it doesn't matter what happens with scientific method or lumber-mills. So in terms of balance changes, it's naturally worth focusing on the longer term effects of those things.

The key thing with this kind of testing is to play with the changes, see what effect it has on how the game is played - and spend a bit of time considering why it has those effects. eg. If Scientific Method gets a huge buff - does that mean you're actually going to bee-line towards it now instead of avoiding it? And if you do bee-line towards it, does it actually help you? Or would you still have been better off getting assembly line first.

Generally when I make balance changes, my goal is to create interesting choices for the player - choices that are situation dependant, and which can take some thinking. Previously with Scientific Method, there was very little thinking involved. I thought there might be scope to have a high-value trade-off between what it obsoletes and what it grants; and then further thinking about how best to leverage the new bonuses. I fully appreciate that the +1 is a huge effect; but unfortunately that's the smallest possible effect of that type - so that's what I'm testing.
 
Corporations from other people in your team (e.g. permanent alliance) are considered foreign for Mercantilism but trade routes aren't, is this intended?
 
(And working towns still gives more total yield than using specialists with Representation.)

Wait, how do you end up with this conclusion?

As far as I can see, the optimal choice is very unclear with this change:

irrigated bio grassland + scientist = 4 (+3 REP) beakers 3 (+3 PAC) GPP, a small trade boost, slightly more POP upkeep, slightly reduced unit upkeep
grassland town = 5 (+1 FIN) (+2 FS) beakers 0 (+1 US) hammers
 
If you're going to win the game with early rush wars, then it doesn't matter what happens with scientific method or lumber-mills. So in terms of balance changes, it's naturally worth focusing on the longer term effects of those things.

I respectfully disagree. If you're playing at a difficulty at which you can just decide to win a game one way or another, or if you decide for whatever reason that you're going to go for a particular strategy or winning condition before you've even generated the map, then the balance between these options becomes irrelevant.

The key thing with this kind of testing is to play with the changes, see what effect it has on how the game is played - and spend a bit of time considering why it has those effects. eg. If Scientific Method gets a huge buff - does that mean you're actually going to bee-line towards it now instead of avoiding it? And if you do bee-line towards it, does it actually help you? Or would you still have been better off getting assembly line first.

Well, no it doesn't much change beelining decisions. The way this bonus works you have to go deeper into the tech tree than just to SciMeth to really capitalize on it. Biology and food corps as well as the size of your civ all synergize with it. Without those? SciMeth is an expensive tech. You'll have to work a lot of specialist turns to get your beakers back. No, the primary motivators to beelining SciMeth are still the strategic possibilities it opens up, e.g. two free great people, the Kremlin, and revealing two resources at least one of which is indispensable for late game aggression. What the bonus does change is the balance between Cottage and Farm. Before it was even. Now Cottage loses.

Generally when I make balance changes, my goal is to create interesting choices for the player - choices that are situation dependant, and which can take some thinking. Previously with Scientific Method, there was very little thinking involved. I thought there might be scope to have a high-value trade-off between what it obsoletes and what it grants; and then further thinking about how best to leverage the new bonuses. I fully appreciate that the +1 is a huge effect; but unfortunately that's the smallest possible effect of that type - so that's what I'm testing.

I completely agree with that goal. Civ is a game of choices, and the more of those are conundrums, the better. However, here you're destroying one that occurs throughout most games in order to introduce a new one, which only occurs at most once per game. Build Farm or Cottage? Since Towns need 70/35 turns of not merely existing but of being actively worked, the SciMeth bonus makes that decision significantly easier all the way through the Renaissance.

Conversely, to reap the still hilariously meager advantages of having late-game forests, I can't chop them. Even if I don't want to chop out an army or some wonders (which on higher levels become rather tricky to build without chopping), I'm still left with an easy choice: Should I chop those six forests surrounding my newly settled city to give it a free granary and forge, instantly doubling its productivity, or do I wait two thousand years for when I just might be able to use them to fight global warming, if I'm even still around then and haven't been wiped out by some rival leader who's less inclined to tree-hugging? The kind of return you get from granaries, in particular under slavery, is unreal. And those thirty hammers you get from a chop into such a building don't stay thirty hammers; they snowball to a degree I don't think you realize.
 
The raze probability in the xml is still used; but it is no longer the only thing taken into account. Some AI leaders will raze cities just because they feel like it (base on that xml value), but the others will generally just do it for strategic reasons - such as to prevent a cultural victory, or because they can't afford the maintenance costs. ... It's an AI decision which could probably use a bit more flavour and variation, but that's roughly how it works.

Thanks for answering! Basically, my impression of K-Mod AI is that it is much harder to meaningfully influence through XML. From what you say, for example, we can't now take a single AI leader and make it almost never raze cities - as your part of city razing logic will still kick in and it isn't weighted by any XML variables. For another example, AI declare war logic is basically internalized in the code now, because WarRands don't meaningfully affect AI aggression levels.

Could you please - as obviously you know your own code the best - give a few pointers on how best to control AI aggression from within K-Mod's code? My impression for RI is currently that AI is too aggressive for its own good, in many cases refusing to stay at peace for any amount of time and/or war-spamming a player that is stronger than itself, only to its own detriment (I am willing to concede that it might also be a bug introduced by merging RI and K-Mod codes, but once again, if you pointed where to look, it could be easier to spot it if it is there). Thanks in advance!
 
I completely agree with that goal. Civ is a game of choices, and the more of those are conundrums, the better. However, here you're destroying one that occurs throughout most games in order to introduce a new one, which only occurs at most once per game. Build Farm or Cottage? Since Towns need 70/35 turns of not merely existing but of being actively worked, the SciMeth bonus makes that decision significantly easier all the way through the Renaissance.
So, are you saying that the bonus will make you not build cottages? Or that the point of the game at which you stop building cottages will come sooner? Are you going to always use Representation?

As I've said, the idea is that the tech can have a transformative effect on the economy, so the economy focus before the tech is different to after the tech. It isn't so much about the one choice of when to get Scientific Method (that choice already exists). It's about a lot of small decisions to make to accomplish the transformation. By contrast, a flat +10% bonus would not have any transformative effect. Everything would be just as it was, but with a little bit higher research rate.

Perhaps it's worth saying explicitly that I realise that this is a radical idea, and that it may upset the balance of things. That's why I hadn't just plonked the change into an official version. But the game was never finely balanced in the first place. Shifting what's powerful isn't necessarily a bad thing; and I'm personally enjoying trying a few interesting changes like this. So rather than just trying it myself and then shelving it to release another version with minor tweaks, I thought I'd just upload the test version for others to try.

Conversely, to reap the still hilariously meager advantages of having late-game forests, I can't chop them. Even if I don't want to chop out an army or some wonders (which on higher levels become rather tricky to build without chopping), I'm still left with an easy choice: Should I chop those six forests surrounding my newly settled city to give it a free granary and forge, instantly doubling its productivity, or do I wait two thousand years for when I just might be able to use them to fight global warming, if I'm even still around then and haven't been wiped out by some rival leader who's less inclined to tree-hugging? The kind of return you get from granaries, in particular under slavery, is unreal. And those thirty hammers you get from a chop into such a building don't stay thirty hammers; they snowball to a degree I don't think you realize.
As I was trying to say in my previous post - if you going to chop all your forests to get the kinds of benefits you're talking about, then it doesn't really matter what happens to lumber-mills. I'm not trying to compare lumber-mills to early-game chopping. My interest is in how balance changes affect how people play the game. For people who are going to chop early, the lumber-mill changes will not affect them. The change simply is not aimed at those people.

Thanks for answering! Basically, my impression of K-Mod AI is that it is much harder to meaningfully influence through XML. From what you say, for example, we can't now take a single AI leader and make it almost never raze cities - as your part of city razing logic will still kick in and it isn't weighted by any XML variables. For another example, AI declare war logic is basically internalized in the code now, because WarRands don't meaningfully affect AI aggression levels.

Could you please - as obviously you know your own code the best - give a few pointers on how best to control AI aggression from within K-Mod's code? My impression for RI is currently that AI is too aggressive for its own good, in many cases refusing to stay at peace for any amount of time and/or war-spamming a player that is stronger than itself, only to its own detriment (I am willing to concede that it might also be a bug introduced by merging RI and K-Mod codes, but once again, if you pointed where to look, it could be easier to spot it if it is there). Thanks in advance!
Well, war rands still have a clearly noticeable effect in K-Mod. Actually, most of the war-declaration stuff is unchanged. It's still mostly random, and mostly based on the war rand xml values.

K-Mod has heaps of major changes to CvTeamAI::AI_startWarVal, which plays a large role in determining who to declare war on, once the decision to go to war has been made; but not a big role in determining whether to go to war at all. CvTeamAI::AI_doWar is where AI's decide when to go to war; and although it's a long function, the key numbers are mostly calculated in CvTeamAI::AI_getWarThresholds... which has only had minor changes in K-Mod. However, one of the changes is in how "high unit spending" is determined; and if there was something strange happening there, then it could have a major effect the probability of war. So perhaps you should look at CvPlayerAI::AI_unitCostPerMil to see if it makes sense; and look at CvTeamAI::AI_getWarThresholds to see how those cost calculations can affect the probability of war.
 
I have encountered what seems to be a weird bug. I'm playing a pitboss multiplayer game and sometimes when I log in I don't get all alerts in event log I usually get. (All alerts are turned on in BUG options.) I always get city growth alerts but sometimes I don't get alerts concerning other players like who has how much gold or who wants to trade or make peace.
 
As I was trying to say in my previous post - if you going to chop all your forests to get the kinds of benefits you're talking about, then it doesn't really matter what happens to lumber-mills. I'm not trying to compare lumber-mills to early-game chopping. My interest is in how balance changes affect how people play the game. For people who are going to chop early, the lumber-mill changes will not affect them. The change simply is not aimed at those people.

But it does matter what happens to lumbermills. People who make their decisions by weighing their options as objectively as they can will take balance changes into account regardless of at what point in the game they kick in. The later they kick in, the lower will be their impact on the opportunity cost, but an impact they will have. What other way is there than this to go about balance changes? People outside of the group just mentioned might be tree huggers, who won't chop no matter what you change, or tree haters, who will chop no matter what you change, or people who will do whatever else they feel like for whatever other non-tangible reason they've got. Do you expect that kind of people to show up here in sufficient numbers for a representative poll? That makes so little sense that I'll have to assume that I'm still not understanding you.

So, are you saying that the bonus will make you not build cottages? Or that the point of the game at which you stop building cottages will come sooner? Are you going to always use Representation?

Those are very general questions. They're difficult to answer, considering the game features enough options and map scripts to make just about any strategy worthwhile. So as to avoid having to name a hundred exceptions, I'll assume you mean under ordinary circumstances (e.g. normal speed, standard map size, Fractal map, all settings on default).

No, I'll still build cottages, it will just be much less often and I will much more rarely have to think about it. For research phases, yes, Representation will be the clear choice. Technically I won't run Representation all the time, but then again, I don't have to. I can whip a specialist or draft him or send him to toil in the mines or workshops. Farms are flexible that way. Towns are not.

As I've said, the idea is that the tech can have a transformative effect on the economy, so the economy focus before the tech is different to after the tech. It isn't so much about the one choice of when to get Scientific Method (that choice already exists). It's about a lot of small decisions to make to accomplish the transformation. By contrast, a flat +10% bonus would not have any transformative effect. Everything would be just as it was, but with a little bit higher research rate.

Perhaps it's worth saying explicitly that I realise that this is a radical idea, and that it may upset the balance of things. That's why I hadn't just plonked the change into an official version. But the game was never finely balanced in the first place. Shifting what's powerful isn't necessarily a bad thing; and I'm personally enjoying trying a few interesting changes like this. So rather than just trying it myself and then shelving it to release another version with minor tweaks, I thought I'd just upload the test version for others to try.

Okay, so you want to upset things. That's important to know. I had assumed you were trying to fix the same things I thought were wrong with SciMeth, but if you're just randomly experimenting, changing things and seeing what happens, then, well, I don't know. I suppose I don't understand this approach. Why change what isn't broken?
 
Well, war rands still have a clearly noticeable effect in K-Mod. Actually, most of the war-declaration stuff is unchanged. It's still mostly random, and mostly based on the war rand xml values.

K-Mod has heaps of major changes to CvTeamAI::AI_startWarVal, which plays a large role in determining who to declare war on, once the decision to go to war has been made; but not a big role in determining whether to go to war at all. CvTeamAI::AI_doWar is where AI's decide when to go to war; and although it's a long function, the key numbers are mostly calculated in CvTeamAI::AI_getWarThresholds... which has only had minor changes in K-Mod. However, one of the changes is in how "high unit spending" is determined; and if there was something strange happening there, then it could have a major effect the probability of war. So perhaps you should look at CvPlayerAI::AI_unitCostPerMil to see if it makes sense; and look at CvTeamAI::AI_getWarThresholds to see how those cost calculations can affect the probability of war.

Thanks, we will check that!
 
One of the most annoying things happened to me now. I am in permanent alliance with AI England and have just discovered Computers. England started building The Internet right away in a city where it'll take 14 turns although I have a city where it would be built few times faster. This could become the cause of me losing the game (which is a 6 months long pitboss multiplayer now) :sad:.

Some command similar to prepare for war and research tech X is desperately needed for AI permanent allies which could be used to tell them to start or stop building wonders and projects.

Luckily, I am allowed to log into England and remove The Internet from queue.
 
I think I've encountered a bug: It is possible to lose circumnavigation naval movement bonus when forming permanent alliance. It probably happens when a player with that bonus has his team number changed to that of his permanent ally.
 
I have a small, insignificant bug.
Sometimes, my auto-exploring unit is attacked, or encounters other reason to stop automation and get my attention (like gaining a level). However, if I then order the unit to perform an action that does not consume movement (like heal, skip and sleep, possibly fortify), and the unit has movement left, the unit does start the action, but apparently does not remove itself from the unit ordering queue, causing me repeatedly return to that unit. Indeed, once it is the only unit left to command, the turn has to be manually ended to go forward.
Once turn has changed, everything goes back to normal.
I do not know whether this is something in k-mod, or if that happens in normal bts too (as this mod is so much better there is no point to play normal). Just something I noticed.
 
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