Maximum hypertext links exceeded - a remedy against it ?

[PCHighway]

And PCHighway, a special thank you for your huge feedback.

I hope I didn't sound unappreciative of this tip, because that is certainly not the case. I definitely feel that adding "dummy buildings" as resources, citizens, and governments will add a lot of flavor to the Science Advisor screen. I, and LotM in general, would most likely use this tip for the citizen and government factor. Let me demonstrate how I would find your idea most useful:

In LotM, a MOD based off of LotR, we have various races. We were appalled at the concept that turning your "Orc" citizen into an entertainer would magically transform the Orc into a "jester" type head, obviously modeled after a human (and no green skin!). Thus, for each of the main 5 races, we designed custom entertainers, tax-men, researchers, policemen, and constructors.

In order to make this work, each of the heads needs to appear with a civ-specific technology. Thus, after you researched the "Alphabet," for instance, a new civ-specific technology would become available for you that gave a research oriented specialist. One of the biggest issues the beta-testers had with the civ-specific technologies is that they didn't know which each one gave. "Does Lore Mastery give the first Elven-specific government or a specialist?" -- that kind of thing. In order to find out, they would have to enter the civpedia. With your idea, we could make it so that is a non-issue.

Thus, when I looked at your idea, I saw it for it's usefulness with citizen heads rather than resources. To be honest, I just accept the HYP Law as something that will always exist. In LotM, we have 3 different resources that come throughout the various eras (copper, iron, charcoal [for steel refinement]). One of the reasons we did this, was to try and avoid the HYP Law, the other reason we did this is we didn't want your units for 4 eras to rely on whether you had easy access to iron.

To answer your quick question first: Yes, I renamed the "City Imp column" in the labels text to "New Options" as now a lot of other things than improvements can appear in that column. I didn´t talk about that in the tutorial in my last post, as this renaming is only "cosmetical" and may be there are better names for that "new" column by other posters.

It makes perfect sense; indeed I'd recommend that anyone who planned on releasing a MOD to public try and think of a descriptive title they could put there, such as your "New Options" label .

We all know (including me), that this is a hard coded problem. With the methode I try to explain, you can´t solve that problem, but you can reduce it a little bit. You can create one page that is free from an icon that directly contains the "HYP Law-bug". That´s the side when you click in the techbox, if you did eliminate the hard coded resource icon.

Oi, I understand. But, it's important to realize that not everyone knows the HYP Law can and will appear on any civilopedia screen that has too many hyperlinks. It isn't necessarily limited to just resources.

I would recommend that you consolidate your tutorial (just copy and paste) and post it in the tutorial section. I know when I have a question, that's the first place I look. You could title it as a get-around to the HYP Law, or you could title it as a way to create a more visually descriptive Science Advisor screen that has many bonuses to it, as both apply.

But when you click on one of the unit-icons in the advance-info-page, on the following unit´s info page, you got the old hard coded resource icon again. And if you click on that resource icon you run into the "HYP Law-bug". But if you don´t do it in the way I try to explain, you run into this bug with your second Techbox-click as you than have the "bug-infected" resource icon in your civilopedia advance-page.

Right. The tip you give encourages people to navigate mainly through the Civilization Advances tab in the civpedia, which is a fine tip. From there you can see all the units that require iron, with accompanying pics and links to that unit.

PCHighway you are correct with your critic about step 3 d) in my tutorial. So this connection didn´t cause major errors, the connection of the civilopedia-links to the new civilopedia-entry didn´t bring any additional advantage and therefore it is superfluous. I will delete this step in the tutorial. Thanks a lot for pointing this out.

I think it's a wise decision. It was what I found the most confusing when following the tutorial .

At least I run into that bug most times in new mods or scenarios when I open the techbox, see a new resource and -bounce- I have that bug, as this resource is needed for a lot of units and I can´t quit that game normally in most cases after the bug-message. Now I can click on that resource and know where to find it without that bug.

Indeed, what I do in most mods is position my mouse cursor over the "OK" button, and hold down the enter key until it stops.

Additionally manoeuvring through the civilopedia in the traditional way (ctrl-C) is still possible, but here the "HYP Law-bug" still exists and the only advantage with the enhanced techtree is the additional information in the techtree about the appearance of that resource.

Yep, your tutorial adds a route you can take around the bug. It's a nice perk; instead of having to follow a route that would lead to an annoyance, you can take a safer route. It might be worthwhile to add a game concept (GCON_) explaining the addition of these new civpedia entries, that way a new user would know what they are there for, and if they were smart they would then know how to avoid clicking on the entries that cause errors.

Please note, that in the headline of this thread I asked, if there is a remedy against that bug, as my original intention was to write something about enhanced techtrees and I hoped that I don´t have to cover the "HYP Law"-problem too. So now I say: There is no poison to kill that nasty bug, but a small remedy, to bring that ugly bug outside of one of your rooms . But may be, we get some additional ideas in this thread.

Indeed, what I like most about modding, to be honest, is theorizing new concepts and seeing if they can be put into play. I probably enjoy that more than the actual implementation and playing the game, sadly!

 

[Civinator]

Hi PCHighway,

thanks again for your large reply.

I hope I didn't sound unappreciative of this tip

No, you never did sound so. That´s why in my last post I said "thank you for your kind words"

Thus, when I looked at your idea, I saw it for it's usefulness with citizen heads rather than resources.

Yes, I created the "enhanced techtree" mainly for additional infos about citizen (specialists), new possibilities like crossing the sea or the ocean, new agreements like map-trading or communication-trading, short: new options with no still existing special icon in the game.

Secondary was the information about new options that already have a special icon in the game but don´t appear in the techbox (like resources and governements). Here you need the special technics ("more than 4 in a row") to eleminate the hardcoded existing icon.

The new possibilities against the "HYP Law-bug" are only a side-effect of the idea about this new way to do techtrees. But I started the thread about this new idea with that, as it is the most complicated "edge" of the "enhanced techtrees".

I would recommend that you consolidate your tutorial (just copy and paste) and post it in the tutorial section.

PCHighway, once again you are right and I will do so. But I make a link to this thread, so that everybody can see who helped here.

Indeed, what I like most about modding, to be honest, is theorizing new concepts and seeing if they can be put into play. I probably enjoy that more than the actual implementation and playing the game, sadly!

Yes, I think, I completely understand this. I´m doing a rework of the epic game in C3C, working-title "Civ 3 Revisited". It focuses on a lot of new game-concepts for C3C (not in adding lots of units). Indeed the idea about the "enhanced techtrees" is one of the medium concepts of that mod. Some small concepts are posted "here and there" in the forums (like passes in the mountains, new way to handle the sacrifice flag) and a lot of them are not posted yet (especially a very big new concept for maps). The first words for this mod are: "The epilog for Civ 4 is the start of Civ 3 Revisited"

PCHighway, it is a great honour for me, if parts of the "enhanced techtree" can be a part in such a prominent mod like "LotM". You can be sure, from now on I have an eye on this mod (so I can´t help now, as nearly most of my civ-time at present is consumed by adding thousands of units to the SOE-map).

 

[WildWeazel]

I get it now, btw That's a great "hack".