Middle-earth Mod

[BTS] Middle-earth Mod 0.4.1

Alright, I knew what the problem was, and I'm uploading the entire mod again for one small change. :lol:

If you don't want to redownload, just replace the scenario under Middle-earth\PrivateMaps\ with this attached file.

Let me know if that does not work.
 

Attachments

  • Middle-earth.CivBeyondSwordWBSave
    804.6 KB · Views: 133
Also, the World Builder console stayed visible after closing the World Builder.
I think it was the map. Download the attached file in post 81, replace yours, and it should work. If not, let me know, but hurry! I won't be here tomorrow.

Besides that, this is fun! Although I question the value of some wonders and buildings (but mind you, I am absolutely terrible at balancing!). For example, a Barracks (or whatever is replaced by a Breeding Pit) giving more bonuses than an Archery Range, costs less. And there's a wonder that only increases one's happiness by two with access to stone. That seems a bit underwhelming for a wonder?
Probably forgot to add the other bonus to that wonder. I was in such a rush. And note that I just randomly assigned building costs. :p I'll fix that in the next version, but if you have suggested costs, post away!

Also, upgrade paths. Could be intentional, of course, but Axemen upgrade to nothing, for example. And what's the rationale behind the Archer (which upgrades to Longbowmen and Crossbowmen) and the Marksman (which is a dead-end unit)? What are their roles? I think the difference is similar between the Light Cavalry (oh beautiful Foul Horde) and the Horse Archer - one is a ranged siege unit, the other a more normal attack / defend unit?
I left axeman be, but maybe they should upgrade to Longswordsmen- I think they will in the next version.
Archers are the weakest ranged unit. Longbowman have a stronger base strength and ranged attack, while crossbowmen are the strongest at melee but can still do some damage at range. Marksmen can shoot longer and stronger than Longbowmen.
Look at the Civilopedia under "Ranged Strength and Range"


None the less, it's great fun destroying Rohan as Isengard. :p
Just wait 'til I finish the Mordor Orcs. :evil:
 
Alright, will do! And pfah, it was Sauron who continuously kept declaring war on Rohan and asking me to join in. Surprisingly, so did Gondor. Fun alliance. :p
 
I'm afraid that map changed nothing concerning the World Builder. But, I was also able to continue my old save on this new map, which seems a bit weird to me. Is this really a new map?

EDIT: Ah, that wonder I mentioned, that only provided two happiness with Stone, also provides +100% culture, so nevermind.

However, I wonder why a Garden is about twice as expensive as a Fountain, whereas a Fountain seems more useful to me?
 
I'm leaving today, so no more updates for a while. :(

I'm afraid that map changed nothing concerning the World Builder. But, I was also able to continue my old save on this new map, which seems a bit weird to me. Is this really a new map?

^It was one small change. If you load up your old game, then it also loads the new map. Try starting a new game.


EDIT: Ah, that wonder I mentioned, that only provided two happiness with Stone, also provides +100% culture, so nevermind.

However, I wonder why a Garden is about twice as expensive as a Fountain, whereas a Fountain seems more useful to me?

Garden provides healthiness from growing different crops. Fountain's bonuses are the same for the whole game. But also, the costs are not balanced at all.

Have fun! See you later.
 
Starting a new game (with the map attached in your post above) didn't solve the World Builder problem either. Not that it matters much; I just like to take a look at how other civilisations are doing at times. :p

I know, but there isn't much to make cities unhealthy; I haven't seen any unhealthy city at all, in fact. Come to think of it, comparing the Barracks / Stable / Archery Range may also be interesting, as well as the various defence structures (Walls, Palisade, et cetera).

Maybe giving Tactics as a free promotion is a bit overpowered (I'm not saying it is, I haven't properly made use of it yet)?

Some civics are strangely ordered; generally, one would expect to unlock the second civic of a row before the third one, and so forth, but that wasn't really the case with me. They're also, in all likeliness, unbalanced, but really, I suck at balancing and don't much care for it, so don't trust my judgement!

A more serious problem, however, is that the attached savegame will crash the next turn. I do use some slightly different files, which I've also attached, but I doubt those cause the problem (it's something I do with every mod; remove expiration dates of wonders, allow cities to be settled one tile away from each other, and change the gamespeed (Marathon) to my liking).

EDIT: Also, I had a thought last night, for if you ever want to make civilisations have a whole different playing style. Isengard should be small, focused around the capital. Lots of production, but Settlers take a lot longer to train, so you'll be relying on the amazing production of your capital (possibly more so than any other city). Expect lots of buildings (production, science, and espionage focused, I'd say, with cottages (with an extra hammer from the base civic) giving Isengard the needed money) and wonders. Isengard would use human units and all at first (which are 'normal' in game terms), but switch over to Orcs and the like later (cheaper but weaker, such as Wargs, I guess). However, Isengard would have quite a few Orcish units that are actually stronger than human counterparts, such as the Uruk-Hai. Also, what about giving Isengard (the capital, not the whole civilisation) free specialists with certain technologies?

Rohan is sort of the opposite; low production, but a nice amount of food, and military units are produced with food (civic), so their cities won't contain much buildings, but their armies won't suffer for it. Rohan would (of course) have a great cavalry force, while Isengard has better infantry, which also ties in with their nations' size (cavalry can cross larger distances, while infantry are better at defending smaller nations).

Mordor, I envision as a huge land of tiny cities (possibly with an initial culture boost upon a city's founding to give them the second ring, making Mordor appear more empty / wastelandish, but not an automatic culture boost per turn, I'd say). None the less, these cities should be capable of producing stuff like a normal city does, so they'd need a small production boost (they'd also need a lot of special buildings; a Market, a Jewel-smith, an Inn... Makes little sense in Mordor :p). Mordor's espionage capabilities would be the best of all civilisations. Their armies should be huge, consisting of lots of weaker but cheaper units, along with some special expensive, rare, but powerful units. The difference with Isengard is that Mordor has a standard army of weaker units, with a few stronger 'specialists' thrown in, but Isengard's standard army also consists of the stronger Uruk-Hai, while they have less of these 'specialists' (think Fell Beasts, Ringwraiths, certain kinds of Trolls (there are multiple kinds), Ungoliants, Balrogs... Obviously most of these should be very rare).

Gonder is a defensive nation, where all units have a promotion that gives them -10% strength when attacking, but +20% strength when defending. Or -25% and +50%, you get the idea. They wouldn't have many units, less than one'd expect for a nation of Gondor's size. I suppose they'd focus on commerce and culture.

That's all I came up with, feel free to do whatever you want with it. :)
 

Attachments

  • MiddleEarth.rar
    695.7 KB · Views: 150
Well, I've fixed my own error. But it's an error everyone can get, so it'll need to be fixed, I suppose. Which I did, thanks to this thread. But removing the Privateer feat thingy caused another error, and only leaving the first 'if' line made me unable to (re)name cities, so I just replaced the relevant bits with the Spy's, here.

EDIT: Well, there are a lot more errors than the one I fixed in the above file - for example, I had to delete a whole section referring to resources linked up to the capital - so... I guess I'll see when my game crashes again. :p
 
What is the other error you are getting when you delete the Privateer Feat (lines 203 to 219)?
 
Nothing. All the errors are instant crashes to desktop, but I don't really remember the how or why. I've had about half a dozen now. Here, the latest example, when my Axeman attacks Minas Ithil (I think - the city next to my stack anyway), using this CvAdvisorUtils.py.
 
It seems that your game crashes anyway when attacking the city, even with the old CvAdvisorUtils file. The crash is not related to this file.

The World Builder errors are problematic and this might explain some crashes that could come in the game later on.

Playing without the custom dll resolves the problem of the WB but also changing the CivilizationInfos file by adding for example ARTSTYLE_EUROPEAN to all Civs instead of the current NONE in the ArtStyleType tag (or in the Middle-earth.CivBeyondSwordWBSave). This is nevertheless a bit confusing.

However, this is not related to your crash which I'm still investigating.
 
Indeed. I see nothing useful in the log files. I think it would help if I could monitor the .dll, but compiling and decompiling that never worked for me.

The problem is with the killed unit; not attacking or losing doesn't give an error. Waiting a few turns and then attacking the unit that is now defending the city causes the game to crash again.

So I should remove the custom .dll? Wouldn't that cause other problems? However, if it allows me to access the World Builder, I could test a bit more, I suppose.

Would adding artstyles really change anything useful?

Thank you for investigating, though! :)
 
In the absence of TopSecret, we don't know exactly what is in the dll, the source files are not attached, so no compiling can be done anyway.

Working without dll: all Teams and Players from 18 to 27 should be taken off. So far, it does not matter so much as there are only 17 civs playable.

In a WB save (not the initial one, but if you save your saved game through WB for example), change in addition barbs as such: CityOwner=28 to 18 and also UnitOwner=28 to 18.

In CvMainInterface.py (python/screen), search for Better (BBAI) and comment out the 2 lines of code (by inserting
Code:
#
before each line.

I think that's it.
 
Alright, but that would imply it's simply the BBAI .dll (assuming it includes the extra civilisation slots)?

Anyway, I'll test that out sometime - for now, I converted the map to work with normal Beyond the Sword (or actually, my own mod, based on Revolution DCM, but I don't see why it wouldn't work with normal Beyond the Sword).

Thank you once again though!
 
Not only BBAI. There's also Asaf's Enhanced Traits & Asaf's Ethnic Buildings.

Also, in the UnitSchema file, there is an additional UnitClassType tag for the BuildInfos (not used).
 
If you are testing without the dll, take off the CvMainInterface.py file as it also contains Asaf's Ethnic Buildings codes that won't let you access the cities.
 
I found the cause of the crash!

I pursued this crash because it was driving me nuts:
in the middle of a turn, your unit X attacks enemy unit Y: OK,
then another of your unit X attacks another enemy unit Y: crash!

I will spare you the list of all my tests: may my computer forgive me for this incessant succession of crashes! :D

Then I ran a debug dll and flash light: ART_DEF_UNIT_WARLORD_MODERN does not exist!

Apparently, you're already in the late part of the game. Probably the ART_DEF was deleted thinking that no modern GG should appear in the mod, but the reference remains in the Unit file - UNIT_GREAT_GENERAL. The solution: instead of bringing back the modern warlord, replace it:
Code:
<LateArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_WARLORD_MEDIEVAL</LateArtDefineTag>
.

Instead of a crash, you get a GG now! :lol:
 
Wow, you're a wizard! Thank you, it works! :)
 
I'm loving the superb LOTR mod, but am having a weird crash. I have a (saved) game which, when I hit 'enter' to go on to the next turn, crashes. I haven't tried building much with Civ 4 - is there a way of debugging this?
BB
 
BB: post your saved game and I will have a look at it (no guarantee...)
 
I think I found the reason of the World Builder bug: the first technology is TECH_FUTURE_TECH and is disabled. It has an Era defined as none which is not a good idea because technologies are sorted by Eras in the WB.

Solution: replace NONE by ERA_THIRD_AGE.

Edit: for info, this technology is used as a fake prerequisite for religion, promotions.
 
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