[mod] Religion and Revolution Extended (modmod of Religion and Revolution)

[raystuttgart]

...until we have implemented the other things we want to do.

What are the other things you want to do ?
Maybe you guys should discuss some kind of first initial plan.

Currently I see that everybody is doing something and you simply throw it together.
But do you really think you will get a good modmod that you will enjoy out of this ?

Wouldn't it be better to discuss your plans first and find some agreements on the things you want to have and create together ?
If you had a list of ideas and todos, you would be able to work much more organized and efficiently.

 

[Schmiddie]

Hehe, you beat me to the Punch (Hm, not 100% sure if this is correct, lol).

...I wanted to propose this just right now.

But what we did was exactly what you described ray.

We wanted to put our current changes together.

After we have done this - and have corrected bugs and we are sure that we have an accurate version, we could upload it and talk about further modifications. But angat86 did a lot of changes which have to be checked (balance etc.) first.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I can understand that you guys don't want to spend too much time on additional natives
Still, IMO lack of art is the biggest factor.
So if I were you I would include at least the 2 tribes which have very fitting, great quality LHs.
Haida and Ohlone:

Spoiler :

 

[Nightinggale]

I have no major plans at the moment. However my minor plans are:

Implement traderoute feeder service. I use it all the time and makes the game more fun for me. It's optional and those who wants the current system can still use that.

Implement the XML name check from M:C. It will assert when the game starts if more than one thing is named the same in XML, which mean such errors are easy to find. Such errors can be tricky to track down without this system.

The reason I implemented it was because in M:C UNIT_SQUIRE was defined in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml and set to 12. In CIV4UnitInfos.xml UNIT_SQUIRE was supposed to be unit 18, but UNIT_SQUIRE was already 12 meaning it overwrote what was already at 12, which happened to be UNIT_UNIT_ARAB_MISSIONARY. This took a great deal of debugging to figure out. After all who would guess that the reason why UNIT_ARAB_MISSIONARY didn't appear ingame was because UNIT_SQUIRE appeared in CIV4UnitInfos.xml?

My main goal was to avoid spending hours debugging the same problem again, but also editing XML could turn into a daring task if/when people know that problem exist. Removing the problem (or spot it right away) takes a burden away from XML editors, which can then make them more productive.

 

[raystuttgart]

I have no major plans at the moment.

But wouldn't it be good to have some (basic) initial plan or common vision ?
Why else should you guys work together ?
And how do you want to motivate others to join without that ?

You said "Hey guys, we all want to mod RaR, so let us join forces.".
That is great.

But does that not imply that there should be more than
"Here we have a SVN and everybody simply throws his work into it and in the end we will see what we will get from this and if we like it or not." ?

Because with such an approach, chances are pretty high that you will end up with a modmod where all of you will be unsatisfied
because the modmod will contain lots of stuff you consider useless or even disturbing.

If you however achieve to find some common vision and form an organized team you will have real benefits from such a project.
You will be able to create the features you like in much higher quality and at much higher speed.

But I guess you guys will work that out.
(It is none of my business anyways. )

 

[Nightinggale]

To be honest I had a great vision of features I would like to make and then I made RaRE. The reason why it's not really standing out anymore is because somebody *stole* the code and released 1.6

I still have a few ideas. One thing is to use feeder service to supply the domestic marked. I don't know if that is a good idea. I mean technically it should work great, but it might be a bit unbalanced. I have a number of those small ideas for features, which could be handy (like even more pages in domestic advisor), but nothing major.

The question about the common goal is actually a good one. What is people aiming at? Clearly our skills differs greatly (Schmiddie is my opposite when it comes to field of expertise) meaning a common plan could accomplish something none of us can do on our own. Maybe we should try not to think "what can I do?" but rather "what can we do?" and work from there.

 

[raystuttgart]

To be honest I had a great vision of features I would like to make and then I made RaRE. The reason why it's not really standing out anymore is because somebody *stole* the code and released 1.6

I hope I gave you appropriate credits for your work.
But seriously, my intention was to combine your improvements with further improvements of my own to give modmodders like you guys a better base.

The question about the common goal is actually a good one.
...
Maybe we should try not to think "what can I do?" but rather "what can we do?" and work from there.

 

[Nightinggale]

I hope I gave you appropriate credits for your work.

Well the changelog lists 4 ilnes and I'm mentioned in two. However I played a role in the other two as well. Sure it was some minor bug fixes and I did locate the fort hang bug, but that work was uncredited in the log. The thread credited me for it though. To be fair the log would have been rather long if you all the way should credit every person for finding and/or fixing even minor bugs.

Come to think of it once I started modding I was asked if I was serious and thought I would make something which could be used in a release or something like that. I think we know the answer today

But seriously, my intention was to combine your improvements with further improvements of my own to give modmodders like you guys a better base.

Which is why it was great that you did it. The only sideeffect is that I coded RaRE to be different from RaR and now they are alike again. The only thing which didn't appear in RaR is feeder service, which is actually the reason why I started RaRE in the first place.

 

[raystuttgart]

However I played a role in the other two as well.

A lot of people played a role in the improvements of Release 1.6 .

In a changelog I try to give an overview and list the most important aspects (especially new features players should know about).
It is simply a summary for the people that download.

Detailled informations and thanking people for their support is something I usually try to do in the main thread of the project.
(If it is noteable contributions, those people are also listed in the credits.)

The only thing which didn't appear in RaR is feeder service, which is actually the reason why I started RaRE in the first place.

The feature was not tested enough at that point.
I did not want to take any risk.
That was the main reason why I did not include it.

But well, if the feature is important to you and the others in the team like it, simply include it in your current work.

 

[Schmiddie]

I'm currently not sure what exactly "Feeder Service" means.

I will have to read this thread from the beginning...

But it sounds interesting!

 

[Nightinggale]

The feature was not tested enough at that point.
I did not want to take any risk.
That was the main reason why I did not include it.

It has been in RaRE from the beginning and I added it to M:C 2 months ago. So far the only complain is that the help popup text isn't clear enough and can be misunderstood/not understood at all. The code itself appears to just work.

It's even in stable M:C releases, which to be honest is less stable than RaR. It will be more stable in the future.

 

[raystuttgart]

It has been in RaRE from the beginning and I added it to M:C 2 months ago.

I am not saying that the feature is bugged.
I am also not saying that the feature should not be included in the modmod.

But considering to include it into Release 1.6 I would have had a bad feeling because I would not have tested it properly myself and I would not have gotten enough feedback from team members or other people using the internal version in SVN before publishing day.
(Time was simply to short.)

I wanted to reduce potential risk to introduce a bug that would make it necessary for me to publish another release after Release 1.6.
Even as it went, I already had a bad feeling because the amount of testing and quality assurance for that release was quite little compared to the way I used to handle it.
But I simply did not have more time.

I am a bit special considering "Quality Assurance".
Maybe it is part of my German nature.

So the decision to "not add" was not necessarily related to the feature itself.

 

[agnat86]

I totally agree Orlanth!

I'm not a friend of implementing more native tribes.

Furthermore there are no really nice unit graphics available.

Do we really need new or changed natives? I'm not sure as well...

I suggest that we stop the discussion about new and/or changed native tribes right now or at least until we have implemented the other things we want to do.

Don't worry, I don't think that this game "needs" more nations. It's just that I would like to see certain tribes I've suggested here, and I would like to add them, if I can manage to do that. Not because the game needs it, but because it's fun.

But this is a personal fancy of mine, and I won't have sleepless nights over it if I never get there. If people want to help me building these civs, that's very welcome, but no one should feel obliged to contribute to this.

Hehe, you beat me to the Punch (Hm, not 100% sure if this is correct, lol).

...I wanted to propose this just right now.

But what we did was exactly what you described ray.

We wanted to put our current changes together.

To be honest I had a great vision of features I would like to make and then I made RaRE. The reason why it's not really standing out anymore is because somebody *stole* the code and released 1.6

I still have a few ideas. One thing is to use feeder service to supply the domestic marked. I don't know if that is a good idea. I mean technically it should work great, but it might be a bit unbalanced. I have a number of those small ideas for features, which could be handy (like even more pages in domestic advisor), but nothing major.

The question about the common goal is actually a good one. What is people aiming at? Clearly our skills differs greatly (Schmiddie is my opposite when it comes to field of expertise) meaning a common plan could accomplish something none of us can do on our own. Maybe we should try not to think "what can I do?" but rather "what can we do?" and work from there.

I think it's a very good idea to get a better overview of our ambitions with this. I can already share some of the things I would like to change:

Spoiler :

- More events
- More historical quotes
- Diplomacy texts for Europeans (currently working on this)
- Better AI for European players (particularly city planning)
- Add some native tribes in the North
- Expand and update the Colopedia (for example, including rivers and hills under terrain features)
- More diplomatic options, particularly with other European players
- Lots of smaller changes, which mostly concern balancing and minor bug-fixing

I think these are the things that currently have the highest priority for me.

If you also let know what things you want to do, then maybe we can start cooperating on things.

After we have done this - and have corrected bugs and we are sure that we have an accurate version, we could upload it and talk about further modifications. But angat86 did a lot of changes which have to be checked (balance etc.) first.

Please let me know what you think of it, I haven't had much feedback so far.

I've been testing it myself over the past few days (before, I was mostly busy adding things, not testing them), and I've already found some imbalances that need to be fixed. In particular, the natives have got a little too friendly now.

I'm currently not sure what exactly "Feeder Service" means.

I will have to read this thread from the beginning...

But it sounds interesting!

I agree. I would really like to see it!

 

[AbsintheRed]

With the latest updates to RaR, what are the remaining differences between RaRE and RaR?
Also, all of Agnat's balancing changes were included?

 

[Nightinggale]

With the latest updates to RaR, what are the remaining differences between RaRE and RaR?

I'm going to move the feeder service to RaR and once I have done that, then answer will be that RaRE has nothing RaR lacks. On the other hand I haven't moved bugfixes and stuff from RaR to RaRE. RaR becomes the superior version in all aspects.

 

[raystuttgart]

With the latest updates to RaR, what are the remaining differences between RaRE and RaR?

Current development of RaR (base mod) is supposed to mainly improve and fix small issues.
Adding new functionality and features is supposed to happen in modmods like RaRE.

Thus, the improvements from RaR (base mod) will hopefully flow back into RaRE and thus also improve RaRE.
(Of course some improvments also flow back the other way around from modmods to base mod.)

RaRE can then add to it whatever the RaRE team feels appropriate.
Other ModMods will add whatever they feel appropriate.

While this might sound strange, it does give modmods the freedom to do all features and changes to their liking and
still get some fixes and improvments.

Also, all of Agnat's balancing changes were included?

No, not all of them.
A lot of modding is personal taste.

 

[raystuttgart]

... answer will be that RaRE has nothing RaR lacks.

I wouldn't say so.

agnat86 has added lots of XML tags (with functionality) and lots of major changes (Nations, Founding Fathers, ...) that have not been merged back to the base mod.

So RaRE is quite different from RaR.

It is as I said, current development of RaR is not about doing major changes or adding new features.
All I want to do is improve the base.

 

[Nightinggale]

RaR becomes the superior version in all aspects.

I said this when I compared RaR and RaRE, which is what the question was about.

I wouldn't say so.

agnat86 has added lots of XML tags (with functionality) and lots of major changes (Nations, Founding Fathers, ...) that have not been merged back to the base mod.

Looks like there is some naming confusion.

RaRE is based on RaR 1.5. While I had planned some new features for it, it ended up mainly as bug fixes and performance boosts. Most of it is copied to RaR 1.6
I'm the only one who has committed to RaRE and I'm not really active at it anymore.

RaR Schmiddie edition is based on RaR 1.6 and this is the one where agnat86 added his additions. This version has active development.

RaR Schmiddie edition uses this thread for forum posting, which is kind of hijacking it from RaRE. I guess that is why those two got mixed up.

 

[raystuttgart]

Looks like there is some naming confusion.
...
RaR Schmiddie edition uses this thread for forum posting, which is kind of hijacking it from RaRE. I guess that is why those two got mixed up.

Yes, I thought as well, that all of your work combined would be RaRE.
(Meaning you, agnat86 and Schmiddie.)

I thought you had decided to work on a common project and just stay with the name "Religion and Revolution Extended".

Most of it is copied to RaR 1.6

That is true.

Almost everything from RaRE (your version based on RaR 1.5) has been ported back to RaR (base mod).
(Especially if you also add the Feeder Service.)

 

[Schmiddie]

Oh, It should not be a kind of hijacking! It was just a kind of development of the sub-mods of us I think... If you don't like this thread to be used for discussion about changes from agnat86 or RaR ...what ever it may be called... we can open a seperate thread!


I think we should discuss some general aspects right now! But I don't know if I can find convenient words....

I'm not sure at the moment if or how we could or should proceed with our 3 mod-mods.

At the moment we have

- RaRE: All current changes/improvements will be implemented in RaR very soon
- Schmiddies Edition: This sub-mod contains only a very few changes to the base mod RaR 1.6 (and further 1.7).
- Changes from agnat86 uploaded to my SVN and mixed with Schmiddies Edition: A lot of these improvements already have been implemented into RaR and will be published with RaR 1.7. The further changes are personal taste of agnat86 and more or less need to be checked and revised as well before they could be published in a new sub-mod (however this sub-mod may be called). They are uploaded to my SVN, but I don't know if these files are a basis for a new sub-mod of RaR.

All of us have personal ideas how we would like to improve RaR 1.6 (or further 1.7).

But If we will do this in an organized way, in either case we need a person who would do the technical lead (like ray did for RaR). But who could do this job?

At the moment I don't see that we could succeed in creating a real and working sub-mod based on RaR which will contain new features.

Maybe it would be the best to leave it as it is: Everybody can work on changes based on his personal taste. We can share files via my SVN but don't work on a sub-mod together.

I can create different folders on my SVN where we can upload and share our files and that's it.

Regards

Schmiddie