[MOD] Snoopy/Dale PatchMod

[Def Zep]

You might have accidentally triggered the "invisible units" from the GUI; there is a button next to the map that says "toggle bare map". Click on it and see if you can see your units again . It's a bug in the game engine as well; I have gotten it myself once or twice in Civ IV, my girlfriend also had that yesterday.

Thank you very much, Dale & Niidel, for the excellent advice. The above did indeed prove to be true; for some reason, the game starts up with the bare map automatically turned on when the Mod file for beta patch 1.02 or 1.03 is loaded.

Interestingly, when I start a game of standard C4C without either of the beta patches installed, the game starts with this function turned off.

The improvements of BP1.03 are excellent. Looking forward to 1.04!

 

[Beengalas]

Something strange that happen with your mod when it comes to the starting location. I don't think someone should end up to south or north and not meet any land when going west. Here is a picture of it all:

 

[Bumbar]

Short report of my Dutch game on conquistador difficulty and WOI:
I ended the game with 4 cities, 3 of which were established rather early in the game and fourth one quite a lot later, when Indians gave up their settlement. I started generating bells soon after game started, to get founding fathers, but I didn't put more than one statesman per city. My population got quite high, due to converted indians (I had 5 missions established, 3 of them due to founding father that gives 3 missionaries) and buying specialists in Europe. I paid most of the money requests and accepted all taxes.

I started WOI a few turns before 1700, at that time king had 70ish soldiers, 30ish dragoons, 40 artillery and (only) 4 warships. I had 9 soldiers, 16 dragoons, 13 cannons and 6 warships (4 SOL upgraded to veteran II using a general, 1 frigate and 1 privateer).

War was over pretty fast, his ships came in 2 waves, 3 ships first and fourth one a bit later. Needless to say, my navy prevented any of them from seeing Netherlands again and meager forces they managed to land were likewise easily destroyed. Victory was achieved in 1700.

 

[Beengalas]

Can only load one treasure per galleon and nothing else when one treasure is on.

 

[Dale]

Hey Dale,
While maybe a good change for balance, I was wondering what brought about, "Natives can no longer be educated"? Am I missing some cheesy related exploit?

Yeah, the pop convert and train in his own settlement exploit. Then if you want you clear his profession and he's a free colonist. Not so good.

 

[Dale]

Hello

First I'd like to thank both of u for modding out the issues that cripple the vanilla game.

I'm testing 1.03 and I'm getting strange results:

Galleons can only transport 1 Treasure, start locations of the europeans are random - those are things that have been changed, right?

Corrent.

But I can not use colonists after they have been moved - which should be possible in 1.03?

When I start a game, I choose advanced then the Patchmod and game restarts and in the above right corner 'Patchmod' is written. So it seems I have installed everything in the right places?

Don't worry it's not you. I had to quickly remove that at the last moment as it was causing a crash. It's been re-added back in for 1.04 so watch for the next version.

Another request - maybe it is already in the 'todo-list' or done: Would it be possible to always get all specializations which come through the natives? I find it very annoying to start a game and after 60 turns or more I've checked all tribes just to see that there are no sugar planters and fur trappers...

Keep up the good work!

Thx

It's on the list to look into that. But there's still other things more important first.

Bugs first, balance later.

 

[Dale]

Is this really necessary?
Civilopedia clearly states that Converted Native have -1 penalty to education (just like Indenturned Servants).

I guess if it was design decision to have them never trained that they would also have no such penalty.

Removes the convert --> train convert in indian settlement --> free colonist swticheroo.

 

[Dale]

Can only load one treasure per galleon and nothing else when one treasure is on.

That is correct. Treasures require 6 berth's to transport back to Europe.

As for your other post, I'm sorry but I don't see what the problem is. Please explain what is wrong with the screenshot? You haven't even gone west to see what's there.

 

[LordGek]

Removes the convert --> train convert in indian settlement --> free colonist swticheroo.

Err, but doesn't an Native Convert take time to train or do they have an option to gain their village's skill instantly?

Is it possible instead that you just ban Native Converts from "learning from the natives" but still allow them to learn in settlements?

I see where you are coming from but as it stands the solutions sounds a lot more severe than the exploit.

 

[Reveilled]

Removes the convert --> train convert in indian settlement --> free colonist swticheroo.

Is that such a bad thing? You still have to sacrifice the time it takes to train them, so it's not like an instantaneous thing, and I think the idea that indians are incapable of learning makes less sense than the idea that an indian can gain indoor skills by living in an indian villiage.

 

[Beengalas]

That is correct. Treasures require 6 berth's to transport back to Europe.

As for your other post, I'm sorry but I don't see what the problem is. Please explain what is wrong with the screenshot? You haven't even gone west to see what's there.

Why? Seems silly to me as first you need that ship and then it can only take once at a time. I had over a 15 treasure waiting for me to transport them. And that brings me another request. I just won the game with one military unit, the soldier I start with. I attack the natives instantly with him and playing Jose, he get's very powerful really fast. Even with your patch to help the AI getting better troop, they cannot do anything against my soldier, and when REF comes, I just let them take a city and retaliate with this soldiers until they all are dead. This soldier, had over 220 experience.

About my picture, which happen on another restart, is that I started so south I could have continued going west without meeting any land. I shall see if I can get a better screenshot of that later.

 

[Dale]

Is that such a bad thing? You still have to sacrifice the time it takes to train them, so it's not like an instantaneous thing, and I think the idea that indians are incapable of learning makes less sense than the idea that an indian can gain indoor skills by living in an indian villiage.

Yeah, after reading the comments before I then went in to the code again and changed it so they can't be trained at indian settlements, but can be trained in Europe. I'll also make it so if you clear their specialty they revert to a native convert again instead of a free colonist.

 

[Dale]

Why? Seems silly to me as first you need that ship and then it can only take once at a time. I had over a 15 treasure waiting for me to transport them.

It's how it was supposed to be. The fact you could stack your treasures in a galleon was actually a bug.

And that brings me another request. I just won the game with one military unit, the soldier I start with. I attack the natives instantly with him and playing Jose, he get's very powerful really fast. Even with your patch to help the AI getting better troop, they cannot do anything against my soldier, and when REF comes, I just let them take a city and retaliate with this soldiers until they all are dead. This soldier, had over 220 experience.

What difficulty level? Also, how many REF did you face? And how did you defeat so many troops without being pushed backwards with only 1 troop? Because with one soldier, you couldn't catch royal dragoons going around you to capture your other cities. I'm confused how you did this to be honest.

About my picture, which happen on another restart, is that I started so south I could have continued going west without meeting any land. I shall see if I can get a better screenshot of that later.

Better start locations are still being worked on. Step by step mate.

 

[Reveilled]

Hey Dale, I have a request.

In future updates, could you possibly note in the update info if any new files are added to the mod in that release?

I imagine most modders will want to keep their mods compatible with the Unofficial Patch, and this will be a lot easier to check if you and snoopy made a note of any new files you've added that other modders might be using in their own mods.

Only if it's not too much trouble. I realise your priority right now is fixing things.

 

[LordGek]

Yeah, after reading the comments before I then went in to the code again and changed it so they can't be trained at indian settlements, but can be trained in Europe. I'll also make it so if you clear their specialty they revert to a native convert again instead of a free colonist.

Yeah, the public managed to shout you down!

But, interesting concept here, could you do the same with Indentured Servants and Petty Criminals as I long ago thought "Indian Training -> Clearing Specialties" was a cheapass way to make them into Free Colonists as well.

Actually, hold the phone, if you've already taken care of the Free Colonist exploit in regards to the Native Converts, why not still allow them to train in villages?

I'm also assuming by "Trained in Europe" you mean trained in European Settlements...unless there is some cool way to train your units in Europe that I've missed so far (other than simply paying to recruit certain specialists and ships).

 

[Old MacDonald]

That is correct. Treasures require 6 berth's to transport back to Europe.

How come? That's not a feature that adds any fun, it just makes the game more of a chore to manage. And it's not a fix either, so why is it in the patch instead of the Age of Discovery-mod?

Edit: Omg, it was supposed to be like this? Wow, these devs never cease to surprise me.

 

[avacado]

The trade system with Europe seems to be broken. The prices of tools and guns never rise to high levels, goods that you don't manufacture never rise in price, and goods you do sell to Europe never fall to low levels. Do you see this as a fixable bug?

 

[Beengalas]

It's how it was supposed to be. The fact you could stack your treasures in a galleon was actually a bug.

All right, I can agree on sending six treasure at once sure gives you a big boost at once. When I get Galleon in normal games and send over my treasure it gives a huge boost. But when playing aggressive style aka Spain or are really lucky(unlucky?) and get's to many of these, it does instead slow your economy down if you are going to try to get those back to Europe. And with taxes applied to it, the value really decades quickly (like everything else thought).

For the moment, with the treasure being such a large part of your economy in the beginning, at least two treasure at once should be possible. The treasure from the natives are IMO, to large. A few treasure and with the (-25% cost) you suddenly have bought a lot of specialist. Some more and you have bought all of them that is needed for a city. Considering the fact that players rarely use more then six cities, it may be to much.

The exploration was a large part of the colonization of America and should also be so in this game, but I would like to see random events instead of just a lot of gold when exploring into the jungle. And exploring in this game is of to little danger, well, sometimes you get attacked when taking a hut but at least 50% of the times my scout survives these attacks. I can put this down into a more detail and compile a list of idea of events (with help of others).

What difficulty level? Also, how many REF did you face? And how did you defeat so many troops without being pushed backwards with only 1 troop? Because with one soldier, you couldn't catch royal dragoons going around you to capture your other cities. I'm confused how you did this to be honest.

Conquistador (middle difficulty). I faced around 20-25 REF. But this game was not a serious one, just wanted to see if it was possible. Therefore, during the attack from the king, I gifted all my cities except one to England so I didn't need to worry about them. But I could have taken them back in a matter of a few turns with my Dragoon with four in movement (Explorer II, +FF). I did let them get my single city and then I just attacked, never took any damage and healed full each turn.

But I could have gone around this by settle on an island as far east as possible. The REF would have most likely taken that city first, locking a large part of his troops there and then send that soldier back with a ship that has navigation III (easy to get due to bad AI). This is quite random thought and it's easily fixed vs cheese. I could have got two of these also, getting the perfect setup for defense on a inland city. The artillery are scary, but due to the low amount of REF with this tactic and huge defense bonus two defender could hold a city vs 5-8 artillery.

Also, some maps have some bottleneck and with this map generator giving a lot of hills with jungle/forest you can easily stop REF by units with ranger and mountain promotion. But that's something you can't rely on.

1. When you loose your last settlement you loose! Same should IMO go for the AI also. It's not as the country back in Europe would stop trying to colonize the new world. But YOU failed, so why would the king waste more resources, time and gold on a failure?

2. Make sure the artillery completely take down the entire defense given by stockade, fort and fortress.

3. To gain certain promotion I switched between dragoon and soldier. I saved up levels for until I took a city with it that gave a native colonist. I founded a new settlement with him, changed my military unit and gave it the right promotions and changed back (ranged and explorer for example). Four movement and double in forest, yeah (edit, it doesn't work that way. Nevermind this)! Two things I would suggest: To train a soldier at all, a city must have a barrack (or the weaponmakingbuilding). The first city you establish can get a barrack for free to help in early fighting. And lock the unit to the first kind of units promotion. Therefore, when you start with a (veteran)soldier it shouldn't be able to get a dragoons promotion. It may change, but never archive it's promotion. Unrealistic, yeah, but it's IMO balance.

Better start locations are still being worked on. Step by step mate.

I will post a save next time it happens.

Keep up the good work!

PS. I have a thesis: That the developer created a half finish product because people like you would fix it for them.

 

[Dale]

How come? That's not a feature that adds any fun, it just makes the game more of a chore to manage. And it's not a fix either, so why is it in the patch instead of the Age of Discovery-mod?

Edit: Omg, it was supposed to be like this? Wow, these devs never cease to surprise me.

The actual bug in the code was that every unit was berth size 1, regardless of what was set in the XML file. I changed the code to correctly use the XML file setting.

My argument for treasures taking 6 berths is, you require 6 berths to transport a treasure (a galleon). If the intention was to only fill 3 berths then you should be allowed to use a merchantman.

Unless Firaxis change it in the official patch, it's not something we will change. However, in your own personal installs by changing the XML tag for treasures you can make the berth requirement 3.

 

[Dale]

Yeah, the public managed to shout you down!

But, interesting concept here, could you do the same with Indentured Servants and Petty Criminals as I long ago thought "Indian Training -> Clearing Specialties" was a cheapass way to make them into Free Colonists as well.

Actually, hold the phone, if you've already taken care of the Free Colonist exploit in regards to the Native Converts, why not still allow them to train in villages?

I'm also assuming by "Trained in Europe" you mean trained in European Settlements...unless there is some cool way to train your units in Europe that I've missed so far (other than simply paying to recruit certain specialists and ships).

Yes, I wanted to do the same with servants and criminals too.

Yeah, "trained in Europe" i meant european colonies.

I figure that there is nothing more that a native is going to be able to teach a native, as they've already got the skills a native has.