Modders Guide to FfH2

[A_Hamster]

It adds a promotion to your unit. So in your example, it will grant PROMOTION_BLUR to any valid units being targeted by the spell.



Have you set which unit the promotion will apply? It is in promotioninfo. You should specify PROMOTION_SLAYER is valid to UNIT_MELEE (or was it UNITCOMBAT?) Otherwise, Civ4 will see that NO UNIT is valid to get the promotion. Thus, your promotion will not be applied to all units.

Thank you, esvath, and thanks, xienwolf. It was the UnitCombat that was a problem. I deduced that it should add a promotion based on the various spells I studied, but when I experimented, I had forgotten the unitcombat. So even though the test was using existing promotions, and none of my own, the experiment failed since the caster was an Arcane unit and the target was a Recon unit, and the promotions I used are legal only for Melee, Disciple, and Animal units. Now that I'm at home and can do some quick editing, I've tested it with legal targets and it works! One spell that gives the target three promotions! (I'll have to make the new promotions that I originally intended, but now that I know it's possible I can do that. There did not seem any point before.)

@xienwolf: During my lunch break I read some of the Python tutorials. Conceptually it isn't completely alien (although the computer language taught when I was in high school was BASIC). I'll do more reading, and give it a go when my weekend comes around.

Actually, if anyone would like to express an opinion on how much this world spell should produce, let me tell you what I intend. This world spell will produce a small amount of culture (at least 10 to pop the FC) and a moderate amount of beakers per the owning civilizations' city. There will be no tech requirement so the player can cast it as soon as the first city is founded. If one uses 200 beakers as the number, that's a big deal with one city, but mid-late game when one is going for Pass through the Ether, 200 beakers times 20 cities barely makes a dent. Mind, I'm really looking at this as a early-mid game world spell, so 5 cities for 1000 beakers would get the caster 98% of Elementalism (if playing at Noble).

Regardless of what the final number of beakers is, I'm guessing I could use Legends as a base, merely drop the Culture number from 300 to 10, and then duplicate that same function for Beakers. I don't know if the beakers would have to be totaled and added to whatever game function keeps track of research progress, or if the game engine will do that automatically.

 

[esvath]

You are welcome, glad I can help

 

[Grey Fox]

Best thing about Python is that its pretty easy both to read and write.

It's like Pseudo code with some indentation, like someone else put it

 

[TC01]

Is there a way I can allow the barbarians to spawn a certain unit after a certain point in the game?

As an example, let's say I add a ritual called "Call Azers". This ritual will add some Azers to the barbarian player, but ideally I'd like it to make the barbarians capable of spawning Azers as well. How could I do this?

 

[Sephi]

quick way:
give barbarian civ a UU Azer
give UU Azer a production cost of 100
give UU Azer a prereq tech (like elementalism)
let the ritual give Barbarian Player elementalism tech

 

[ADHansa]

I have seems to hit a wall in my mod when getting the AI to build more cities. Just as an information i have redone the civics so City States and Aristocracy has bin replaced. I can't get it to overcome his reluctance to build more than 4 cities, 6 if i force Code Of Laws to be researched earlier then i myself would have done. It has built settler with AI_Settle orders and plenty of escorts that just sit around in his Capital, even though great spots for new cities are around.

Is there some way in python/xml to make the AI more willing to expand further, or is this an SDK matter? I have looked everywhere i can think of.

 

[xienwolf]

Most AI decisions need DLL work. If you want to brute force it you could use Python to hijack anything with settler AI and force a settling mission on them though.

 

[esvath]

Quick question :

If I build modmod based on FfH 0.40z, will others with FfH 0.41 (and BTS 3.19) be able to play it? If not, what should I do (other than install 0.41 + 3.19 myself?)

Thanks.

 

[TC01]

Quick question :

If I build modmod based on FfH 0.40z, will others with FfH 0.41 (and BTS 3.19) be able to play it? If not, what should I do (other than install 0.41 + 3.19 myself?)

Thanks.

I don't think they would be, because the DLL of one version of FFH was written for 3.17 and the other for 3.19. And even if you included the DLL for 0.40z, it wouldn't matter, because DLLs written for 3.17 don't work under 3.19.

You should really just install 3.19 and then the latest version of FFH. Is there a reason why you don't want to do that? Some mod that you have that doesn't work with 3.19?

What you could hypothetically do, if you had enough disk space (however much space BTS takes up, you'd need), would be to copy the Beyond the Sword folder (the one in Program Files/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Civilization IV) before you update to 3.19, creating a "Copy of Beyond the Sword" folder in that same path. Then, if you start the game using the .EXE in the copied BTS directory, you will still be running 3.17. If you use the regular shortcut or the .EXE in the original Beyond the Sword directory, you will be running 3.19.

 

[Neomega]

Noob question:

I want to change the .dds for the chanter, make new shadow graphics to replace the great engineer stand-in.


so I go to:
Civ4ArtdefinesUnit.XML

find chanter

it says:

        <NIF>Art/Units/Civs/Amurites/Chanter/Aztec_Jaguar.nif</NIF>
        <KFM>Art/Units/Unique/Aztec/Jaguar/Aztec_Jaguar blood.kfm</KFM>

cool I thinks, so I go to the folder path, and there is no chanter folder. (there is only champion and wizard)

Ok, I thinks, I search for Aztec_Jaguar.nif in all Civ IV files
It doesn't even come up in regular civ, it only comes up in two other mods!

How? I mean, what? I mean, I'm confused. Where is the model and dds for the chanter at?

This confuses me greatly. Anybody up for a quick explanation of how the file tree is structured... and why xml is defining folders that don't exist, yet the games still works?

 

[Valkrionn]

In the assets folder there should be a file or two ending in .FPK. This is where the vast majority of the art is located; Loads faster than it would if it was not packed up.

Just download PakBuild, which lets you unpack these files to a directory of your choice.

 

[xienwolf]

By the way, those two lines you posted are for the 3-D image, not for the button (DDS), so they aren't what you want anyway. Look down a few more lines and you should see a .dds file listed, that is what you are seeking to replace.

 

[Neomega]

By the way, those two lines you posted are for the 3-D image, not for the button (DDS), so they aren't what you want anyway. Look down a few more lines and you should see a .dds file listed, that is what you are seeking to replace.

I didn't want to change the button, I want to change the skin. Thanks for the help, guys.

 

[Lone Wolf]

A small question: how to make the Council of Esus religion symbol always properly appear next to a leader's name in the scoreboard? It's obvious who follows Esus anyway, so the fake secrecy of the Esus symbol not being visible is just annoying.

 

[snarko]

Just change <bHidden>1</bHidden> to <bHidden>0</bHidden> in CIV4ReligionInfo.xml for CoE.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Just change <bHidden>1</bHidden> to <bHidden>0</bHidden> in CIV4ReligionInfo.xml for CoE.

That simple? Thx! I thought it requires tga modification or something like that...

 

[schlalex]

Hey Guys.
Recently i transferred the gameoption "Blessing of Amathaon" to Vanilla.
A couple of guys wrote me, that they would like to have that mod.
Is it ok, if i upload it here at civfanatics (and a german civforum)?
You'll get the credits of course

 

[Kael]

Hey Guys.
Recently i transferred the gameoption "Blessing of Amathaon" to Vanilla.
A couple of guys wrote me, that they would like to have that mod.
Is it ok, if i upload it here at civfanatics (and a german civforum)?
You'll get the credits of course

Definitly, have fun.

 

[ADHansa]

I have sut with it all day but I can't get the sdkcompile to work. I follow the instructions for codeblock and bts from the tutoriallink. It build all objectfiles without errors, moves pass precompile without error then

-------------- Build: Final Release Win32 in CvGameCoreDLL ---------------

Linking dynamic library: ..\Beyond the Sword\Assets\CvGameCoreDLL.dll
Creating library ..\Beyond the Sword\Assets\CvGameCoreDLL.lib and object ..\Beyond the Sword\Assets\CvGameCoreDLL.exp
CvCity.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol "public: void __thiscall CvEventReporter::cityHurry(class CvCity *,enum HurryTypes)" (?cityHurry@CvEventReporter@@QAEXPAVCvCity@@W4HurryTypes@@@Z) referenced in function "public: void __thiscall CvCity::hurry(enum HurryTypes)" (?hurry@CvCity@@QAEXW4HurryTypes@@@Z)

and so on with endless jibberish. Any idea of what am idoing wrong? Is there something extra i should think of when compiling with FFH?

 

[ostar]

I was thinking of adding art for the FfH random events so they popup along with the event text. There is a mod that does this for straight Civ random events, by adding a new tag (EventArt) via the dll. However I know that FfH has a popup ability already, because a couple of FfH mods use this to have art popups for Great Persons and Heroes respectively. Is it possible to use the same process for art to popup along with the random events?
I could add to the dll to do it using the source code for the Civ event mod, but why if FfH has the capability already?