Modding Q&A

[Civinator]

Bungus, as posted I have seen AI carriers using their long range bombardment capability - and this is not so astonishing, as this setting is a kind of a battleship with an enlarged range of bombardment. I have never seen using the AI aircraft from carriers properly in random maps. We had some other results in some maps with preplaced aircraft at the carriers and no rebase option for these planes.

The complete civ series from Civ 1-3 never was famous for working AI carriers. I never forget the astonishing message in the Civ 1 forums, that now, after about 25 years, in Civ 1 an AI aircraft carrier was spotted for the first time in a game: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/a-new-first-ai-builds-carrier.626498/

 

[tjs282]

Ah, gotcha. Though I dont understand why you wouldnt want to just make you worker house a small wonder, but yes, I get the rest of it now.

In addition to the usual large/small icons for any building, the game executable also 'needs' Small Wonders to have a Wondersplash.pcx. Sure, you could just copy/rename a splash.pcx from one of the other wonders, but it's less complicated if you don't need one in the first place.

The Ai, it like autoproducing wonders and improvements, no? Does it factor in cost of the improvemwnt much into the equation? For a human player, it may make sense sometimes to build a single sub for 100 shields than a 'subfactory' for 400 that pumps em out every 8th turn, but I worry such a high shield cost for that improvement would deter the Ai

As was noted earlier in the thread (re. your questions re. Courthouses vs. Libs/Unis), the Civ3-AI is not particularly clever about buildings. If left unmolested, it will eventually build everything on the building-list, regardless of how poor an RoI it might get in any given town, and/or how quickly that building might go obsolete (not so much in the epic-game, but many of the early generic buildings in CCM go obsolete — or can only be built under certain governments).

However, it has been my impression that the Civ3-AI does at least tend to rank its building-priorities in part with respect to cost, or 'turns-to-complete', i.e. if the AI has a choice of several buildings in a newly founded town, it will tend to go for the cheaper buildings first. So e.g. in a newly planted coastal town (founded after Mapmaking), a Religious Civ — other than the Seafaring Spanish — would build a Temple (30s) earlier than a Harbour (60s), even though the latter would be clearly 'preferable' (more food = more power!) to a human. Similarly, in a new town (founded after Lit), a Scientific-Civ would put up a Lib (40s), prior to a Temple (60s) or Courthouse (80s) — and after Education, might similarly 'prefer' to build a Uni (100s) before a Cathedral (160s).

Obviously this doesn't apply to Wonders, though, which the AI seems to start almost completely randomly, regardless of complete-ability ("Hooray, I can now build SunTzu!!! So I'll start doing it in this 2-bit Tundra-town I just founded, instead of switching over my capital's current project!").

Which is why in my mod I gave most of the Ancient and early Medieval Wonders some additional prereqs (e.g. 3-5 of the cheaper buildings; reducing the Wonder's price accordingly), both to encourage AI-Civs to build Wonders matching their traits (e.g. 3 Libs needed to start GLib, so SCI-Civs will be more likely to get GLib), and to discourage weaker AI-empires (with fewer and/or less-developed towns) from wasting their shields on Wonder-races that they have no chance of winning.

eDIT screenshot not coming. Printscrn button doesnt make pictures appear in Pictures folder fudge you windows.

No, PrntScrn only saves the screenshot to the Windows clipboard.

After hitting PrntScrn, you need to open (or Alt-Tab to) a graphics-editing program (e.g. even MS Paint would be OK for this — still a pile of dog-vomit, but at least it opens fast...), paste the clipboard-contents (your screenie) into a new file, and then crop/save it as a .png or .jpg (in .../Pictures, if you like). Then you can upload it here.

 

[Civinator]

In addition to the usual large/small icons for any building, the game executable also 'needs' Small Wonders to have a Wondersplash.pcx. Sure, you could just copy/rename a splash.pcx from one of the other wonders, but it's less complicated if you don't need one in the first place.

Yes - and in addition, if that building needs the palace as a prerequisite, it can also only been built in one city like a SW and it is determined, that this city is the capital of the civ.

Btw.: In the old screenshot of 2008 (that was made with the method tjs282 just was explaining), the worker houses are set to be a SW (and have its own wondersplash in CCM).

 

[Bungus]

TJ s282 you're right about all that building stuff. After giving Courthouse the militaristic flag, militaristic stems are building them sometimes first
Sounds likes an easy way to encourage wonders among certain civtrait groups

Oh yeah... forgot that's how screengrabs work..

Civnator I only saw a bomber in an ai carrier. I dont know if they actually used it

I had the reduces corruption small wond (forbidden palace) marked as requires 1 palace, and it was unbuildable. Wont let ya build in capital at all

And Ive gotten pretty good at making wonder splash with the frustratingly difficult Gimp, so long as I can find a 3d render pic on google (I try to keep it thematically similar to fitaxis's)

 

[Civinator]

I had the reduces corruption small wond (forbidden palace) marked as requires 1 palace, and it was unbuildable.

To construct buildings with that flag, a certain number of cities of that civ is needed. I think it has nothing to do with the palace as a prerequisite.

 

[Bungus]

Yes, its half ONC rounded down I believe, but you cannot build a "reduces corruption" wonder in you're capital in the tests I ran

Ever get the Ai to use OR build cruise missiles?

 

[Nathiri]

Yes, its half ONC rounded down I believe, but you cannot build a "reduces corruption" wonder in you're capital in the tests I ran

Ever get the Ai to use OR build cruise missiles?

Yeah the Reduces Corruption Wonder flag acts like a 2nd capital city, like the description of the Forbidden palace, and it cant be built in the capital. It's a good way to insure for another reason, that a particular improvement is not built in the capital, if that suits a modder's circumstance.

 

[Bungus]

Yeah the Reduces Corruption Wonder flag acts like a 2nd capital city, like the description of the Forbidden palace, and it cant be built in the capital. It's a good way to insure for another reason, that a particular improvement is not built in the capital, if that suits a modder's circumstance.

Was trying ensure an additional forb palace for expansionist civs could only be built in the cap, to nerf it some, as the overal corruption reduction isnt great if placed close to your palace. But theres plenty of alternatives

My current, and hopefully last, issue is whether the uses and builds cruise missiles. Thought they did, but I havent seen it in my recent debug run throughs

 

[Vuldacon]

Yes, the AI will build and use Cruise Missiles. IF you do not see the AI building or using them, check your settings.

Debug is not always reliable but what ever you do, do Not save Biqs from debug to Normal Biqs as this can cause Corruption. You can make a debug Biq from your Normal Biq but always save your Normal Biq for any adjustments. I will also add that when you make adjustments to your Normal Biq, save it with a different name such as placing a 1_ in front of the name. Then after saving the Biq, you can rename it the Normal Name by removing the 1_ .
The reason for saving as a New Name is to insure that your adjustments have been saved. If you adjust and overwrite, your adjustments may not save... I have seen this happen many times.

 

[Civinator]

Yeah the Reduces Corruption Wonder flag acts like a 2nd capital city, like the description of the Forbidden palace, and it cant be built in the capital. It's a good way to insure for another reason, that a particular improvement is not built in the capital, if that suits a modder's circumstance.

I never used such a combination in my mods, but it´s always great to learn something new.

 

[Bungus]

Yes, the AI will build and use Cruise Missiles. IF you do not see the AI building or using them, check your settings.

Really? I took away tactical missile flag ability, made it availbe with no tech or resources and cost 1, and cant get the ai to construct them.
(Ill reference your second part once I actually get around to playing. Been ten years, looking forward. And its reassuring to know I can still edit the biq if I discover I fudged something up on turn 400

Double checked the cruise missile attributes and its the same as the default ones, minus changes to bombard value, range, cost, and requirements. What am I missing?

 

[Bungus]

Really flummoxed.
Did a test with one of the basic C3c biq's in debug, took away Cruise Missile's tech and resource requirement, and set cost to 1. AI builds them and uses them.

Set my mod's Biq's cruise missile to the same flags, same values, and Ai does not build them.

Attached are screengrabs of both. Anyone got any ideas?

 

[Vuldacon]

Bungus... Not sure what is going on there unless it is PediaIcons and Civilopedia settings. Do you have the Cruise Missile Named "1 Cruise Missile" in the Civilopedia?

 

[Bungus]

Bungus... Not sure what is going on there unless it is PediaIcons and Civilopedia settings. Do you have the Cruise Missile Named "1 Cruise Missile" in the Civilopedia?

Nope, the 1 is just so I can find in a keystroke in editor or debug.

Running theough more tests with the default C3c biq it I only get the Ai to build them early and sporadically. It looks like they build them very rarely once there are other options, ie, after the first few dozen turns. Vert low priority, from what I can tell. Might explain why in a mod with more options available early on they don't build them, although that's still not a satisfactory explanation because with 30 AI players, and I didn't add that much stuff at the beginning, you think he did see them once or twice, but no never in my own game. The large number of nearby civilizations or barbarians might be in affecting Factor.
Anyway they were not keeping up production of them even when they cost only one Shield even in the default game. And they almost stop constructing them entirely after a few dozen turns oh, so for all intents and purposes they might as well just not be building. At the end of the day it looks like another Auto produce unit

 

[Vuldacon]

Bungus... Yes, I agree that taking control of the AI is absolutely necessary to get what you want in your game. Auto-production is the way to go to insure you have the AI do as you want.
It is not only to force the AI to have what you want for them directly but also to make sure the AI will have the Units that it would not build because the selection of Units that the AI can build at any given time can cause the AI to have to make decisions between better Units so the AI dismisses Units that you want it to build.
...Bottom Line: Do Not leave it for the AI to decide

 

[Bungus]

Yeah, begrudgingly I got some later age stuff set to auto in addition to being able to build regularly. But Im still sticking to sparingly: marines, helicops, carriers (which I saw two holding 5 bombers between them last game), subs (which they will spam, but only nuclear or so I seen), and now cruise misses. Screw artillery, they never use em right and Im not fond of chamging the dynamic too much
My rational is, Ai has so many advantages anyweay, namely half cost everything, so why ruin some of the fun of construction strategy for the player? Hes gonna have to fight 2 to 1 anyway

I will elaborate of this previous statement by saying if the unit in question, say marines, are not built, you have pretty much no motivation to defend, say an island city with anything more than a warrior. Even by having 1 single marine among your enemies troops now you have to adopt a more rational defense strategy. (Altho I did also discover that cruise missiles can destroy land units even if the 'lethal land bombardment' is not checked.. apparently hardcoded). But point being, yeah, the player can build way more of this unit that the Ais Marine auto-producer will spawn, but its enough of a game changer that the Ai has the potential of an amphibious assualt.. much like the chance of getting a ticket for wizzing on my neighbors mailbox, however unlikely, is enough deterrent to make it a triumph best reserved for select early sunday mornings

 

[Takhisis]

I found some old threads from Apolyton by Gramphos and one here by @Puppeteer...I was curious as to how they deciphered the .sav format, but it seems like a brute force approach. Each tile has its own line and to determine a domination limit, I would need to translate each tile, determine if it adds to the domination limit, then add to the total. Something best left to a program .
The .biq was the default c3c .biq, nothing special.

Brute force sometimes is the only approach. Recently when going through a Battle for Wesnoth campaign I had to start manually opening a few miscoded maps and manually finding each instance of a deprecated terrain-type code and replacing it with the newer version. One. By. One. It's a way of learning, too (and I don't just mean learning how many ways and in how many languages one can curse anything even remotely related to the subject).

As an example of learning within civ3, I remember when, playing Hegemon, I discovered that you could format city names. Clearly it wasn't by design on the game developers' part, but it was interesting nonetheless even if it didn't become mainstream.

 

[Bungus]

Brute force sometimes is the only approach. Recently when going through a Battle for Wesnoth campaign I had to start manually opening a few miscoded maps and manually finding each instance of a deprecated terrain-type code and replacing it with the newer version. One. By. One. It's a way of learning, too (and I don't just mean learning how many ways and in how many languages one can curse anything even remotely related to the subject).

As an example of learning within civ3, I remember when, playing Hegemon, I discovered that you could format city names. Clearly it wasn't by design on the game developers' part, but it was interesting nonetheless even if it didn't become mainstream.

You're speaking another language there. Tho I am familiar with the swearing. Whats formating city names? What's depreciated terrain type code? Is Wesnoth a mod for a different game? Hegemon?

 

[r16]

is it possible to have a resource that covers 9 tiles and would still show up when there are units on it ? Might even make the units invisible .

as in making a space scenario where you inevitably need island in the sea and coasts always show up and there are like many planet types ?

 

[Blue Monkey]

Resources are limited to specific size iirc. It _is_ possible to use terrain such as forests or jungle - I'd recommend using landmark versions - to cover more than one tile. Not 9 tiles with a single graphic though. Yet, still can manage to achieve the effect you want. The trick with trying to cover 9 tiles is that you would have to very carefully match the edges of each graphic within the terrain file. Which particular part of a terrain file is used depends very much on where on the map the terrain is placed.

The only way I can think of to use resources to achieve a similar effect would be to place different resources on adjacent tiles. Which would - just as with the landmark terrain - require fitting together the edges of each icon. I have no idea if you could get total coverage, but you could always reduce the land part of the coastal tiles to compensate.

Have you considered making the coast terrain appear to be totally sea? Then you could put whatever overlays on it you want without worrying about it showing through.