Modding Q&A

[Oni Ryuu]

I didn’t want a constant stream of leader units and endless golden ages due to every unit being civ specific; more than few at any time is too many. I wanted to limit the number of civ specific units to the prestigious units so the value of the reward (not necessarily a leader unit) received from an elite unit can be increased and reduce the frequency of golden ages. Another advantage would have been to be able to simply paste in newly available culturally specific graphics even during a game (adding not replacing). Finally; it would have significantly reduced the number of required Civilopedia entries and reduce the small.pcx graphics in the tech windows.

As for the landmines; I’m quite familiar with other peoples work but I didn’t like any of the existing options. A landmine unit just isn’t practical for my mod. Having a negative value for fortresses and barricades is the only way to include landmines in my mod and still have players use them.

 

[Bluemofia]

Golden Ages are triggered by units with the Golden Age flag, not just a unique unit. In fact, if you really wanted to, you can flag something that everyone can get (ex: Curragh) and everyone can trigger a golden age that way.

Also, you can only have 1 golden age per game.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I didn’t know that but the rest of what I said is still valid.


I think I’ve got a better use for the build army button.

Deportee/Refugee Unit – 1 shield cost, 2 pop cost, 1 move, 0 attack and defence

You can use the unit to evacuate a vulnerable city then join a new one. Or; be cruel and use the enslave button (renamed from build army) to turn a portion of a newly occupied city into forced labourers.

Note: My forced labourers can only be acquired through enslavement. They work the land like normal workers but have a high shield cost so they can be disbanded in a city to accelerate production to the same proportion as the forced labour hurried production in the city screen.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Apologies for not replying sooner - your post with the science pcx came in the middle of my moving to a new city. Looks like you got what you needed.

On changing coast to land: sort of kludgy, but you could use an LM land terrain that looked like coast. The disadvantage would be that naval units could not enter it. Another possibility would be to use an overlay (such as marsh) that could be removed by workers.

I only skimmed the last few pages, but didn't see any mention of EFZI in the discussion on land transports. Some one of a kind and some buildable as well. Well worth a look if you haven't already.

 

[Vuldacon]

I didn’t want a constant stream of leader units and endless golden ages due to every unit being civ specific; more than few at any time is too many. I wanted to limit the number of civ specific units to the prestigious units so the value of the reward (not necessarily a leader unit) received from an elite unit can be increased and reduce the frequency of golden ages. Another advantage would have been to be able to simply paste in newly available culturally specific graphics even during a game (adding not replacing). Finally; it would have significantly reduced the number of required Civilopedia entries and reduce the small.pcx graphics in the tech windows.

I understand the desire for simplicity regarding Units and the Text Files to save time.

If we were able to have different Graphics for the same Unit using Culture, those Units would still be Civ Specific in that they would be Units Specific for each Civ despite representing the same Unit.

Note for Golden Age... Other than a Unit triggering a Golden Age, it can be triggered before desired if a Civ builds many Wonders that are flagged with "Other Characteristics" for that Civ. Improvements flagged with "Other Characteristics" may add to this Trigger but Wonders certainly do.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Apologies for not replying sooner - your post with the science pcx came in the middle of my moving to a new city. Looks like you got what you needed.

On changing coast to land: sort of kludgy, but you could use an LM land terrain that looked like coast. The disadvantage would be that naval units could not enter it. Another possibility would be to use an overlay (such as marsh) that could be removed by workers.

I only skimmed the last few pages, but didn't see any mention of EFZI in the discussion on land transports. Some one of a kind and some buildable as well. Well worth a look if you haven't already.

Good luck. I hope it’s somewhere nice.
Someone gave me the blank science.pcx files.
If you can’t change the nature of the terrain or use the method in randomly generated maps it wouldn’t work for my mod.
I’m going to use the Army AI Strategy for mobile land transports.

I understand the desire for simplicity regarding Units and the Text Files to save time.

If we were able to have different Graphics for the same Unit using Culture, those Units would still be Civ Specific in that they would be Units Specific for each Civ despite representing the same Unit.

Note for Golden Age... Other than a Unit triggering a Golden Age, it can be triggered before desired if a Civ builds many Wonders that are flagged with "Other Characteristics" for that Civ. Improvements flagged with "Other Characteristics" may add to this Trigger but Wonders certainly do.

It looks like “square one” with that idea.

My mod wouldn’t benefit enough from having the extra unit graphics to make it worth adding them separately. I have so many placeholders for fundamental units that cultural variants for those units would never be made and so I’d never finish updating the BIQ.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

If I made wealth cause two unhappy citizens will that actually apply in-game?
Wealth doesn’t seem to work the same as other improvements. I want to rename “Wealth” to “Heavy Taxation”, double its yield and cause resentment amongst the people.

Wealth is the only improvement that remains continuously under construction, is that because it has no production cost?
I could make an improvement like “Local Holyday” to pacify cities ready to riot.
0 cost, x citizens happy, reduce war weariness
It would be a temporary measure preventing production but it would be more effective than entertainers alone and you will still receive full tax revenue.

 

[Bluemofia]

Are these things you have tested?

From my experience, wealth utilizes the "Capitalization" flag, which causes it to convert shields into gold equivalent.

I never made a thorough test, so I don't know exactly what its behavior is, but once you check the capitalization flag, no matter the actual cost of the improvement, nothing actually gets built. I don't know if, while it is under construction, the checked effects come into play (I don't think so, as I was under the impression that for a building's effects to come into play, it needs to be able to be built), or if it only comes into play (for one turn) when enough production is produced to fill up the required number of shields.

To elaborate, Wealth normally costs 0 shields, which means it costs 1 shield. It is possible to set it as 200 shields, and it is not clear whether this means that you convert a lump sum of shields into gold after 200 shields are collected, or the cost is irrelevant, and it will behave the same whether it is 0 or 200 shields. And afterwards, if there are other effects such as happy faces, will the happy faces actually come into effect, or are they suppressed because the improvement is never built? Furthermore, if they do come into effect, is it a permanent effect, so long as you are actively building wealth, or is it temporary, only available when you collect said 200 shields, and for that turn?

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I was asking about other people’s experience. I’m using Quintilis’ customised editor “conquestseditor1_03” and it has a glitch that’s tearing my computer to pieces. I can’t risk doing too much with it until it’s fixed or it just compounds errors.
For example: these units were fully functional a few hours ago.

So you can see the problem.

You’ve answered my second question. If a cost of 0 is recognised as a cost of 1, the “Local Holiday” improvement wouldn’t work.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I HAVE A LANDMINE UNIT!!!

I was messing around with the Firaxis editor trying to create an intermediate sized land unit (foot + tactical missile) then this hit me. I couldn’t accept that it actually worked (especially after recent events) so I’ve spent from 00:25 until now (05:10) trying to break it or find exceptions where it doesn’t work. I can’t find fault with it and I encourage others to try.

X Cost
1 Move
X Bombard
1 Range
X Rate of Fire
Zone of Control
Load
Stealth Attack (ALL)
Invisible
Immobile
Hidden Nationality
Lethal Bombard
The Foot or Tactical Missile attribute is optional for transport

Tiles mined by other nations are safely traversable whilst you’re at peach with that nation despite Hidden Nationality however, you don’t receive the movement bonus from the road. If you already have one of your units on that tile (essentially a mine sweeper) your other units can use the road without issue (but still under attack from the mines).

I thought this was too good to be true so I tested and retested and did everything I could think of to find a fault and it still works.

As far as I can tell, seamines still need hit points to do the job so I can’t offer anything new there.

EDIT: It doesn’t ever kill a unit but it will redline it and one mine will attack several passing units in one turn.

 

[Vuldacon]

The problems are 1... As an invisible Unit, a peaceful Civ can run into them and cause War.
2... with Hidden Nationality, they are "Barbarians" and the AI KNOWS where they are and will attack them directly.

 

[Jorsalfare]

The problems are 1... As an invisible Unit, a peaceful Civ can run into them and cause War. .

Well - not if it has hidden nationality.

2... with Hidden Nationality, they are "Barbarians" and the AI KNOWS where they are and will attack them directly.

Not if the landmine is invisible. AI would need to have an unit that detects invisible units in visible range of the landmine to be aware of its presence. When that happens, AI will of course go straight after it.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I understand your scepticism. We’re all tired of hearing about landmine units that never really work.
So I made this BIQ.

Use the Fighters provided to recon the road between the Horsemen and the Fighters.
Test 1 - Peacetime use of the mines Move a Horseman to your Fighters. You’ll notice reduced movement and no damage.
Test 2 - Minesweepers Move 1 Horseman ahead of your stack successively adding another to each road tile. With 1 of your units on every mined section of road it becomes normally traversable. This can be used in peacetime or wartime.
Test 3 – Suffering the minefield Declare on the Swordsman near your Horsemen. Move the stack of Horsemen to your fighters. I doubt they’ll be healthy when they arrive.
Test 4 – Detecting mines I’ve placed a Chariot in the starting location that has extra moves and detect invisible. Move the Chariot to the Fighters and it will stop and wait for orders as soon as it reaches the minefield. The unit can be moved into the minefield 1 tile per command like unseaworthy ships crossing the ocean. If your units are already occupying those tiles (minesweepers), it will pass through showing the mines but otherwise no different from the Horsemen.

 

[Bluemofia]

The problem with this setup, is how do civs remove landmines from hostile nations? If it is hidden nationality and 0 defense, it cannot be killed conventionally. You will either need to either use stealth attack to force your units to attack it, or capture a city which has it.

If it has hidden nationality and 1 or more defense, it just becomes any regular unit that blocks entry even in peace time.


EDIT: The stealth attack to attack a 0 defense landmine only works if there are 2 or more units on that tile. Stealth attack does not exist as an option if there is only 1 unit. It is also not something I want to rely on the enemy to be obliging enough to station extra units on there to allow me to remove their landmines.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I know it’ll be irritating to have them linger but landmines are still a problem decades after a conflict. It would be nice to have a flail tank unit but this game has limits. The landmines only become active when a recognised enemy wanders through.

What you said about stealth attack makes me think that there’s some way to remove enemy mines but that would reduce their effectiveness to only tie-down 1 unit or even less (1 attack/bombard of a unit).

This method will allow anti-personnel mine, anti-tank mines, IED’s, roadside bombs and much more. The last two are cruise missile units with no ZOC.

 

[Jorsalfare]

I had a look at the setup, and spotted a possible problem: When an rival unit with zero attack-strength (typically a worker or settler) tries to enter a tile occupied by an invisible, hidden nationality unit with zero defense strength, the game crashes. CTRL-ALT-DEL-type of crash. This happened to me, and I had to give the invisible, HN unit 1 in defense strength - which would instead kill any rival worker/settler trying to enter that tile. Hope you can find a way to make landmines work - that would give the game an extra dimension!

 

[Bluemofia]

Jorsalfare, was this your unit or the AI's unit? If it is the AI's, it may be related to where non-combat units can't attack each other, and the AI isn't smart enough to figure that out, so it forces it to attack. Normally if a non-combat vs an invisible combat unit happens, the noncombatant will suicide on it, but I'm not sure what happens if two non-combatants fight, and one is invisible.

This is related to units not able to be disembarked because of the immobile flag, and the AI will try to unload it on the shore regardless, making an infinite loop.

 

[Jorsalfare]

@Bluemofia: It was an AI unit, and both mine and AI's were non-combat units. It also happened when my own worker tried to enter a tile occupied by an AI invisible HN unit with zero-def, but only when my unit were on auto-move (as from A to B along a road). When I moved my unit manually, it simply refused to enter the tile (I don't remeber if the message "only combat units can attack" showed up). What I experienced is that against a invisible HN unit WITH defensive strength, the noncombat-unit performs a "phony attack" until it's (invisible) health points are exhausted. Then it dies -so kind of a suicide, yes.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Thanks for the test. The best way to break something is to hand it to someone and challenge them to break it.

I tried entering the tile with a worker and then a cannon but it wouldn’t let me “none-combat units may not attack”. I tried airdropping them and one of my own mines and a paratrooper (individually) but the “air drop failed!” and killed the units.

If I move a stack of none combat units through the minefield with at least 1 military unit the result is the same as test 2.

I’m going to surround various AI units with my landmines to see the results.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

One enemy unit with detect invisible had a “back and forth” issue.
If a military unit attacks an enemy unit (military or non-combat) that shares a tile with one of its landmines, the landmines still work but are destroyed if the defender is destroyed or captured.
The AI seems to interact with them as though they were natural to the game.
I haven’t yet checked if the AI builds them or if it can effectively deploy them.

The only real problem so far is that land based AI units with “detect invisible” get stuck in a loop.