Modding Q&A

[Civinator]

At present C3C land-carriers are not working for the AI. May be Flintlock will find a solution in the future. For APCs I don´t think that the current situation, when APC units are doing the combat directly in C3C is so bad, as in modern APCs the carried infantry is fighting from inside those vehicles.

 

[tjs282]

I have never used nor have I ever seen the AI use helicopters

I saw the AI do a Helicopter airdrop at least once in a Vanilla game (pretty sure it was v.1.29), back when I was still a struggling Monarch, but I don't think I've ever seen a Helicopter used since I started playing at Emp/DG in unmodded C3C v.1.22 (certainly never built any myself, as I rarely if ever spend anything on Advanced Flight!).

However, in a recent CCM game (v.2.5?), the Israeli AI (spawned on their own large island, just offshore from my continent) was using Airdrops repeatedly to land armoured cars on my territory. Not sure if they were using their cargo planes to do that, though, or if the Israeli AC-unit(s) has that ability inherently (@Civinator ?).

 

[Civinator]

The AI is using the airdrop option, but this is an option for "air-units" that are transporting land-units - not for "land-units" that are transporting other units. A "land-carrier" is a land unit that can carry other land-units, or even air units (spaceships in all land-terrain maps). At present the only land units that can transport other units are armies or units carrying flag-units.

 

[tjs282]

Should also be noted that giving land-units a transport-capacity and the "Unload" ability (like Naval Transports have), will prevent those units from being loaded onto any ship or aircraft themselves.

(The base-game Armies can't Unload their units, which is why they can be shipped)

 

[Civinator]

 

[Predator145]

The AI uses helicopters just fine. And with the option of airdropped units attacking right away the threat of that can spread your defenders really thin. You may even have to draft to fend off light infantry and paratroopers attacking the rear cities.

Land transport is not AI useable and extremely overpowered in human hands for the transported unit can load, get transported into position and then still move. That means a 1 MP towed artillery piece has more movement with a 2 MP prime mover land transport than a 2 MP self propelled piece.

If you want dismounted action use infantry unit combat animations while keeping the transport as default for the unit. That way you can even simulate things like helicopter born assaults from ships.

 

[SayHayKid]

I added an early Motorized Infantry using one of Delta Strife's half track units. I was thinking it would upgrade to on elf his APCs/IFVs. However, I didn't want the truck doing the attack animation. I thought if I could load like 4 infantry and then they'd unload to attack, that would be more realistic instead of giving modern infantry more MP to simulate being transported. I was unaware that the transported units could load, unload, and still have full movement points. That would definitely be too overpowered.

 

[Arexander]

You could just use the truck or half-track as the base unit for movement and idle animations, but then use infantry animations for the rest. That would simulate motorised infantry quite well, and has been done in some mods already, IIRC.

 

[SayHayKid]

If you want dismounted action use infantry unit combat animations while keeping the transport as default for the unit. That way you can even simulate things like helicopter born assaults from ships.

Would that b by editing the unit.ini file? Would I copy the attack animation from infantry into the half track folder and update the reference in the ini file? Might look weird though, right? In one frame you'd have the truck and in another it would just disappear and infantry would appear in its place?

 

[Predator145]

Would that b by editing the unit.ini file? Would I copy the attack animation from infantry into the half track folder and update the reference in the ini file? Might look weird though, right? In one frame you'd have the truck and in another it would just disappear and infantry would appear in its place?

Some truck/helicopter units have unloading graphics (usually their build graphics). You could use that as the first attack animation. But yeah, it's gonna abruptly move to the infantry unit fighting.

 

[SayHayKid]

I want to add an industrial scrubber improvement to reduce the pollution created by factory/manufacturing plant/etc. There are two options. I can "set pollution to -X" or "less building pollution". What is the difference between the two methods? How much does less building pollution reduce pollution in the city?

 

[tjs282]

"+(/- )X pollution" refers to the pollution-icons generated (or 'absorbed') by the building itself.

"Reduces building pollution" (in unpatched Civ3) caps the pollution-icons generated by the various other polluting buildings (Factories, Airports, etc.) to a single pollution-icon. It's the flag that the Recycling Center has, in unmodded Civ3.

(And for completeness, "Reduces population pollution" similarly caps all pollution generated by Metro-level pop-points [i.e. every pop-point added after a Hospital has been built, "Allowing Settlement Size 3"] to max. 1 pollution-icon. In unmodded Civ3, the Mass Transit has this flag)

 

[SayHayKid]

"Reduces building pollution" (in unpatched Civ3) caps the pollution-icons generated by the various other polluting buildings (Factories, Airports, etc.) to a single pollution-icon. It's the flag that the Recycling Center has, in unmodded Civ3.

Interesting. "CAPS the pollution icons generated" seems to be the key word. I was going to have the Industrial Scrubber available to be built at Ecology and reduce the building pollution generated by the factory in half. But if the Recycling Center (built a tech later) caps at 1, then the scrubber wouldn't provide much benefit. Even if it was such a big negative number to bring building pollution negative, Recycling Center would bring it back to 1,

 

[SayHayKid]

I was trying to devise a way for Pirate ships to capture some "booty" besides simply enslaving another identical ship (e.g. Privateer). Either via a prize ship that can be converted into shields or as plunder as mentioned in this thread Exports, Piracy and Trade. I am assuming the AI doesn't know how to take prize ship back to port and disband for shields, right? Or in the plunder method know to take the plunder back to their capitol to convert? It would only benefit the human player?

 

[Predator145]

I was trying to devise a way for Pirate ships to capture some "booty" besides simply enslaving another identical ship (e.g. Privateer). Either via a prize ship that can be converted into shields or as plunder as mentioned in this thread Exports, Piracy and Trade. I am assuming the AI doesn't know how to take prize ship back to port and disband for shields, right? Or in the plunder method know to take the plunder back to their capitol to convert? It would only benefit the human player?

For the AI to move a sea unit, it needs to have one of the 4 sea AI strategies. None of which would have them go back into a coastal city to disband. But all of them may at some point go back into a coastal city with a harbor to upgrade. You can use the king ability to create an upgrade only identical version with another AI strategy.

What strategy could simulate booty? For gold, you could try CCM's method outlined in the thread. But unfortunately, unless the capital is coastal, the unit can't reach that city.

You may be able to have your booty ship upgrade into a version with the worker AI strat and the special order sacrifice and have the harbor or even more improvements allow sacrifice. The AI knows how to sacrifice foreign worker units. And since this unit is now stuck in the coastal city the AI will come around to sacrifice it. It won't get shields or gold out of the booty but at least it gets culture.

I've never tested this so if you do please share the results.

 

[SayHayKid]

Doh! When I launch my mod to test, the progress goes to 100% with just a sliver of white showing and freezes. This is on the main screen before it loads the Map Settings screen. Initially, I had a few typos in PediaIcons, but fixed those. I imagine it can be any number of things, but hoping those of you with more experience might suggest where I start looking first.

I am using Quintillus editor. No warnings popped up when saving. No custom map.

 

[SayHayKid]

How about this? In the Civilopedia I have several instances of where the $LINK text and preceding "regular" text gets garbled up. I have tried putting "Replaces" both inside and outside the $LINK. On some pages it's fine and on others it looks like the screenshot below. Anybody experience something similar? Have a fix?

 

[SayHayKid]

I figured out the overlapping text problem in case anybody else comes across it. Don't use TAB to space things out, only SPACES.

 

[SayHayKid]

Does the AI understand how to upgrade workers? For example, if I create a faster more expensive Serf with Feudalism and have the standard worker set to upgrade to a Serf, will the AI upgrade them? Or is this only an advantage for the human player? I just got to Feudalism in the beta testing of my mod and was unable to upgrade the worker. I looked in the editor and I forgot to set the unit to Serf, doh! So, I can't see how it plays out until I start a new game.

 

[tjs282]

Does the AI understand how to upgrade workers? For example, if I create a faster more expensive Serf with Feudalism and have the standard worker set to upgrade to a Serf, will the AI upgrade them?

As with all AI-upgrading, the answer is "In theory, yes; in practice, not reliably"

The AI will generally only upgrade any unit if it has sufficient gold in its Treasury to make the upgrade on the same turn that the upgradeable unit happens to pass through a Barracks-town. AFAIK, it does not deliberately cycle obsolete units (back) through Barracks-towns just for the purpose of upgrading them. That said, when D=0 units (e.g. unmodded Workers) are threatened by a nearby hostile unit, the AI will almost always retreat those units to the nearest friendly town. If that town happens to have a Barracks, the units may then get upgraded, if the gold is available.

(In addition to allowing the production of Veteran units everywhere, another reason why the SunTzu wonder is so useful to the AI, is that it can then also upgrade any unit in any town — gold permitting).