New Release Candidate

[Leoreth]

Once again, I have uploaded another release candidate. It is up to date with the latest Git as of now and includes complete VD art for all civilisations.

As usual it is available for download here.

I am pretty confident in this release candidate. Starting now, I will only address important concerns related to its feature set, but otherwise try not to work on 1.15 anymore. Unless major issues come up, there will be a proper release in the next 1-2 weeks.

 

[Tigranes]

I guess the main concern for any candidate should remain achievabilty of all the UHVs. For example Japans 2nd UHV is next to impossible! Either ban resurrections in UHV zone 10 turns before deadline, or allow to declare war on Indonesia, or if Japan is stable and owns Indonesian core -- no flip, please!

 

[Leoreth]

True, the time frames of the Japanese UHV and Indonesian respawns align in a disadvantageous way. I already had a ticket for that, but have pushed it until after release. But this should be a quick fix.

 

[1SDANi]

True, the time frames of the Japanese UHV and Indonesian respawns align in a disadvantageous way. I already had a ticket for that, but have pushed it until after release. But this should be a quick fix.

Please don't let 1.15 release with impossible UHVs, it just doesn't feel right for a new official version to be less playable than the last official version.

 

[Tigranes]

And can we also address the bug with tech cost jumping up the very next turn after the new civ's birth?

 

[Caesar Augustus]

And can we also address the bug with tech cost jumping up the very next turn after the new civ's birth?

Are you sure that's a bug and not just an idiosyncracy that we have to live with? I could imagine that the game doesn't keep track of tech costs for civs that aren't spawned yet, and only applies modifiers once they're actually researching.

 

[Alexius08]

Are the prerequisite techs for quests and random events going to be updated before 1.15's release? Some of them need updating.

 

[Leoreth]

Can you be more specific?

 

[Alexius08]

Generally, the techs that enable and disable several randomly-occuring events are inappropriate for the events in question.

Some examples, all taken from the game's quests:

• Guns, not Butter (the 7 musketmen quest) is impossible to complete since you fail it as soon you get the tech for musketmen (replaceable parts). If this quest is meant to be fulfilled using arquebusiers, then the quest becomes available too early since the tech that unlocks it (currently Gunpowder) doesn't allow you to build arquebusiers (which unlocks at Firearms).
• Best Defense (the 7 castles quest) is enabled too early with Engineering (should be available with Fortification instead) and somehow is still available even if castles are rendered obsolete with Urban Planning.
• Noble Knights (the 7 lancers quest) is enabled too early. Currently, it's unlocked with Steel and Riding. Maybe replace Riding with Nobility if we'll allow Byzantium to complete this quest before anyone gets Feudalism (the tech that unlocks Lancers and civ-specific substitutes for everyone else).
• Overwhelm (the quest with destroyers, battleships, carriers and fighters) in original civ is unlocked by Flight and Industrialism (which unlocks fighters and one of the required naval units). Currently, however, the second prerequisite tech (Assembly Line) unlocks none of the required naval units. Earliest possible tech for unlocking one of the required units is Synthetics, so it should be the second prerequisite tech. Also, the event's obsolescence tech in original civ (Robotics) unlocks stealth destroyers and missile cruisers, so we should set the obsolescence tech to Superconductors or Satellites.

Those are the ones where I've figured out more suitable prerequisite/obsolete techs. I've not yet evaluated anything outside of the quests.

 

[Leoreth]

Please get back to me if you have more, I'll come up with better availability/expiration requirements.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

So stoked for the final 1.15 release! Also can't wait to know your plans and ideas for 1.16.

 

[Leoreth]

I will share some thoughts on 1.16 right after the release

 

[Tigranes]

Are you sure that's a bug and not just an idiosyncracy that we have to live with? I could imagine that the game doesn't keep track of tech costs for civs that aren't spawned yet, and only applies modifiers once they're actually researching.

Is it so? Somehow it feels like a very systematic punishment, which applies with almost the same rate to civs from different eras, including civs that start at turn 0 -- Babylon and Egypt. No I think there must be some oversight with this...

 

[Leoreth]

I have no clue what is going on there, but I'll at least try to see if some of the code I know that messes with tech costs is responsible.

 

[Tigranes]

I have no clue what is going on there, but I'll at least try to see if some of the code I know that messes with tech costs is responsible.

That can literally rewrite strategy for some techs, those 2-3 turns of research are critical for Egypt and Babylon, for example.

 

[Leoreth]

Well I assume the turn 2 tech costs are intentional but only applied a turn too late.

 

[Tigranes]

Well I assume the turn 2 tech costs are intentional but only applied a turn too late.

Intentional? Well, if yo say so -- we live to live with that

But do we also have to live with this?

 

[Leoreth]

Do I really have to answer? You've been here long enough, the BtS naval AI being basically incapable of naval invasions has been discussed many times here. The only solution to this is implement better AI, i.e. K-Mod merge. I still want to do that at some point, but that's also a huge project in itself and I think everyone benefits much more if I work on the many DoC features we are currently talking about.

 

[1SDANi]

I think everyone benefits much more if I work on the many DoC features we are currently talking about.

I'd prefer an AI that can actually play the game, thank you very much.

 

[Leoreth]

K-Mod is time consuming and risky (in the sense that a successful merge cannot be guaranteed), it might take a year until I can turn to other features should I start with that, and might not even end up with an improvement in the end. People who follow DoC long enough know that I tried this once already (on a codebase that I understood less and didn't have refactored as much, though) and the result was that we lost like half a year of development time plus maybe an extra three month break for me because it was very frustrating to work on something that only showed results when complete (as opposed to the incremental addition of small features), and in the end the AI behaved worse due to the interaction of RFC rules/scripting and the new AI.

Not to mention that I just now have such a huge undertaking behind me and am not too inclined to start another. K-Mod is something to tackle when there are no obvious other features to work on. But as of now the RiseAndFall rewrite and the new map are exactly that, and address a large number of problems with the mod as a side effect. Something else to consider is that by doing the RNF rewrite will give me some additional insight in the remaining aspects of the RFC source I don't understand right now, hopefully making K-Mod integration easier down the line.