[NOT IN DEVELOPMENT] DOC Community Mod Compilation

[1SDANi]

I've noticed that Bits of Tales' Japan doesn't look very much like Japan, though I like the idea of separating the various islands from each other. I've tried my hand at modifying the terrain but I don't very much like what I made. Could someone be so kind as to take a crack at making a more accurately shaped Japan with separated islands in semi-accurate locations? My current idea is to shorten that panhandle up in siberia and make use of that extra space, though the main issue I've been having is the placement of Hokkaido relative to Honshu.

 

[1SDANi]

I fiddled around with Japan a little more, how does this look?



The entirety of Japan


Honshu


The islands


Hokkaido and the surrounding seas.

EDIT: The area of siberia in the top left that I edited will not be edited should I implement this. My process was a series of trial and errors, and that edit was made very early on, before I started shifting Japan more and more eastward.

 

[Lokki242]

I think it looks good! The size of the gaps between the south island and Honshu is a little much, but what can you do, yknow?

 

[1SDANi]

I think it looks good! The size of the gaps between the south island and Honshu is a little much, but what can you do, yknow?

Pretty much. Until the larger map our choices are this, make the islands connected, or make Japan Konigsberg.

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

I fiddled around with Japan a little more, how does this look?

Does the AI settle any (other) islands this way? I don't think BTS AI can handle this, you probably created another Polynesia.

 

[1SDANi]

Does the AI settle any (other) islands this way? I don't think BTS AI can handle this, you probably created another Polynesia.

Polynesia did not work because they needed to settle islands to unlock routes. Ireland did not work because they need to mount a naval invasion. The AI is perfectly capable of settling overseas.

 

[TJDowling]

Yeah, I'm still getting a crash for Swahili part-way through auto-play. And immediately for Mamluks and Philippines in 300AD scenario. The regular DoC civs seem to be fine.

 

[TJDowling]

I fiddled around with Japan a little more, how does this look?

EDIT: The area of siberia in the top left that I edited will not be edited should I implement this. My process was a series of trial and errors, and that edit was made very early on, before I started shifting Japan more and more eastward.

Honestly, I think the original DOC map of Japan is better. If it ain't broke don't fix it. The gaps between the islands are not sufficiently large enough IRL to warrant a full tile space. Are you going to separate the Bosporus Strait as well? I don't see much of a gameplay reason for separating the islands either. And I do see a gameplay reason for keeping them together. It just seems like you are sacrificing aesthetic for an unachievable isle-deal.

 

[1SDANi]

Yeah, I'm still getting a crash for Swahili part-way through auto-play. And immediately for Mamluks and Philippines in 300AD scenario. The regular DoC civs seem to be fine.

I'll check out Mamluks and Philippines, and I'll check Swahili again, though last time I was able to roll it fine. If this is the crash I think you're getting, I'm very sorry but there's little I can do about it. I've tried to figure out what's causing it and every time I'm coming out without anything.

Honestly, I think the original DOC map of Japan is better. If it ain't broke don't fix it. The gaps between the islands are not sufficiently large enough IRL to warrant a full tile space. Are you going to separate the Bosporus Strait as well? I don't see much of a gameplay reason for separating the islands either. And I do see a gameplay reason for keeping them together. It just seems like you are sacrificing aesthetic for an unachievable isle-deal.

I agree, the vanilla DOC map is very good. But as Japan currently stands in CMC, it's definitely broke. @citis revamped Japan in their last update, and want to fix it. I could just revert to DOC's Japan, but I'm not sure if that'd adversely affect Japan as @citis designed it. Their early game is currently a mad dash to conquer the independents within Honshu, and I'm not sure if making the islands part of Honshu again will affect that adversely.

 

[Edmund Ironside]

Being a Civ Modder must be a bit of a thankless task, people are always bringing you problems! On that note in my Roman Game (turn 128, 320 BC, normal speed) I got the following error which caused the game to crash "Error in begin game turn event handler <bound method Cv RFC Event Handler. On Begin Game turn of <Cv RFC Event handler. Cv RFC Event handler instance at 0x1 B081350>>

 

[TJDowling]

I'll check out Mamluks and Philippines, and I'll check Swahili again, though last time I was able to roll it fine. If this is the crash I think you're getting, I'm very sorry but there's little I can do about it. I've tried to figure out what's causing it and every time I'm coming out without anything.

I agree, the vanilla DOC map is very good. But as Japan currently stands in CMC, it's definitely broke. @citis revamped Japan in their last update, and want to fix it. I could just revert to DOC's Japan, but I'm not sure if that'd adversely affect Japan as @citis designed it. Their early game is currently a mad dash to conquer the independents within Honshu, and I'm not sure if making the islands part of Honshu again will affect that adversely.

Hey! You're doing great work. Thanks for contributing to my entertainment. I like to input how I can but being that I have no aptitude for coding all I can really do is bug test, make wild suggestions and complain d: Makes sense about the map anyway. As it comes down to a technical issue I've got little input unfortunately. Maybe I'll look at the map see if I can come up with another islands variant that is more pleasing to the eyes.

Edit: All that said, I'm playing through the scenario and I just discovered Japan and as of 1300AD there doesn't appear to be any independent cities on Hokkaido or Kyushu. So seems like the water doesn't have an effect.

 

[Lokki242]

Hey! You're doing great work. Thanks for contributing to my entertainment. I like to input how I can but being that I have no aptitude for coding all I can really do is bug test, make wild suggestions and complain d: Makes sense about the map anyway. As it comes down to a technical issue I've got little input unfortunately. Maybe I'll look at the map see if I can come up with another islands variant that is more pleasing to the eyes.

What he said I adore all your work, and I wish I could help more myself

 

[1SDANi]

Hey! You're doing great work. Thanks for contributing to my entertainment. I like to input how I can but being that I have no aptitude for coding all I can really do is bug test, make wild suggestions and complain d: Makes sense about the map anyway. As it comes down to a technical issue I've got little input unfortunately. Maybe I'll look at the map see if I can come up with another islands variant that is more pleasing to the eyes.

Edit: All that said, I'm playing through the scenario and I just discovered Japan and as of 1300AD there doesn't appear to be any independent cities on Hokkaido or Kyushu. So seems like the water doesn't have an effect.

My concern is that the islands were separated and I'm not sure why, so until I do I'm not sure I want to change Japan's landmass drastically.

Being a Civ Modder must be a bit of a thankless task, people are always bringing you problems! On that note in my Roman Game (turn 128, 320 BC, normal speed) I got the following error which caused the game to crash "Error in begin game turn event handler <bound method Cv RFC Event Handler. On Begin Game turn of <Cv RFC Event handler. Cv RFC Event handler instance at 0x1 B081350>>

Being a modder is very fun, people may complain to you, but there's a huge sense of satisfaction when you make something you wanted to make.

As for your crash, do you have a save from right before it happened or the PythonErr.txt file from after the game crashed? I can't do much with what you have there, it doesn't have a line number or a file name for where things went wrong.

Yeah, I'm still getting a crash for Swahili part-way through auto-play. And immediately for Mamluks and Philippines in 300AD scenario. The regular DoC civs seem to be fine.

I could not reproduce these crashes. It's very possible you ran into the autoflip crash, which I ran into a couple times while trying to reproduce the crashes you got. The autoflip crash is one that I've tried many times to fix and could not, so for the moment I'm ignoring it, seeing as it only occurs in autoplay.

If your game crashes during autoplay, I suggest you try the start again. Just because it crashes one time doesn't mean it crashes every time.

I am incredibly sorry for the inconvenience. I would fix these crashes if I could, but I have tried and sadly I cannot.

 

[TJDowling]

I could not reproduce these crashes. It's very possible you ran into the autoflip crash, which I ran into a couple times while trying to reproduce the crashes you got. The autoflip crash is one that I've tried many times to fix and could not, so for the moment I'm ignoring it, seeing as it only occurs in autoplay.

If your game crashes during autoplay, I suggest you try the start again. Just because it crashes one time doesn't mean it crashes every time.

I am incredibly sorry for the inconvenience. I would fix these crashes if I could, but I have tried and sadly I cannot.

No worries. Very strange, I guess I can always choose a civ that starts a little before and flip to them when they spawn. Let me know if you have any revelations and need any info from folks experiencing this problem. I have only tried each maybe 3 times and never got through but maybe I'll keep trying.

EDIT: Also, does anyone know if it's normal for Pacific Island cities to randomly flip to your civ? I was playing as the Arabs and exploring in the region when New Zealand flipped to my civ. It was almost immediately after Tonga collapsed.

EDIT EDIT: Wow this really is a lot worse than I thought, most civs that need a significant amount of autoplay experience the crash. No success yet.

 

[Edmund Ironside]

Here is a save just before the error appears. How do you enable python error logging?

Not related but I assume you have the Harrapans starting in 4000 BC rather than 3300 BC (which I believe would be slightly more accurate) because you have to have at least 2 active civs at the start of the game?

 

[1SDANi]

No worries. Very strange, I guess I can always choose a civ that starts a little before and flip to them when they spawn. Let me know if you have any revelations and need any info from folks experiencing this problem. I have only tried each maybe 3 times and never got through but maybe I'll keep trying.

EDIT EDIT: Wow this really is a lot worse than I thought, most civs that need a significant amount of autoplay experience the crash. No success yet.

Wow, I don't have nearly as bad of luck as you do. If you haven't already, I would suggest enabling logging. If you do, I'll be able to make sure these crashes are from the autoflip crash and not something I've yet to see. I've been able to roll Israel from 4000 BC without issue quite a few times. I will tell you however that the crash seems to be tied to unit flips, so I can confirm that it occurs for every civ, but it seems that certain periods of time are more likely to experience it than others.

Might I ask what difficulty and game speed you are using?

How do you enable python error logging?

Go into My Games/Beyond The Sword and open CivilizationIV.ini. Search for the keyword logging and set LoggingEnabled = 1.

EDIT: Also, does anyone know if it's normal for Pacific Island cities to randomly flip to your civ? I was playing as the Arabs and exploring in the region when New Zealand flipped to my civ. It was almost immediately after Tonga collapsed.

This is actually a feature and is far from random. Independent Pacific Island cities will flip to major nations that come within their region. This was suggested way back when I was first implementing the AI Polynesians both to ensure that these Islands won't be indefinitely independent, and also to represent the relatively peaceful acquisition of these territories compared to most acquisitions throughout history. I've been thinking of setting up a popup explaining this for some time, but I neither know how to make a popup nor is it a priority to learn.

Here is a save just before the error appears.

Not related but I assume you have the Harrapans starting in 4000 BC rather than 3300 BC (which I believe would be slightly more accurate) because you have to have at least 2 active civs at the start of the game?

Thank you very much, I'll look at this right away.

The Harappans start in 4000 BC because that's when Bits of Tales set them up to spawn. You bring up a good point about the domination victory, but I doubt it'd be hard to restrict Victories to only be checked from 2500 BC onwards, by which point Egypt, Assyria, and Harappa have already spawned. If a human Akkadia can somehow conquer all of them before domination becomes untenable with the rapid spawns of classical Hittites, Greece, Phoenicia, China, Persia, Rome, etc, then they deserve to win.

 

[TJDowling]

Might I ask what difficulty and game speed you are using?

I'm just going through on the normal speed I think and the easiest mode.

Go into My Games/Beyond The Sword and open CivilizationIV.ini. Search for the keyword logging and set LoggingEnabled = 1.

Is this what you mean by turn on logging?

I've been thinking of setting up a popup explaining this for some time, but I neither know how to make a popup nor is it a priority to learn.

Good to know. Yeah, after another play through as the French I figured out how it works. I was a bit frustrated to suddenly have 6+ new cities and -90 gold per turn but it balanced out after about a century.

I attached a screenshot of my crash if that helps at all.

 

[1SDANi]

I'm just going through on the normal speed I think and the easiest mode.



Is this what you mean by turn on logging?



Good to know. Yeah, after another play through as the French I figured out how it works. I was a bit frustrated to suddenly have 6+ new cities and -90 gold per turn but it balanced out after about a century.

I attached a screenshot of my crash if that helps at all.

Yes that is what I mean by logging. After you get the crash, open up PythonErr.txt and post the contents here. A screenshot of the crash will not help.

As for the large amount of cities, I probably should make a popup in that case, shouldn't I? To allow you to decline the flip.

 

[citis]

Honestly, I think the original DOC map of Japan is better. If it ain't broke don't fix it. The gaps between the islands are not sufficiently large enough IRL to warrant a full tile space. Are you going to separate the Bosporus Strait as well? I don't see much of a gameplay reason for separating the islands either. And I do see a gameplay reason for keeping them together. It just seems like you are sacrificing aesthetic for an unachievable isle-deal.

I agree, the vanilla DOC map is very good. But as Japan currently stands in CMC, it's definitely broke. @citis revamped Japan in their last update, and want to fix it. I could just revert to DOC's Japan, but I'm not sure if that'd adversely affect Japan as @citis designed it. Their early game is currently a mad dash to conquer the independents within Honshu, and I'm not sure if making the islands part of Honshu again will affect that adversely.

1SDAN's map is different than mine, although I like them (except Hokkaido being too off Sahaline).

And yes the aim is to represent the fact that Japan is a collection of islands and not a single one. Player shall do amphibious invasions to unite Japan. My first concern was if AI could do it, but to my unexpected surprise AI is good at it! AI successfully reconquers even Hokaido in all my games.

 

[Edmund Ironside]

Looks like you've got a few new civs to add to CMC soon with Merijin's Manchuria, Leoreth's Turks, and Steb close to completing a new civilization.
I think I might also try making a civilization, though whether I will be successful remains to be seen!

By the way are Colombia and Mexico not playable? Also I note one of Iran's UHV's occurs before the start of the 1700 AD scenario.