Planetfall

[Maniac]

However, had two CTD.

Those are two known asserts. Hopefully they'll be solved soon.

When I get asserts though, I can tab out of the game, 'Ignore Always' and then continue with the game.

But you get CtDs?
I wonder why.
Are you perhaps using Windows Vista instead of XP?

 

[Anon Zytose]

Down with EA's claim to SMAC!

Seconded.

I completely agree with (about) everything you say. The problems you mention with Planetfall however are I believe not a shortcoming in design, but me not yet having the tools to implement the intended design. They require SDK changes, which I cannot do.

Ah, yes, the SDK. Why did they make its use so difficult? x.x

A possible balancing solution seems obvious: let more IoDs spawn, so foils can pop less unity pods before getting wacked.

Problem with more IoDs is however that in the early game sea terrain improvements would quickly get pillaged, making building and using aquaformers pointless. Therefore I think there should be a Flowering Counter level (say 25 or 30) under which native life cannot move into factional borders, giving players some breathing room in the start.

Until that is available, I'm wary of increasing native life spawn rates.

I have a few other ideas. One is to make it less likely that popping a sea pod will spawn a new unit. So much less likely that one has a (slightly) higher chance of losing the unit to an IoD instead. Another idea is to increase IoD frequency, but also make it so that either they can't pillage sea improvements (without spore launchers) or make pillaging cost the rest of the turn. Sadly, I wouldn't be too surprised if both options required using the SDK.

Farms currently aren't working as intended. I'd like them to have two downsides to balance the immense value of farms:

1) Farms give a Planet penalty to the base that's working the tile. The improvements the farm upgrades to get bigger penalties. Unfortunately the XML tag which should do this, isn't working.

2) The speed of farms upgrading should depend on the Flowering Counter. The lower the Counter, the faster they upgrade. If the Counter is above 50, Farms wouldn't upgrade at all, except for Terraformers - that civic gives +100% upgrade speed. As keeping the Counter low should be somewhat of an uphill battle, it would take effort to reap the full rewards of farms.

I think those would work.

I'll limit planting Hybrid Forests to the Hybrid Ecology civic. Under the Terraformed civic they automatically turn back into normal forests, but I guess that process goes too slowly. (And under the Enclosed Biosphere civic you can't build them at all.)

Wouldn't that make the use of the Hybrid civic an even more obvious choice?

Again a case of not yet having the required tools. Instead of that long list of food penalties, I'd instead prefer to let the Enclosed Biosphere civic give +1 nutrient on Flat Arid and Flat Polar terrain.

I had a game though where I started on a peninsula cut off from the main continent by some Peaks. So instead I turned to the water and switched to the Enclosed Biosphere civic. The civic gives +1 energy to windmills, so together with Kelp Farms that gave me 3-0-2 on Shelfs. It was awesome! (Well, until a barbarian army of IoDs I was unprepared for suddenly appeared and pillaged all the windmills in sight )

I suppose that long list of XML changes for civics doesn't list yields for types of base terrain. :/

Heh. I would've just put a conventional colony pod on a transport and sent it to the mainland. I did once start a game where I had to do just that.

(I do wish it was eventually possible for normal units to cross over peaks. Even if it required some late game tech.)

Sounds even more complicated than what's currently implemented. +1 food for specialists sounds interesting though.

Well, I just found that I don't know how to give specialists 1 food each, so I decided to give each city free specialists instead. Turns out it was probably a good idea considering a base could get some production (through citizen specialists) while waiting for enough greenhouses and clearings of fungus to grow to sizes like 2. My personal version of the civic description looks like this:

I'm not yet sure if +3 specialists per base is too much. And this does seem to help most if your faction is at sea or with lots of flat and not-grassy tiles (the ones where you can actually build greenhouses). Also, when collecting food, the game apparently rounds down. And thank goodness the base doesn't self-destruct if suffering a food shortage at size 1.

For the record, what I was thinking of to create a synergy between enclosed biosphere and specialists involves crawlers. These units would be able to create robotic variants of certain terrain improvements like greenhouses, mines and windmills (but not farms, forests or condensers which can't be built anyway under enclosed biosphere). Working these robotic terrain improvements would give a free specialist in the working base.

Unfortunately there is no tag yet which only gives a free specialist when the plot is worked. And giving the free specialist even when the plot isn't worked would be overpowered. So I'm holding off with implementing this.

How would that even be described in the game? o.O

I had that too once. The reason is probably that <VassalRefuseAttitudeThreshold> is set to NONE for all leaders. Call it laziness when updating Planetfall from vanilla to BtS. Setting the tag to ATTITUDE_PLEASED or something should fix this I think.

Alrighty.

Btw, if you want to help with Planetfall despite not being able to do SDK yet, this is a possibility: figuring out fitting diplomacy values for the leaderheads. Currentl they're all copies of Washington.

I guess I'll look into it. I might start by making them copies of other leaders, though. I could imagine Miriam acting like Isabella. xD

Unfortunately, the AI doesn't use the workshop, and doesn't use anything but the most basic weapons.
Because of this I'm planning to switch to a non-workshop unit system instead, but it requires some new XML tags in PromotionInfos to work properly. An SDK matter.

In that game I actually finished, I never got around to using the workshop, either. A system more similar to the Civilization series I'd be fine with. We'll probably want to make sure we have a good number of good units, of course.

Yeah I too find Librarians useless. But that's because I find the BtS espionage system in general boring and useless. I have some vague ideas to improve it, but it's low priority considering all the other things that require attention.

I was thinking more of how someone with a facility could make one more citizen into a specialist but might not find such as worthwhile... even if the specialist was a scientist or empath. I suppose what needs to happen is each facility needs a bonus that's always present. Even the Industrial Park in BTS had its free engineer.

Well, your experiences are appreciated, and I agree with about everything you say. It's just that this mod is still very much a work in progress, so don't yet have too high expectations of it.

Thanks. And yeah, there are times when I don't know how close to 'done' everyone in charge considers this mod to be.

Anyway, perhaps upping your difficulty level to Emperor or something could still provide some challenge/fun for you in the meantime?

Augh, not Emperor! D: I've spent the last two and a half years mostly playing on Warlord and often having a tough time there. At Noble, I almost always find myself to be playing a losing game unless I'm playing as Willem of the Dutch on an archipelago map.

 

[arkham4269]

When I get asserts though, I can tab out of the game, 'Ignore Always' and then continue with the game.

But you get CtDs?
I wonder why.
Are you perhaps using Windows Vista instead of XP?

Well I had assumed it was a Ctd in that it locks up, and I guess I wouldn't do what you say to do above. I guess I'll try to play at the last auto save and try that.

 

[Anon Zytose]

Okay. I've decided to go with the suggestion of working with the Faction Leader AI. I may want to explain bits of what I plan to do...

<what should be> Step One: I make the faction leaders clones of Civ4 leaders. This is not to be the final result, but it is a mild improvement we can enjoy while I work on steps 2-5.
Deidre -> Suryavarman
Yang -> Qin Shi Huang or Tokugawa (I haven't decided)
Zakharov -> Peter or Suleiman (leaning toward Peter)
Morgan -> Huayna Capac
Santiago -> Boudica
Miriam -> Isabella
Lal -> Gandhi

If the SMAX characters ever enter the game...
Domai -> Louis XIV or DeGaulle
Svensgaard -> Ragnar
Marr -> Genghis Khan
Others -> Not sure yet

Step Two: Organize a complete database of all the attributes of all 52 leaders of unmodded Civ4-BTS.

Step Three: Figure out the ranges, averages, and standard deviations of how the leaders fare with each attribute. Determine the attributes of an "average" AI. This will become the center of a many-dimensions personality sphere

Step Four: Choose the 7 leaders with the greatest outlying traits, based on how many standard deviations they draw from the mean. In other words, whichever seven would determine the highest radii of the shpere. (This step may involve lots of the Pythagorean Theorem, which is fine with me. ^^) Average the differences for a new "personality sphere".

Step Five: Place more fitting attributes for each of the faction leaders, and be careful that the minimum "distance" between any two leader personalities is as high as possible without venturing beyond the confines of the sphere. Naturally, all the faction leaders will be on the boundary. Or at so close that they'd be there if the attributes changed by up to 0.5. I'll also want to make sure that I take advantage of every attribute with more than one possible value.

Naturally, steps 3-5 will involve a whole lot of math.

Step Six: make new faction traits (Green, Despot, Scientist, Mogul, Survivalist, Fundamentalist, Humanitarian) and maybe figure out some strong bonuses for them. For example Humanitarian might entail +3 happy per base, +3 health per base, and double production speeds of Rec Commons and Clinic.

 

[Maniac]

There's already some Excel file floating around containing the attributes of all civ leaders. I'll try to find it back.

 

[Anon Zytose]

There's already some Excel file floating around containing the attributes of all civ leaders. I'll try to find it back.

Ah, excel. The very tool I've begun to use to organize all those AI parameters.

By the way, I've playtested the AI some. The changes to match up the faction leaders to BTS leaders included diplomacy music... which turned out not the best idea. I'll probably have to listen to everything to get an idea of which leader gets what...

In closing statements, losing six units to a sealurk and an isle of the deep, when just barely too far away from a home city, really sucks. D:

 

[Maniac]

Here's the excel file I mentioned:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=191436

About your working method, since you seem to enjoy that kind of thing, you probably don't mind calculating standard deviations etc, but I have my doubts that, for the purpose of creating some cool leaderheads, knowing that precise information is 'significantly' more useful than just having a quick look at the values of other leaders. And thus does not justify the time being spent on it. Then again, it's your time.

If I were to suggest a systematic working method, it would be:

1) Find out what each XML tag in Leaderheads does.

2) With that information, have a look at all fourteen leaderheads, and try to assign a fitting value to them. First look at tag 1, then tag 2... in a systematic fashion. The goal would be to recreate to an extent the faction ideologies and leader personalities we've all come to love, NOT create a 165-dimensional matrix with fourteen points as far away from each other as possible.

Perhaps to that end it might for instance be fun to create a thread in the Apolyton SMAC forum and discuss the leader personalities with the different XML tags in mind.

 

[Anon Zytose]

Here's the excel file I mentioned:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=191436

Cool, thanks!

About your working method, since you seem to enjoy that kind of thing, you probably don't mind calculating standard deviations etc, but I have my doubts that, for the purpose of creating some cool leaderheads, knowing that precise information is 'significantly' more useful than just having a quick look at the values of other leaders. And thus does not justify the time being spent on it. Then again, it's your time.

Finding the standard deviations and stuff didn't take too much effort. Working with some extreme settings may cause issues, though. For example, there were a lot of values that would all have the same value with the exception of one leader, and many of these exceptions happened to Gandhi for his high pacifism. In other cases, one leader will have numbers that extend off the chart.

If I were to suggest a systematic working method, it would be:

1) Find out what each XML tag in Leaderheads does.

A few of them I'll need to figure out. For example, "iDeclareWarTradeRand". Every leader has this value at 40, except for Pacal, who has it at 60.

2) With that information, have a look at all fourteen leaderheads, and try to assign a fitting value to them. First look at tag 1, then tag 2... in a systematic fashion. The goal would be to recreate to an extent the faction ideologies and leader personalities we've all come to love, NOT create a 165-dimensional matrix with fourteen points as far away from each other as possible.

Perhaps to that end it might for instance be fun to create a thread in the Apolyton SMAC forum and discuss the leader personalities with the different XML tags in mind.

We're including all 14 factions? o.o I think it would be interesting (if scary in-game) to see the ultimate war-monger Marr.

Heh. I've already imagined what bonuses the faction traits would get. Deidre -> Health. Yang -> Defensive promotions + growth. Zakharov -> Research. Morgan -> Wealth. Santiago -> Lower Experience Cost and maybe a decrease in War Weariness. Miriam -> Culture. Lal -> Happiness. Cha Dawn -> Planet Rating. Domai -> Production. Zeta 5 -> Less Maintenance of Civics or Bases or whatever. Svensgaard -> Trade Yields + Naval Prowess. Marr -> General Combat and City Attack Promotions. Roze -> Espionage Points. H'Minee -> Great People. Yeah, I figured it'd be a good idea if the factions all got unique bonuses. Even if it did mean Deidre and H'Minee didn't get direct Planet bonuses until heading for a favored civic (like Hybrid) or grabbing a unique building with an additional planet bonus or being able to build a biology lab faster than anyone else.

Speaking of civics... If we're to have more factions than civics, perhaps we could have each civic be favored by at least one faction? Better yet, might we reintroduce anti-ideologies, such that Yang can't choose Democratic, Miriam can't choose Knowledge, and H'Minee and Marr can't choose each other's favored civics? (It might help if they aren't both Planned this time.)

In any case, a major indicator here will be to make sure the player really cares whether s/he runs into Zakharov or Zeta-5, Yang or Miriam, Lal or Roze, H'Minee or Marr, Deidre or Cha Dawn...

Maybe we should start a thread discussing all this.

While figuring all this out, I hereby submit my temporary semi-solution to having the AI not all be clones of Washington. I should mention I don't know how to embed a file into a zip drive, so I decided to make a .txt version to upload here. Everyone here can get the xml just by renaming the .txt into .xml... as I imagine most of you have figured out already.
Deidre now acts much like Suryavarman and has Alexander's diplomacy music.
Yang now acts much like Qin Shi Huang and has Tokugawa's diplomacy music.
Zakharov now acts much like Peter and has Elizabeth's diplomacy music.
Morgan now acts much like Huayna Capac and has Charlemagne's diplomacy music.
Santiago now acts much like Boudica and has Roosevelt's diplomacy music.
Miriam now acts much like Isabella and has Justinian I's diplomacy music.
Lal now acts much like Gandhi and has Gilgamesh's diplomacy music.

 

[Anon Zytose]

New plan for the more in-depth stuff.

1. Take the 52 leaders of Civ4-BTS and take ranks 1, 3, 6, 10, 14, 19, 24, 29, 34, 39, 43, 47, 50, and 52 of each attribute. For example, the chosen values of iEspionageWeight would be 50, 60, 90, 90, 100, 100, 100, 100, 110, 110, 120, 120, 130, and 150. (This step I've already completed. I might upload the results if people request it.)

2. Try and determine which leader in Planetfall will get which value in each of those cases. Lal (or at least someone) may still end up acting a whole lot like Gandhi, while someone else (or a few others like Yang and the Progenitors) may act a lot like Tokugawa.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, I've a interesting bug in here.....

Some turns ago I lost a wandering aquaformer to a barb isle of deep. But unlike one would expect, the unit was not destroyed and it is still there unmovable by the human, but considered as a human unit. In fact it was attacked some more times after that and it is still there.....

Not sure if it is a original BTW no noticeable asset failure at time of capture AFAIK.

 

[Pfeffersack]

If the SMAX characters ever enter the game...
Domai -> Louis XIV or DeGaulle
Svensgaard -> Ragnar
Marr -> Genghis Khan
Others -> Not sure yet

Sitting Bull could be used for the Planet Cult (quite aggressive and cares about environment)
Aki Zeta could be Hashepsut (rather peaceful) or Mansa Musa (cares about getting technology)

 

[Maniac]

We're including all 14 factions?

My current thinking is that only the original seven would be playable from the start.
The Angels and Pirates could show up somewhat later, say around the time factions start discovering level 3 technologies. Perhaps some advanced start option could later be included to allow playing with these factions.
The Drones could be a non-playable faction which is created by bases rebelling.
The Usurpers and Caretakers could be created near the end to spice up the endgame a little.

I don't think it's worth including the Consciousness and Cult. In this sense I'm kinda a story conservative: it just doesn't make sense to have the SMAX factions be playable from MY 2100. So then they should be created a while after Planetfall. But having five factions all use a mechanic to let them be created after Planetfall is rather repetitive... So one should make choices. And then I think the Angels and Pirates offer the best opportunity to create some unique playstyle, based around espionage and the aquatic element. The Consciousness and Cult would probably play rather similar to the University and Gaians anyway. Aki and Cha Dawn could still be included as University and Gaian leaders though. So it's definitely worth creating leaderhead diplo values for all fourteen.

While figuring all this out, I hereby submit my temporary semi-solution to having the AI not all be clones of Washington.

Thanks, your changes are added to the mod.

Ok, I've a interesting bug in here.....

Some turns ago I lost a wandering aquaformer to a barb isle of deep. But unlike one would expect, the unit was not destroyed and it is still there unmovable by the human, but considered as a human unit. In fact it was attacked some more times after that and it is still there.....

Not sure if it is a original BTW no noticeable asset failure at time of capture AFAIK.

I added some python code so that formers and aquaformers attacked by native life were not destroyed, but temporarily turned into immobile and invisible "Damaged (Aqua)formers". This to avoid boring and repetitive clicking and rebuilding of former units.

After on average five turns the Damaged Aquaformer should switch back to a normal Aquaformer. Then of course it could be attacked again if there's still an IoD around. But while it's damaged and invisible, normally of course it should be unattackable.

So I'm wondering, when you say it was attacked some more times after, was that immediately after, or always with a couple turns in between?

 

[Anon Zytose]

My current thinking is that only the original seven would be playable from the start.
The Angels and Pirates could show up somewhat later, say around the time factions start discovering level 3 technologies. Perhaps some advanced start option could later be included to allow playing with these factions.
The Drones could be a non-playable faction which is created by bases rebelling.
The Usurpers and Caretakers could be created near the end to spice up the endgame a little.

I don't think it's worth including the Consciousness and Cult. In this sense I'm kinda a story conservative: it just doesn't make sense to have the SMAX factions be playable from MY 2100. So then they should be created a while after Planetfall. But having five factions all use a mechanic to let them be created after Planetfall is rather repetitive... So one should make choices. And then I think the Angels and Pirates offer the best opportunity to create some unique playstyle, based around espionage and the aquatic element. The Consciousness and Cult would probably play rather similar to the University and Gaians anyway. Aki and Cha Dawn could still be included as University and Gaian leaders though. So it's definitely worth creating leaderhead diplo values for all fourteen.

Aw. I doubt I'd want to play a faction that starts that late in the game. I'd feel too much like I'd be missing out.

By the way, what happens if you want a game with only a small number of factions like five?

Thanks, your changes are added to the mod.

Awesome! Thanks. ^^

 

[r_rolo1]

I added some python code so that formers and aquaformers attacked by native life were not destroyed, but temporarily turned into immobile and invisible "Damaged (Aqua)formers". This to avoid boring and repetitive clicking and rebuilding of former units.

After on average five turns the Damaged Aquaformer should switch back to a normal Aquaformer. Then of course it could be attacked again if there's still an IoD around. But while it's damaged and invisible, normally of course it should be unattackable.

So I'm wondering, when you say it was attacked some more times after, was that immediately after, or always with a couple turns in between?

The aquaformer was always visible ( how did you think that I noticed this? )..... and I must check the log for intel on capture.

In fact I progressed the game and if a stack of aquaformers were captured there was always one that kept visible ( the map is wacky for the gaian position for that.... Spartans and Yang are quite blocked and the gaians get most of the barb issues of the continent )... By your description it shouldn't happen.

 

[Maniac]

The aquaformer was always visible ( how did you think that I noticed this? )

Uh I'm not sure this is a joke.

Of course your units are always visible to you. With invisible I mean like a submarine - other civs can't see it.

 

[Cadaveres]

Hey I've just started playing this mod and I just love it. I know that it is early stage development and that a lot of work is still to be put into it. I would be eager to give a hand somehow. My main limitation is basically time, but I could help on small things. I have been programming a lot using C++, although I have never modded BtS.

 

[cfkane]

Hi everyone.

I posted a new thread in the larger Planetfall forum about this, but I might as well post it here too.

If no one else has stepped up, I'd be willing to write up the civlopedia entries for the mod. It should be a fairly simple task; just transfer the text files into the necessary XML documents.

If you'll accept my help, just give me the green light.

 

[Maniac]

Hey I've just started playing this mod and I just love it. I know that it is early stage development and that a lot of work is still to be put into it. I would be eager to give a hand somehow. My main limitation is basically time, but I could help on small things. I have been programming a lot using C++, although I have never modded BtS.

We can always use more help with the SDK! I'll send you a PM with more information.

 

[1stcontact2035]

Those are two known asserts. Hopefully they'll be solved soon.

When I get asserts though, I can tab out of the game, 'Ignore Always' and then continue with the game.

But you get CtDs?
I wonder why.
Are you perhaps using Windows Vista instead of XP?

Maniac, I believe you just answered the problems I've been having with playing Planetfall. I've been having the exact two same asserts, and I am running Vista.

On an off note, I really wish that I didn't have that problem, because I LOVE SMAC, and your MOD ROCKS!

 

[1stcontact2035]

I noticed that all of the assert failed errors are rerouting the code into an imaginary "g:/" drive that doesn't exist. I'm guessing that somewhere in your coding, very early on (located where it would most likely be overlooked because it is either mundane or is just such a crucial element of the programming that no one ever touches it) someone put a line of code in there that perhaps rerouted the data to their g drive, never noticed it or perhaps this was necessary for what they intended, and overlooked this or thought nothing of it. The assert failures will end if you find that file.

1stcontact2035