Playtest Feedback Thread

[AbsintheRed]

Alright, I'm almost ready with updating the animals
Can someone point me where is the code for hunting down deers, horses and elephants?

 

[The Capo]

Alright, I'm almost ready with updating the animals
Can someone point me where is the code for hunting down deers, horses and elephants?

Why do you need to see the code? I am not sure exactly where it is, but if you need it yourself it was uploaded to the DB, so that would probably be a better place to find it considering I have a lot of edited python and it may not be exactly as it should be on its own.

And if you are trying to edit it for some reason I'd like to know why before I agree to it.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Hey, even if I change or upload anything, you don't have to accept it
You are the author of the mod, those are just suggestions.
And about the things we don't agree (or when you simply don't like my suggestions), I will just mod them into my personal version of Diplomacy II eventually ,)

Back to the animals: As I said, I was thinking of adding a few new ones. They are a pretty cool flavor, and basically takes no memory to use
For example I would like to see rhinos and hyenas, because we mostly have cats right now
Also we could have wild boars, which could be captured as pig resources the same way horses and deers are

 

[The Almighty dF]

Not sure if I'm in favor of adding -too- exotic of animals, for fear of them becoming quite common. I'd prefer to stick to animals that have close relatives in the majority of the world.

 

[The Capo]

Well, adding boars isn't a horrible idea, I could see a few additions here and there. Honestly I don't really see a big issue with adding a few more animals, that was another thing I was going to tweak anyway in the final/polishing stages (which would include unit optimizations, addition of music, etc.).

I just don't want it to get too out of hand, like if we start adding Llamas and Kangaroos and stuff like that.

I'm not entirely sure exactly where the python is for the animals, but if you have a good code editor (I use Scintilla Text Editor, or SciTE) just search for ANIMAL_DEER or something like that and it should point you in the right direction.

Since this mod is going to be the "last version," i.e. I won't be making a Diplomacy III, I plan on having some fun module packs, which may include stuff like extra animals and stuff like that. So if you had planned on doing something more involved maybe save it for that. I don't have a problem with adding boars or hyenas though. But if it goes significantly beyond that I might have an issue.

 

[The Capo]

There is another thing I wanted to touch on as well, and this has nothing to do with animals, but with the playtest.

I think two of the testers (Vortilex and Absinthe) are having issues with the playtest, Vortilex' issue seems to be a few missing files which could have occured while downloading the mod (it could have been interrupted or something, I don't know) and Absinthe's seems to be a bigger issue. I just wanted to let everyone know that they should not be WRITING OVER the old playtest, but deleting it entirely and then using this one. There could be more or less files which could cause a conflict and thus create an issue for you. So if you are having issues I would suggest deleting whatever playtest of Diplomacy II you have entirely, and then downloading the last one and installing it. I don't know if that will help, but that is what should be happening.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Capo, are you interested in hunting mechanics?
While updating the animals I ran into the code of that too, and it's really not hard to add

Also, the code for bonuses from hunting down horse, deer, etc. doesn't really cares if the plot already has a resource on it or not.
I'm not really sure what happens when you kill an animal on a resource, but it may cause issues IMO
And didn't we wanted to add a chance for the bonus to appear? Right now it's also missing from the code...

 

[Thomas SG]

I'll go have to check that stuff out, Thomas SG is the creator of CCV and helped me with the mod so he may have left some of his stuff in there accidentally. I'll try to get it fixed.

Those are the missing texts I asked you to get from the CCV files. I've solved some problems and mistakes in the original mastery victory mod. And those new texts are part of the solution. Copy those missing texts from CCV to DiploII please.

 

[Thomas SG]

Capo, are Dynamic Names going to be integrated? I don't know how well those work with MP, and I recall DipII is intended to be an MP mod.

Yes. But I have no time to do so at the moment. RL makes a lot of trouble. Please give me some time to do so. It's not a fault of The Capo. And the dynamic civ names are MP compatible.

 

[The Capo]

Thanks for popping in Thomas.

As usual, take your time, I don't want to rush you. I forgot those texts, thanks for reminding me about it. I'll put together a patch for the playtesters which will have some new units (some of Bakuel's new units, including updates to some of them that I already had from him as well as some new GP) some fixed texts, probably the animals AR is working on and maybe some other stuff.

Speaking of the animals; I'm not really sure exactly what you mean by "hunting mechanics" and I am also not sure what happens when you kill an animal on an existing resource, I'd imagine you lose the original resource though.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Hunting mechanics: when you kill an animal, a small amout of food is stocked in your city
2-6 food based on what type of animal
It's slightly more with hunter promotions

 

[The Capo]

Hunting mechanics: when you kill an animal, a small amout of food is stocked in your city
2-6 food based on what type of animal
It's slightly more with hunter promotions

Hmm, let's hold off on that for a bit. I was thinking of potentially creating some type of prehistoric expansion where that would be a good edition, but I haven't really thought it through too well.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Yep this feature is perfect for a prehistoric expansion
Also, earlier we discussed about animals being in the game for more turns, this would also solve that

 

[mechaerik]

It should be possible to check if there is a resource on the tile before placing it. I'm not sure however, because my computer's video card failed and i dont have access to the BtS python API.

This also means that if you wanted to use my version of the dynamic civ names, you won't be able to recieve the latest version; I uploaded an older version a while back on filefront though; it may still be there.

 

[AbsintheRed]

It should be possible to check if there is a resource on the tile before placing it.

I beleive it's this (no resource on the plot if true):
if (pPlot.getBonusType(-1) == -1):

 

[AbsintheRed]

I'm messing around with improving the bonus from animals code
But right now I can't even get it to work with the original python in Diplo II
Can anyone confirm that resources from animals works perfectly?

 

[AbsintheRed]

Noone else around?
Or just noone had time to test the resources from animal hunting ingame?

 

[The Almighty dF]

Noone else around?
Or just noone had time to test the resources from animal hunting ingame?

I've never gotten a dropped resource, but that's because I rarely encounter elephants I guess.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Deers and horses should also drop resources
Would you mind testing them out in WorldBuilder?

 

[AbsintheRed]

I stopped modding this when I realized that the resource dropping thing doesn't work for me in the untouched playtest either :S
And still not sure whether it's working for anyone else or not...

Anyway, I was testing adding hunting mechanics too back then
Also, added/rescaled/rebalanced quite a few more animals, if you still need them