Depends whether he's looking for rule changes or AI changes. In either case, I'm probably not the best person to be making such changes.
Probably Improved Gameplay Mod
- Thread starter PieceOfMind
- Start date
Depends whether he's looking for rule changes or AI changes. In either case, I'm probably not the best person to be making such changes.
I'm not sure if a bug is happening to me because of this mod. It wasn't happening before I installed it anyway.
When a worker finishes doing something, lets say a mine for example, it activates to receive next order like always. But I still don't see the mine built. If i click on build mine again, it is built inmediatly and the worker loses his movement.
It looks like they activate 1 turn earlier than what it takes to finish something. Happens with every order, including clearing forest and such.
When a worker finishes doing something, lets say a mine for example, it activates to receive next order like always. But I still don't see the mine built. If i click on build mine again, it is built inmediatly and the worker loses his movement.
It looks like they activate 1 turn earlier than what it takes to finish something. Happens with every order, including clearing forest and such.
Fimbulvetr
Emperor
If you are talking about the pre-chop feature, that's part of BUG and is intentional: whenever a forest is about to be cleared, you get a chance to either finish the job, or let the worker do something else while leaving the pre-chopped forest for later.
Minor Annoyance
Deity
I think that's intentional. Some people like to pre-cut forests beforehand so when they need to get the resources from cutting them they need only one turn to do it. I don't know if they do that for other things too, but I think there must be a way to turn that off.
I didn't notice this with mines.
It will only stop the worker if the action would remove the forrest.
Chopping a forrest will stop 1 turn before completion.
The order Chop -> Mine -- will start chopping, will stop 1 turn before finishing and continue building the mine _THUS DELAYING THE WOOD_ and give the hammers on completing the mining.
Building a mine on a forrested hill will (this is from memory) built the mine until one turn before finish - issue a message like in the situations above - and stop.
You can force a chop by issuing Chop -> Chop -> Mine. Then the forrest will be chopped, wood delivered and the mine built without stopping.
It will only stop the worker if the action would remove the forrest.
Chopping a forrest will stop 1 turn before completion.
The order Chop -> Mine -- will start chopping, will stop 1 turn before finishing and continue building the mine _THUS DELAYING THE WOOD_ and give the hammers on completing the mining.
Building a mine on a forrested hill will (this is from memory) built the mine until one turn before finish - issue a message like in the situations above - and stop.
You can force a chop by issuing Chop -> Chop -> Mine. Then the forrest will be chopped, wood delivered and the mine built without stopping.
I am among that "some people".
It is a feature of BULL and can be turned off easily enough from the BUG options (accessed by Ctrl+Alt+O). I can't remember which tab it's under but it the description goes like "Workers pre chop forest", and "Workers pre chop improvements".
Pre chopping always implies you are clearing a forest with whatever action, and that you stop just before that action finishes.
Fimbulvetr
Emperor
Is the 7zip source package you uploaded broken? I tried downloading it just now and can't open it.
The reason I wanted a look: Better AI now includes Lead From Behind, which messes with combat and I wanted to know how that affects Advanced Combat Odds, and more importantly what changes, if any, are necessary there to make them both work together as expected.
The reason I wanted a look: Better AI now includes Lead From Behind, which messes with combat and I wanted to know how that affects Advanced Combat Odds, and more importantly what changes, if any, are necessary there to make them both work together as expected.
It might be broken. If so I'll get it fixed as soon as I can.
Regarding LFB, actually there is zero conflict between it and Advanced Combat odds. At the very worst, there might be some "logically duplicated" code because LFB calculates some things that ACO also calculates. The difference is, ACO does it ONLY when the attack hover happens. So, ACO is in fact never called by the AI, for example.
You do realise don't you, that I've already merged Lead From Behind into PIG mod?
In my view LFB is a high quality mod and it would not worry me greatly if it's getting included in BBAI, but it definitely seems a tad inappropriate given its rule-changing behaviour.
You are hesitant/reluctant to embrace it for some reason?
It "messes with combat" but basically all it does is tweak the way the bestdefender code works. That's about all IIRC. It doesn't affect actual combat, which is mainly the reason there's no problem with using it and ACO together.
Fimbulvetr
Emperor
Hesitant (but if it's in BetterAI, I can hardly ignore it forever) because of its rule-changing behaviour - the best defender with LFB is not the best defender without, in some cases at least.
So ACO would have to use the same logic to deternime the bestdefender as the rest of the battle logic, otherwise it might give me odds against one unit, and once I attack a different unit defends - that is what I was worried about.
And yes I realize you already merged it, which is why I was going to look at your source code but if it doesn't clash, I worried over nothing heh.
Looks like the list of dll differences is getting smaller again.
So ACO would have to use the same logic to deternime the bestdefender as the rest of the battle logic, otherwise it might give me odds against one unit, and once I attack a different unit defends - that is what I was worried about.
And yes I realize you already merged it, which is why I was going to look at your source code but if it doesn't clash, I worried over nothing heh.
Looks like the list of dll differences is getting smaller again.
This is the good bit. You'd no doubt notice this if you examine the placement of the block of code for ACO, but ACO does nothing in terms of figuring out what the best defender is. All it does is effectively replace the function getCombatOdds. All of the bestdefender selection etc. is done before ACO comes into play.
This should be made more obvious given the recent comments made by EF in the thread for ACO, where I was able to shrug off responsibility for a bestdefender bug because it's oustide of ACO's area of effect.
The bug in question is one where sometimes the bestdefender that is picked is one you are not even at war with, assuming the tile you are attacking is one that has both friendly and hostile units occupying it. This bug is in the base BtS game and AFAIK every mod so far has not addressed it. Most people probably never notice the bug because it's pretty rare.
Fimbulvetr
Emperor
I'll be merging BBAI r527 in this week-end then.
And there I thought that this bug was already solved somewhere? At least I already heard of that bug, and the solution seemeds to be so simple..
And there I thought that this bug was already solved somewhere? At least I already heard of that bug, and the solution seemeds to be so simple..
EmperorFool
Deity
I believe it's on the General tab under Actions. I turn the second option (improvements) off in my own settings.
Note that AFAIK if you pre-chop a forest and then start building an improvement, all that time spent pre-chopping doesn't speed up the improvement. They are two separate build actions with separate progress tracking values.
For example, if chopping takes 5 turns and building a mine takes 7, building that mine on a forest would take 12 turns. If you pre-chop for 4 turns and then build the mine without completing the chop, it will still take 12 turns to chop/build for a total of 16 turns of work. This has nothing to do with the pre-chop feature.
Technically, this feature works with any feature that produces
when cleared. In PIG you get for clearing jungles, so this is good to know.Au contrair, I fixed this in BULL when I reported it to you.
You can still see the incorrect defender if you want to decide to DoW on a friendly unit by holding down ALT. I should probably change that to CTRL given that some people get the Combat Odds hover by using ALT + hover.
JaredPWagner
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2009
- Messages
- 46
Playing this mod now, nice work.
Not sure I like preserve forest at monarchy however, that basically makes that one tech solve any unhappiness problem you may have. I think it makes monarchy too effective at removing unhappiness.
Is it possible to keep the 1+ happy with scientific method but still allow the preserve to be build at monarchy as a 1+ gold improvement? If not I vote for moving the tech back at a minimum to feudalism.
Not sure I like preserve forest at monarchy however, that basically makes that one tech solve any unhappiness problem you may have. I think it makes monarchy too effective at removing unhappiness.
Is it possible to keep the 1+ happy with scientific method but still allow the preserve to be build at monarchy as a 1+ gold improvement? If not I vote for moving the tech back at a minimum to feudalism.
EmperorFool
Deity
One option would be to move Forest Preserve to a tech on a competing line so you can go either Monarchy or somewhere else. The problem with that is that Monarchy is pretty much the only "must have" up the religions tech line. Providing a solution to unhappiness on a different tech path might tip the balance back.
Thanks for the feedback JarenPWagner.
I've been thinking about this more as well. Part of the reason to go with Monarchy was the realism argument. It's true it ends up being the tech to solve happiness problems but that itself I don't view as a big problem. The problem is that Monarchy is already a very attractive tech before the change. Perhaps the cost of Monarchy could be increased, or it could be given another prerequisite.
I'm still completely undecided on how forest preserves and lumbermills should be implemented but what I do know is there are two competing objectives which are making the task near impossible.
1) Make forest preserves and lumbermills viable in the early game so that they are not just useless end game improvements because all the forests have been chopped.
2) Don't make either of them too strong as it reduces the utility of the other competing improvements (there is a thread discussing LMs in some detail, including input from TMIT and mirthdair, in the S&T forum).
I'm starting to think that part of the problem with balance between improvements is that there are simply too many you can build. Don't worry, I'm not about to cut any, but for example, for the sake of boosting hammer production we have mines, workshops, LMs and watermills. They all have different limitations on where they can be built but it's hard to tweak the bonuses from techs etc. to make sure any one in particular is not a clear winner.
In PIG 0.911 at the moment, it has been argued that LMs are the top hammer improvement. Even if it is a tad less balanced at the moment, I think the forest preserve and lumbermill are making the game a bit more interesting and I'm not hurrying to post an update that nerfs them back to vanilla again.
No wonder there's always something to complain about whenever Firaxis posts a patch. I wonder if they always found it near impossible to please everyone with each patch.
JaredPWagner
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2009
- Messages
- 46
"You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time" - John Lydgate.
I like the idea of forest preserves and lumber mills earlier. Monarchy is just a bit too early for my tastes. Forest preserves give happiness even if a worker is not working the tile. Which makes it too easy to just build a couple on say unworked forested planes and then forget about happiness. Also it would allowing whipping to be done with much less care since you could just build a forest preserve or two to offset the extra unhappiness. Seems a bit overpowered. Especially early in the game where happiness tends to be the limiting factor on city growth.
Pushing it back say to civil service or paper would still have it come a lot earlier then scientific method and would lower its impact on game balance. Another possibility is to split the happiness benefit off and push just that part back. An early preserve forests would then grow more forests (even if you don't work it) and give you 1+ gold if you do. Useful but not overpowered.
Lumber mills at machinery interest me greatly. I have always felt they come too late to be of much use where they are. I am looking forward to trying them in my next game. Lumbermills are without a doubt the best production upgrade in the game so having them early makes chopping a very hard decision, exactly the way it should be.
Optimal strategy with early lumber mills and preserves probably goes something like this
1) Capital city chop forests for rapid growth
2) Cottage cities -> Chop all grassland forests, Leave a few planes forests for production
3) Forest city 1 -> Don't chop any forests, Preserve unworked forests and hope for growth, Lumbermill everything, build heroic epic and pump out the military units.
4) Forest city 2 -> Same as above but then then build National epic and eventually National park for super great person generator.
I like the idea of forest preserves and lumber mills earlier. Monarchy is just a bit too early for my tastes. Forest preserves give happiness even if a worker is not working the tile. Which makes it too easy to just build a couple on say unworked forested planes and then forget about happiness. Also it would allowing whipping to be done with much less care since you could just build a forest preserve or two to offset the extra unhappiness. Seems a bit overpowered. Especially early in the game where happiness tends to be the limiting factor on city growth.
Pushing it back say to civil service or paper would still have it come a lot earlier then scientific method and would lower its impact on game balance. Another possibility is to split the happiness benefit off and push just that part back. An early preserve forests would then grow more forests (even if you don't work it) and give you 1+ gold if you do. Useful but not overpowered.
Lumber mills at machinery interest me greatly. I have always felt they come too late to be of much use where they are. I am looking forward to trying them in my next game. Lumbermills are without a doubt the best production upgrade in the game so having them early makes chopping a very hard decision, exactly the way it should be.
Optimal strategy with early lumber mills and preserves probably goes something like this
1) Capital city chop forests for rapid growth
2) Cottage cities -> Chop all grassland forests, Leave a few planes forests for production
3) Forest city 1 -> Don't chop any forests, Preserve unworked forests and hope for growth, Lumbermill everything, build heroic epic and pump out the military units.
4) Forest city 2 -> Same as above but then then build National epic and eventually National park for super great person generator.
I don't think I agree with this for the following reasons.
1. Chopping is insanely powerful. You can get out earlier Workers, Settlers or with Mathematics you can get TWO
cap's with one chop by disconnecting your metal and chopping out two Warriors.2. Forest Preserves take 8 turns (normal speed) to create at a time when worker turns are scarce.
I have used Forest Preserves a bit more often these days PoM after you taught me that the
bonus applies for all cities within the BFC and not just the city working the tile. But even so it's rare that I create more than 4-5 of them in any single game. Hardly overpowered.And for Gods sake don't make Monarchy more expensive, on some starts where expansion is heavy early I struggle to even get there by 1 AD on Immortal.
I agree on the notion of making the forest preserve happy come from somewhere else, probably SciMethod. It feels way too powerful to give tons of versatile happy (that the AI no doubt sucks in using...) in the early game, without building units. Doesn't it kinda unbalance certain plays, like early-mid Pacifism with huge cities? Normally spamming military police is the only way to get those huge cities, and Pacifism punishes that, and of course MiliPolice costs $$$ even without Paci. Maybe if there was a way to give ½ happy per forest at Monarchy and the other ½ at SciMethod - kinda makes sense and early on would balance things a lot I feel.
Speaking of AIs and Forest Preserves, I hope something's been done about that since the AI really loves to spam useless Preserves even when they're only available at SciMethod
I really need to actually start playtesting this How's the slowdown versus the normal BUG mod? My setup is a bit picky about that...
Speaking of AIs and Forest Preserves, I hope something's been done about that since the AI really loves to spam useless Preserves even when they're only available at SciMethod
I really need to actually start playtesting this
How's the slowdown versus the normal BUG mod? My setup is a bit picky about that...Some quick comments since I started a game:
I don't like the Sentry on Scouts. Already on high levels starting with a Scout is a huge boon, because of the 30-40% chance of popping barbs from a hut without it so I don't feel it needs such a huge boost. But my biggest gripe: you can meet Civs and have no idea where they came from because they saw you with a scout from fog. A major dealbreaker for me, knowing from what direction they came is essential. Of course often you see them on the next turn, but still.
I also didn't see the Regenerate Map option on turn0 in a normal game. 'Sup with that?
I don't like the Sentry on Scouts. Already on high levels starting with a Scout is a huge boon, because of the 30-40% chance of popping barbs from a hut without it so I don't feel it needs such a huge boost. But my biggest gripe: you can meet Civs and have no idea where they came from because they saw you with a scout from fog. A major dealbreaker for me, knowing from what direction they came is essential. Of course often you see them on the next turn, but still.
I also didn't see the Regenerate Map option on turn0 in a normal game. 'Sup with that?
