Probably Improved Gameplay Mod

[EmperorFool]

You should be able to merge in Varietas Delectat with WinMerge. PIG includes some XML changes which means they will have files in common, and VD puts its files into a module I believe, so this won't be trivial.

VD is huge, and I recommend leaving it out for this reason and because each new version causes crashes with different units. BAT has suffered from this. First, as soon as we release a new version it's out of date. Second, we get crash reports that we cannot fix.

 

[JujuLautre]

The two base mod in what you say are BUG and BetterAI.

BAT is an extension of BUG with more graphics.
PIG (the current mod) is Piece of Mind's mod. In it, he merged BUG and BetterAI, but also other stuffs. It is not specifically a "BUG + BetterAI" merge. It is a personal mod including both BUG and BetterAI.
As for Buffy, it is the mod used for Hall of fame games. It also includes some parts of Bug as well as some other changes, but is not supposed to be merged to other or anything, it's not its purpose.

 

[PieceOfMind]

first, why were the barbarian uprising events disabled?

Because most people are of the opinion that they are too unbalancing on the game. It would be possible to go into altering the triggers and prereqs for them but I would rather let someone else do that if they want to. For the moment, it's safest to just disabled them entirely. They're the only events that can pretty much cause a lost game because the barbs will beeline your city even though regular barbs aren't allowed to (at the time).

secondly:
i see that you include BUG,
but do you include BAT?
last bug update was 4.1 on oct 1st, and bbai is currently 0.81M, and BAT is 2.0 on june26. Do you include the latest of each?

BAT is not included because it is far too large. I might look into how feasible it is to help people install BAT into the mod.

sorry, there are just a lot of mods and modmods and modpacks, and i am getting a little confused
there are:
BUG (bts unaltered gameplay: interface and gui changes)
BBAI (better bts ai: changes to AI plus general bug fixes, and a small change to air combat)

then there are also:
BULL (bug + some more interface changes/features?)
PIG (bug + bbai + more game changing stuff)
BAT (bug + huge additions to art files, making game pretty and making civs diverse looking)
BUFFY (bug + some game changing stuff and more interface update/changes/polishing)
Merged Mod (bug + bbai + new units + new techs + gameplay changes)

as far as I can tell,
PIG includes BUG and BBAI and other stuff, but not BAT or BUFFY

Correct. I should point out that it's weird you say it doesn't include BUFFY. BUFFY is pretty much the same as BUG+BULL but it's for hall of fame games. I don't know any mods that would include BUFFY, since BUFFY is more like an end-mod - not one that is to be merged or built upon. BUG and BULL are designed more for inclusion in other mods.

BAT includes BUG and new graphics, but nothing else, though i have merged it with BBAI on my computer
and I am very confused on what BUFFY contains beyond BUG or BAT or PIG

BUFFY doesn't contain PIG. BUFFY doesn't contain anything of interest to me really - it's only use is for those people who submit games to the hall of fame because it is a standardised mod and everyone can play by the same rules.

and I am also very confused on what BULL contains, and on what contains BULL

BULL is not even officially released yet so I can't really comment on what it contains.

Merged Mod seems very similar to PIG, but with new units and techs, but not including other things...

I am looking for a mod that includes BUG and BBAI and hopefully BAT, which leaves me with PIG, BUFFY, and MERGED MOD to choose from.
what exactly are the differences between these 3 mods?

can you help a relatively new guy out with picking the right mod for him?

thx,
veqryn

I'm not familiar with Merged Mod but I can say that it does go for more significant changes to gameplay than PIG. I'd definitely not recommend using BUFFY unless you are using it for hall of fame games.
PIG Mod has different goals to most modpacks like Merged Mod. I still need to finish a document detailing all of this but basically it's a mod that doesn't try to change the gameplay by too much from BtS because BtS is already a very well balanced game. The mod is designed in large part for those players who like the idea of playing a mod but get too confused when they fire up a mod and can't adjust to all the changes. It might sound weird but ideally when starting out with this mod one shouldn't be able to notice many differences.

Many of the modcomponents I have merged into the mod have been included as optional components. Other modcomponents included are mainly of an unaltered gameplay nature (e.g. Advanced Combat Odds) or barely altered gameplay (e.g. Show Hidden Attitude Mod).

I haven't mentioned yet but a major goal for PIG is to be MP compatible. I think EmperorFool or phungus mentioned this in another thread but many modpacks accumulate MP bugs and crashes that don't get fixed or are hard to track down. Part of the reason I would be hesitant to merge with the RevDCM core if someone asked would be it'd likely break MP compatibility.

If it helps, here is the introduction I gave in the readme for the first release of this mod. It refers to changes that have subsequently been withdrawn but the ideas are still the same:

Spoiler old intro to PIG :

Visit mainpage: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=328283

Probably Improved Gameplay Mod​

Download: v0.1 (partial release) for BtS 3.19 unmodded

The number one design goal for PIG Mod is to improve gameplay. Most of the changes are minor tweaks that are aimed at restoring balance to over-used or under-used features of the game. For example, the obsolescence of castles has been moved back from Economics to Steel.

Whenever there is any doubt over the effects of a tweak, the more conservative approach is usually taken. For example, having decided to give the Colosseum a unit-xp bonus, 1xp was more on the safe side than granting 2xp, and giving the bonus to melee units ensured its usefulness did not last well into the modern era of the game.

For the most part, the reason behind most tweaks is to make decisions less straight forward. For example, the granary is too often the no-brainer first building built. Increasing its cost by 20 hammers may not change this but it will at least give some more weight to opting for an alternative building earlier in the build queue.

Barbarian Uprising events have been disabled, from the regular (negative) feedback about them. The concentration of barb units combined with their devastating AI to beeline a weak city just makes them too devastating.

As well as the tweaks, there will also be the BUG mod additions (including its DLL modifications), Better AI improvements and all of the 3.19 Unofficial Patch.

Please take the time to offer your suggestions for improving the areas of gameplay listed in the next post. In particular, I am going to be very open to suggestions from the most experienced players who will likely be able to highlight areas of the game where some reworking of the balance is in order.

To avoid introducing features the AI can't handle, things will be kept simple whenever possible. Tweaks should not be significant enough to significantly affect AI performance. On the other hand, I intend this mod to ultimately be a good modification of the BtS 3.19 game to be used in multiplayer. For this reason, a version without Better AI might need to be created if Better AI turns out to make multiplayer not functional.

Make no mistake. I still want this mod to be mostly the same as BtS 3.19 since I figure it's best not to break what ain't broke. I would hope this mod might serve as a nice starting point for those of us who are easily intimidated by the mods that introduce new units and new civs etc, and possibly as a starting point for budding new modders to try their skills in some XML modding (since most of this mod is XML tweaks).

At this point I will not supply the entire mod because I have not yet compiled the DLL (Still waiting on the next better ai release, and BULL). For now, the simple ACO dll will have to suffice, and I am more looking for criticism of the various XML tweaks (below) than actual play testing. All the XML tweaks mentioned below are already done.

 

[TheLazyHase]

0.5->0.6 break savegame compatibility, I fear Or at least, civIV under linux crash when I try to load my old saves.

The arts for the new unit action seem to be lacking ; I have some purple square as button.

I can't say a lot more, I'm playing final frontier for a while

 

[PieceOfMind]

EmperorFool,

I managed to get the promotions in the pedia working properly. As well as changing the python file a bit, there were also a couple of typos in the xml I had to fix.

For what it's worth, here's what SevoPediaPromotion.py now has in it at the relevant bit:

		eTech = gc.getPromotionInfo(self.iPromotion).getTechPrereq()
		ePromo = gc.getPromotionInfo(self.iPromotion).getPrereqPromotion()
		ePromoOr1 = gc.getPromotionInfo(self.iPromotion).getPrereqOrPromotion1()
		ePromoOr2 = gc.getPromotionInfo(self.iPromotion).getPrereqOrPromotion2()
		ePromoOr3 = gc.getPromotionInfo(self.iPromotion).getPrereqOrPromotion3()
		if (eTech > -1):
			screen.attachImageButton(panelName, "", gc.getTechInfo(eTech).getButton(), GenericButtonSizes.BUTTON_SIZE_CUSTOM, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_PEDIA_JUMP_TO_TECH, eTech, 1, False)
			if (ePromo > -1 or ePromoOr1 > -1 or ePromoOr2 > -1 or ePromoOr3 > -1):
				screen.attachLabel(panelName, "", localText.getText("TXT_KEY_AND", ()))
				if (ePromoOr1 > -1):
					screen.attachLabel(panelName, "", "(")
		if (ePromo > -1):
			screen.attachImageButton(panelName, "", gc.getPromotionInfo(ePromo).getButton(), GenericButtonSizes.BUTTON_SIZE_CUSTOM, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_PEDIA_JUMP_TO_PROMOTION, ePromo, 1, False)
		
		if (ePromoOr1 > -1):
			if (ePromo > -1):
				screen.attachLabel(panelName, "", localText.getText("TXT_KEY_AND", ()))
				if (ePromoOr2 > -1 or eTech > -1):
					screen.attachLabel(panelName, "", "(")
			screen.attachImageButton(panelName, "", gc.getPromotionInfo(ePromoOr1).getButton(), GenericButtonSizes.BUTTON_SIZE_CUSTOM, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_PEDIA_JUMP_TO_PROMOTION, ePromoOr1, 1, False)
			if (ePromoOr2 > -1):
				screen.attachLabel(panelName, "", localText.getText("TXT_KEY_OR", ()))
				screen.attachImageButton(panelName, "", gc.getPromotionInfo(ePromoOr2).getButton(), GenericButtonSizes.BUTTON_SIZE_CUSTOM, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_PEDIA_JUMP_TO_PROMOTION, ePromoOr2, 1, False)
				if(ePromoOr3 > -1):
					screen.attachLabel(panelName, "", localText.getText("TXT_KEY_OR", ()))
					screen.attachImageButton(panelName, "", gc.getPromotionInfo(ePromoOr3).getButton(), GenericButtonSizes.BUTTON_SIZE_CUSTOM, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_PEDIA_JUMP_TO_PROMOTION, ePromoOr3, 1, False)
				if (ePromo > -1 or eTech > -1):
					screen.attachLabel(panelName, "", ")")

 

[PieceOfMind]

0.5->0.6 break savegame compatibility, I fear Or at least, civIV under linux crash when I try to load my old saves.

The arts for the new unit action seem to be lacking ; I have some purple square as button.

I can't say a lot more, I'm playing final frontier for a while

Did you download the v0.6 that had the art folder zipped? Navigate to where the art folder is meant to be and tell me if you see it...

 

[Duuk]

Clean install of Pig, I'm getting random CTDs constantly.

Any "known bugs" that I should disable stuff to avoid?

Got it on moving a scout on the 1st turn, got it on founding my 2nd city.

 

[essmene]

ok i tried 0.61 and a movement option is broken.

I founded a city, selected a warrior in another city and tried to move him to the city by rightclicking the unguarded city. Game crashes immidiately.

I got a save, but don't know how to upload saves to this forum.

two turns later it also crashes...

 

[JujuLautre]

This reminds me of a report of a bug made, I believe, for RevDcm. Something about advanced combat odds, which was called for a plot in which there was no ennemy.

However, there was only asserts reported, no crash.

 

[EmperorFool]

Hmm, I don't see what's different in that code except for adding ()s when there's a required tech as well. All the code that draws the promotion buttons looks identical to what I last posted. Glad it's working though!

 

[Veqryn]

thx for the help
and as you can tell, i did not know what what on earth buffy among others was really for

 

[PieceOfMind]

ok i tried 0.61 and a movement option is broken.

I founded a city, selected a warrior in another city and tried to move him to the city by rightclicking the unguarded city. Game crashes immidiately.

I got a save, but don't know how to upload saves to this forum.

two turns later it also crashes...

Yes I got that too.

Please update to v0.7 and let me know if that CTD is still happening. I'm not seeing it anymore, at least.

 

[PieceOfMind]

v0.7 has just been uploaded.

This release is not a huge change from the last but was uploaded mainly to remedy the CTD bug that was in the latest v0.61 build. Sorry about that.

Please report back if there are more issues.

changelog:

-Merged CAR Mod v0.3
-Updated included BUG component to BUG 4.1
-Fixed the promotions in the SevoPedia
-Fixed a bug that meant Flanking 2 was not available with either of C3 or D3. It was supposed to be possible with one of those or Flanking 1.
-Gave farms a small chance of discovering a grain resource.
-<element type="EventArt" minOccurs="0"/> added to the event schema file in xml\events. This should prevent the purple square when images are not present.

Changes copied from Mongoose SDK 3.3 http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=325318
-AITargetCityValueFix
-LakeSizeMod
-BarbarianPassiveTechFix
-EventTileDowngradeMod

 

[PieceOfMind]

Hmmm. I'm getting a CTD whenever I load up a save.

Trying to debug it now.

 

[PieceOfMind]

To the one person who just downloaded the v0.7 in the past hour or two, you'll need to re-download. I've just resubmitted v0.7 with a revert to an older DLL that will not CTD constantly.

I think something went wrong with the CAR merge. Anyway, any changes made to the SDK since v0.6 have been removed. This means CAR and the few mongoose changes I had made.

 

[AveiMil]

I'm a tad confused... so in v0.7 CAR is not present?

 

[AveiMil]

Here's a "bug":

The Dun does not receive +25% Trade Route yield as Walls does. I assume this has been overlooked.

Also on the OP the Granary is still listed as costs increased to 80H instead of 60H.

 

[AveiMil]

Also, the Influence Driven War and Multiple Production Mod options are not present when creating a custom game anymore. They been removed?

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'm a tad confused... so in v0.7 CAR is not present?

That's correct. I'm releasing a 0.71 update with the documentation corrected and the other bugs you mentioned above fixed.

MPM and IDW not showing up as options are likely a result of me reverting to an older DLL. I'm recompiling the DLL and will upload 0.71 soon.

The Dun not getting +25% is a bit baffling as I think I remembered it but I'll fix it nonetheless.

I'll be leaving the merge with CAR to a later date. Remember that the included Better AI already does about two thirds of the speed improvements that CAR does, so it's not a huge loss for the moment.

Thanks for the bug reports by the way. Always appreciated.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Version 0.71 has been uploaded.

Changes:

-CAR mod removed. A CTD error was introduced (probably due to an error during the merge - it's not necessarily CAR's fault) during the merge so it has been repealed.

Added the following MongooseSDK features again...
-EventTileDowngradeMod
-BarbarianPassiveTechFix
-LakeSizeMod
-AITargetCityValueFix

-Wonders destroyed/captured messages, by The_J http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319186

Bugs fixed from v0.7:
-Fixed Dun to give +25 trade as wall does.
-IDW and MPM not showing up as options... (fixed)

To do:
AI autoplay is still not working.