Probably Improved Gameplay Mod

[PieceOfMind]

I just had an idea. The engineer's 3rd should come with Engineering tech. That way, the engineer isn't a ridiculous speciliast early on.

AveiMil, can you please try to avoid double posts only minutes apart? You can use the edit button to your desire.

By the way, I've tested AI Autoplay and it appears to be working. Let me know if it doesn't for you still.

 

[AveiMil]

I just had an idea. The engineer's 3rd should come with Engineering tech. That way, the engineer isn't a ridiculous speciliast early on.

No need (but if you want to take the time for it, go ahead ), there is nothing that gives Engineering slots early on anyway. Forge will simply become marginally better. The difference is minimal.

AveiMil, can you please try to avoid double posts only minutes apart? You can use the edit button to your desire.

Alright mate.

By the way, I've tested AI Autoplay and it appears to be working. Let me know if it doesn't for you still.

What was the shortcut now again for it?

 

[PieceOfMind]

No need (but if you want to take the time for it, go ahead ), there is nothing that gives Engineering slots early on anyway. Forge will simply become marginally better. The difference is minimal.



Alright mate.



What was the shortcut now again for it?

ctrl+shift+x

Don't forget the Pyramids by the way. (EDIT D'oh! that's not right. Engineer points are not the same as an engineer slot )

With a forge and employing an engineer, building wealth or research will be at least 3 or 3. Since engineers are already one of the best specialists (because of their great person), I think it would be wise to be careful making them much better near the start of the game.

 

[EmperorFool]

I tested both versions on both computers and unloaded/loaded several times.

The bug in Pep's code only surfaces when one player cannot see the landing spot and the player doing the unloading issued the order by clicking on an unrevealed tile that later turned out to be land.

The feature is designed to keep you from accidentally unloading your ships onto tiles you didn't know were land or attacking units you didn't see when you issued the order. It stores the revealed/visible state of the target tile when you issue the order and then stops the mission when it gets to the destination in those cases where the above would happen.

The bug is that when checking the initial state it would check it for the active player--not the unit's owner. So player A's ship would check to see if player B had revealed the tile when running on player B's machine, but check player A on player A's machine. When the revealed states of the tile differed for the players, OOS is the result b/c the unit stops on one machine but not on the other.

If you simply move your ship to the cast and then unload its units with a separate order, the OOS won't occur even without the fix.

 

[AveiMil]

Okey, so I played two games today to test the new and suggested Religious changes.

In addition to what's already been changed in 0.82 I edited the Specialist Priest and gave him an additional 2 to "simulate" his state after researching Theology and Divine Right.

I have attached two .zip files with save games from the seperate games.

The first one I drew Mongolia. I kind of crashed this game and I even "cheated" by working the 23 Priests before Divine Right. Needless to say at this point I did not feel that it was OP at least.

In my second game, which I'll give a bit more focus towards I drew the Zulu. Now, in this game I did something very different to my normal early build order. Popped a worker and then researched Mystecism->Polytheism-> (Failed to get Hinduism by 1 turn)-> Mining->Masonry->Organized Religon-> Founded Judiasm.

Then I actually started to build Stonehenge very early. My goal was to obtain Stonehenge so that my capital could start generating Great Prophet points with the intent of later bulbing Theology.

My strategy worked out reasonably well and after bulbing Theology I switched to Theocracy and started working a bunch of Priests (yeah, "cheated" this time as well, could not have waited til after DR, would have taken forever) so that I could get out a second Great Prophet in order to bulb Divine Right. DR is very expensive so one GP is not enough to bulb it completely (which is fine) and it took another 13 turns to research it manually. Once it was done I used the free Prophet for a shrine in my capital. The next Great Prophet actually bulbed Philosophy (did not know that was even possible, but I guess it was with the tech's I had at that point).

I also noticed nobody had built the Pyramids yet (only Monarch game now since I'm testing) so I decided to try and get it: success!

Now I was wondering what kind of effect running Representation would have on these Priests, would it make these buffed Priests overpowered?

Well, lets see:

This first image shows me running HRule with nothing but Priest specialists.

You'll notice that I'm pushing out 74 per turn at 100% slider and 0 per turn at 0% slider.

The stats show my city when running 100% slider.

In addition to the 74 the Priests are also contributing quite a lot towards my production giving my empire a total of 96 per turn.

Now, let's switch out all the Priest specialists with Scientists while still running HRule.

You'll quickly notice that I'm now pushing 138 per turn at 100% slider and 64 per turn at 0% slider.

I forgot to include this in the image but to keep afloat I have to turn the slider down to 10% (leaving me with 1:gold in the green per turn). At 10% slider I'm then pushing 71 per turn.

Running a setup with Scientists seem to only be beneficial if I come accross lots of gold. For instance if you sell techs to AI's after Currency this setup can still be rather good.

My empire's production is significantly reduced however, leaving me with 44 per turn. That's 52 less than when running nothing but Priests.

This shows that the Priest setup is quite strong and you can imagine that it would only become stronger once Angkor Wat is completed giving my Priests another 1

But lets move on to Representation (enabled by the Mids).

First image shows stats running Priests.

I'm pushing out 137 per turn at 100% slider and 63 per turn at 0% slider. Production remains the same as before.

Next shows Representation running scientists.

I'm pushing out 200 per turn at 100% slider and 126 per turn at 0% slider. Production remains the same as before.

The Priest setup just seem stronger.

There should be no relative difference between running Scientists or Priests under Representation. Having Representation early on is powerful regardless.

Conclusion:

This can actually be a fairly powerful economic setup; but it takes something special to reach it early enough. Considering that Divine Right is so expensive you're almost forced to partially bulb it and Theology lets you want to slag behind for a long time.

This setup also means you'll be making a lot of farms instead of cottages to suppor the 2 each Priest require.

The data above shows us that buffed Priests versus Scientists the Priests win out on the surface. But what we have not been able to see is where we would be if we had pushed out three Great Scientists at this stage and were running one or two Academies with Currency and a Buracracy capital.

Another thing to keep in my is that I pushed along with 23 Priests at Theology while it was supposed to be 23.

 

[PieceOfMind]

AveiMil,

Really if you want to accurately test the changes that are proposed for priests, you can just save the game and exit it, make the XML changes, and then reload the game, whenever you reach one of the techs that are meant to change the yield. XML parts like this can't be changed on the fly but they won't cause savegame problems.

Of course, this will only be for your tech progress - the AIs could do anything - but for this sort of testing I think that's good enough.

By the way, if it looks like your savegames have had several views, it's probably because I had to keep redownloading them when the connection would time out. I have them now and will have a look when I get some time.

 

[EmperorFool]

You can just save the game and exit it, make the XML changes, and then reload the game, whenever you reach one of the techs that are meant to change the yield. XML parts like this can't be changed on the fly but they won't cause savegame problems.

I'm not sure this is entirely correct. I think that the combined yields of a city's specialists is saved along with their counts. In my games, I have removed the +2 from power, but if I remove this change and load a late game, cities with power don't gain +2. Specialists might work the same way. I would do a test run to be sure.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'm not sure this is entirely correct. I think that the combined yields of a city's specialists is saved along with their counts. In my games, I have removed the +2 from power, but if I remove this change and load a late game, cities with power don't gain +2. Specialists might work the same way. I would do a test run to be sure.

Oh, I didn't know that. I am probably making too many assumptions. The changes like this that I've made with saving/loading before have been mainly to units. I'm pretty sure it worked there but it's been a while so maybe it didn't even work with them.

 

[EmperorFool]

If you mean changing strengths or abilities, it probably worked. Those things are looked up in the CvUnitInfo every time they are needed. Well, I am not positive about strength. Damage is tracked in each unit, so a unit at 0 damage that goes from 8 to 10 strength will still have 100HP and thus 10 strength I think.

But CvCity stores a lot of data instead of recalculating it each time it is needed. For example its total base yield values are stored. If you change Iron to provide +100 with a Mine, any city already working an Iron Mine won't gain the . You'd have to reassign the citizen and then move them back to see the change in the city even though you'd see it on the map (maybe, CvPlot might store that info about itself). But for sure if you built a new Mine on a plot with Iron you'd get the higher yield.

I suspect specialist yield and commerce values are cached in this manner, but I haven't checked. And if you were to remove and re-add the specialists, I'm not sure if the new higher values would be subtracted or if the whole total would merely be recalculated, fixing the error immediately.

 

[PieceOfMind]

While looking through the code, I found why I hadn't documented the change to floodplains in that they are not removed when settled on.

It was actually a change made in the Unofficial Patch, marked with the date 10/30/09, where it says it was actually taken from the Mongoose SDK.
I am surprised this came from the Unofficial Patch because I don't consider the BtS functionality to be bugged.

Anyway, since I've located the change now, I could remove it if people think it is not appropriate for the mod. I'm happy to leave it in though.

/************************************************************************************************/
/* UNOFFICIAL_PATCH                       10/30/09                     Mongoose & jdog5000      */
/*                                                                                              */
/* Bugfix   [COLOR="Red"][B]???[/B][/COLOR]                                                                                 */
/************************************************************************************************/
/* original bts code
		if (pPlot->getFeatureType() != NO_FEATURE)
*/
		[COLOR="Blue"]// From Mongoose SDK
		// Don't remove floodplains from tiles when founding city[/COLOR]
		if ((pPlot->getFeatureType() != NO_FEATURE) && (pPlot->getFeatureType() != (FeatureTypes)GC.getInfoTypeForString("FEATURE_FLOOD_PLAINS")))
/************************************************************************************************/
/* UNOFFICIAL_PATCH                        END                                                  */
/************************************************************************************************/

 

[EmperorFool]

I bet the argument went something like this:

1. Assume the choice by Firaxis to remove features was
   • Settling in forests and jungles gives an uncounterable +50% defense.
   • This is not fair/realistic/whatever.
   • Remove features when settling.
   • Problem solved.
2. Flood plains don't provide a defense bonus.
3. Therefore Firaxis didn't mean to remove them.
4. It's a bug; fix it!

If the assumed logic of 1 is correct, then the change is actually a fix. If not, it's a gameplay change and doesn't belong in the UP. Since we cannot know if 1 is correct, I'd err on the side of caution and remove it from the UP.

I'm all for it being in PIG, however since that is what PIG is about: small gameplay changes designed to improve the game.

If you do leave it in, I recommend removing all features that add a defensive bonus rather than special-casing Flood Plains.

 

[AveiMil]

Oh, I didn't know that. I am probably making too many assumptions. The changes like this that I've made with saving/loading before have been mainly to units. I'm pretty sure it worked there but it's been a while so maybe it didn't even work with them.

I'm not sure this is entirely correct. I think that the combined yields of a city's specialists is saved along with their counts. In my games, I have removed the +2 from power, but if I remove this change and load a late game, cities with power don't gain +2. Specialists might work the same way. I would do a test run to be sure.

I'm sure EF has a point in some aspects, but I think you are right about specialits PoM, you can change their yield and then reload the savegame. Good point, should have thought of that.

But at the same time I think my test is valid, because it did not include the 2 from Monastaries after Theology and that more or less makes up the difference.

 

[AveiMil]

I'm all for it being in PIG, however since that is what PIG is about: small gameplay changes designed to improve the game.

Regardless of the logic we use to justify it, I agree, there are no problems leaving this in the game. Intuitively this is how I think it should be. But overall it's a pretty minor concern.

EDIT: Right after writing the above statement I thought about a minor concern and that is that settling on FP means you'll get your first worker out a bit sooner (?) and grow a bit faster. No other tiles that you would normally spawn upon using any of the available mapscripts (I am aware of) lets you spawn on another tile that gives that kind of effect. With the exception of resources no tile other than the Plain-hills provide a settling bonus and you never (?) spawn on a Plain-hills so you'll always have to spend a turn to get there if you want to get that bonus.

If you do leave it in, I recommend removing all features that add a defensive bonus rather than special-casing Flood Plains.

I disagree, don't remove the defense bonus you get from settling on a hill.

 

[EmperorFool]

You never (?) spawn on a Plain-hills.

This is definitely false. I have spawned on a Plains hill before--both with and without a Forest.

Don't remove the defense bonus you get from settling on a hill.

Hills are not features so they won't be affected by this.

Spoiler :

Hey! Can we remove Hills when the AI settles on them? (just kidding, don't remove hills)

 

[PieceOfMind]

I've found a bug in the sdk in PIG causing the GW component to have no effect. An important line that is meant to tally up the global warming value is actually commented out. I think this was my own fault - not of Minor Annoyance.

This should be fixed for next release. For now, GW still won't work I don't think.

 

[AveiMil]

I played once again my Zulu game starting from 4000BC and planning to go for my more traditional path.

I've attached a .zip file with save games from the test.

I built all my cities in exactly the same places and I did not take advantage of the knowledge I've already gained from playing the map before (for instance I could block off the Romans even earlier now).

Take a look at this image:

I had to make the comparison two turns after 520 AD (as the last game) because I was still in a Golden Age at that point this time around.

You'll see I'm pushing 271 per turn at 100% slider with the ability to do so about two out of every three turns.

Just to put this data into perspective, the Priest setup (running HR) provided me with 71 per turn. Considering that 271 2 out of 3 turns translate into roughly ~180 beakers per turn the difference is quite large. I'm pushing more than double the science rate as per the Priest setup (2.2x to be exact).

If you remember in my last test at this point my Priest empire was pushing 96 which is a decent boost up from the 62 my empire is producing when going for a more traditional path.

Of course these hammers can be put towards but they don't come close to making up the difference. The advantage, however, is that you'll be able to pump out and afford more units. But still, Priest might require an additional buff in order for this to truely be worth it.

I was able to snag Music in this test, using the Great Artist for a Golden Age in order to push out my second GS a bit sooner. I used the second GS for a second Academy in my 2nd best research city. I could have chosen to bulb Philosophy here but my intent is to push out another before I start researching Liberalism anyway.

I also got Machinery by 520AD, which is extremely early.

This shows the power of Cottages when you are gifted such rich and powerfull land as my economy this time around relies almost exclusively on cottages.

Conclusion:
At the very least I think it would be hard to say the new religious changes makes this approach overpowered. But the good news is that it brings the Religious path up to par (I still think the traditional path is perhaps a bit easier, safer and ultimately a bit stronger but at least the Religious path is now somewhat viable).

The Religious path at least provide more production which can be beneficial if you are waging a lot of early wars.

I would not completely exclude the possebility of buffing the Priest even further (slightly). But the buffs certainly will have to obsolete and perhaps earlier than Scientific Method too.

EIDT: I've uploaded the 4000 BC save in case you (anyone) want to try your self at this start.

This is definitely false. I have spawned on a Plains hill before--both with and without a Forest.

Ok, I'm sure you are right, I just can remember any incidents :S

Hills are not features so they won't be affected by this.

What other features that you can settle upon provides a defense bonus for cities?

 

[EmperorFool]

What other features that you can settle upon provides a defense bonus for cities?

None in vanilla, but it's always nice to consider the modding community when adding features, especially in this case where you'd need to exchange one line of code for another.

if (pPlot->getFeatureType() != NO_FEATURE && GC.getFeatureInfo(pPlot->getFeatureType()).getDefenseModifier() != 0)

 

[AveiMil]

Upon reflection and testing, here are my new and hopefully improved Religious change suggestions.
(Complete list, includes previous changes).

• Missionaries cost reduced to 30, down from 40
• Temple cost reduced to 60, down from 80
• Temple gains one additional Priest slot.
• Standard Priest improved to 21

• Organized Religion no longer enables building Missionaries without Monastery (**)
• Organized Religion grants +50% towards Missionaries

• Theology grants 2 bonus for Priest Specialists. (*)
• Theology grants 2 bonus for Monastery. (*)
• Theocracy enables unlimited Priest Specialists. (*)

• Divine Right grants 1 bonus for Priest Specialists. (*)
• Divine Right grants 2 bonus for Temples. (*)
• First to discover Divine Right receives a Great Prophet

(*) All marked changes should obsolete when Education is researched.

(**) With these Religious changes this is actually an advantage for players going down the Religious path over those that do not because these players will probably invest in a Monastery anyway because of the extra 2 beaker bonus at Theology, while players going for a more traditional path probably won’t.

These changes of course relies on wheter or not they are possible to do. How is that looking PoM?

 

[AveiMil]

I just an idea I’d love to see implemented.
I do sometimes use the “Turn on to Avoid Growth” feature but then I forget about it and it’s left on even once I get enough Happy Cap requirements to grow without unhappiness. What would be great was a feature that checked the Population size of the city and if the Happy cap was 1 or higher than the current Population while “Turn on to Avoid Growth” was checked ON then you’d get a reminder message at the start of the turn.

Alternatively/additionally code in an option that you can check on or off that says “always turn off ‘Turn on Avoid Growth’ when Happy Cap > Population”. Or something to that effect.

EF/PoM, would this be hard to include?

 

[Afforess]

I just an idea I’d love to see implemented.
I do sometimes use the “Turn on to Avoid Growth” feature but then I forget about it and it’s left on even once I get enough Happy Cap requirements to grow without unhappiness. What would be great was a feature that checked the Population size of the city and if the Happy cap was 1 or higher than the current Population while “Turn on to Avoid Growth” was checked ON then you’d get a reminder message at the start of the turn.

Alternatively/additionally code in an option that you can check on or off that says “always turn off ‘Turn on Avoid Growth’ when Happy Cap > Population”. Or something to that effect.

EF/PoM, would this be hard to include?

Rife and AND have a avoid unhealthiness, and avoid unhappiness that you can toggle for each city; pretty easy to add; IMHO it should be in BULL.