Promotions Displayed with Unit Icon

xienwolf · Oct 7, 2010

Not sure what the standard style will be for mod distribution, since Modbuddy lets us put them out in the world unannounced and undiscussed, but I figure a thread for feedback is always better

In User Interface-Other you will find my Mod "FlagPromotions"

This is a fairly simple little modcomp which lets the promotions on a unit be seen along with the unit model on the map itself. I personally found it annoying in a large battle to have to remember which units were my veterans and which were the cannon fodder, or which Archer could shoot over a mountain and which had to walk around. Seeing the promotions on enemies was even MORE annoying since I had to mouse over them and then remember what the promotion on that unit actually DOES.

Since I referred to Kael's guide to set this up in Modbuddy (originally I just modified the base files directly, fortunately that happened to be basically needed anyway) and I saw he had an example which is nearly EXACTLY what I was doing (code point of view, not game effect), I have included his little modcomp to disable the unit icons along with this. Note that disabling the icons also disables the promotions though.

In addition to using Kael's mod to disable the icons completely, you also have an option to disable only the added promotion display piece (might be nice if things start to get cluttered). You can select the unit by clicking on any of their promotions, and you can do a mouseover of the promotions to see a description if you desire.

Limitations:

Only 9 promotions are displayed per unit. So the first 8 by SQL table order, and then the last one after that (if more than 9 on the unit) will show up. Eventually I'll look at changing that (make it variable on-the-fly, or at least make it so the user can easily select the max number themselves), and also allowing an XML tag to define a promotion as "not worth showing" since there are many which you honestly don't care about seeing (like "Can Embark").

The Promotions won't "move" with the Unit Icon for special cases like stacking a Military and Civilian unit on a tile, or setting up Garrison in a city. This is also something I can clean up, but I am going to try and make the mod into a completely new file so it isn't prone to conflicting with other people's work (like Kael's small mod) so setting up adjustments will come after that sometime.

Zuul · Oct 7, 2010

Nice, but maybe they could be displayed in half size if possible?

xienwolf · Oct 8, 2010

I'll have to check if resizing DDS images is as easy in C5 as it was in C4. Would be a decent move, and allow more promotions to fit in there later.

MisterBenn · Oct 8, 2010

It's a great concept but I agree it probably needs shrinking. Perhaps only user-selected promotions should be displayed?

A variation might be to have a tiny rank symbol to indicate a unit's level as it gains experience.

nebnotrub · Nov 26, 2010

Nice mod. Would it be possible to make it so you could turn it on/off with a hotkey rather than having to open and click the panel?

gruven · Nov 26, 2010

Very nice.
Would it be possible to hide the "demotions" or are they indistinguishable from promotions to the games's code? It would save space if the game wasn't reminding us that archers can not melee attack, horsemen don't get defensive terrain bonuses, etc.

alpaca · Nov 30, 2010

gruven said:
Very nice.
Would it be possible to hide the "demotions" or are they indistinguishable from promotions to the games's code? It would save space if the game wasn't reminding us that archers can not melee attack, horsemen don't get defensive terrain bonuses, etc.

They are all handled with the same code. I actually dislike how they used the same icons for all of them anyways, it means you can't tell what's what at a glance anymore.

BomberEscort · Nov 30, 2010

I was hoping there would be mods that changed the graphics of the promotion icon from the triangles to something that could be visually recognized. This game smacks of "I ran out of budget". Some promotion icons are complete, some are triangles; some battles you can see the odds, some battles you can't...

Erendir · Jan 20, 2011

MisterBenn said:
It's a great concept but I agree it probably needs shrinking. Perhaps only user-selected promotions should be displayed?

A variation might be to have a tiny rank symbol to indicate a unit's level as it gains experience.

This is easily done, You have to modify the UnitFlagManager.lua:
add this code after line 49:

Code:

[COLOR="Grey"]--[[ End Modify ]][/COLOR]

--[[ Modified by Erendir ]]
--[[ Filter Promotions by Type ]]
local ignoredPromotionType = {
    PROMOTION_OCEAN_IMPASSABLE = true,
    PROMOTION_GREAT_GENERAL = true,
    -- feel free to adjust this list
}
--[[ End Modify ]]

[COLOR="Grey"]local g_UnitFlagClass = [/COLOR]

(i greyed out what should be just before and after the new code).

Now find the code (line 329)

Code:

if (unit:IsHasPromotion(unitPromotionID)) then

and change it to

Code:

if [B]not ignoredPromotionType[unitPromotion.Type] and[/B] (unit:IsHasPromotion(unitPromotionID)) then --[[ Modified by Erendir ]]

that's all. Now You can easily modify the ignoredPromotionType table, by simply adding lines like

Code:

PROMOTION_EMBARKATION = true[B],[/B]

(don't forget the comma!)

The list of all promotion types here:

Spoiler :

xienwolf · Jan 21, 2011

nebnotrub said:
Nice mod. Would it be possible to make it so you could turn it on/off with a hotkey rather than having to open and click the panel?

Quite possible, and fairly simple. I recently put in a new harddrive though, so right now don't even have Steam, let alone Civ 5 and all of the modding framework >< But since the system is already set up to be toggled, you just have to add a second way in which to toggle it. So find ANY example of adding a hotkey to the game and you should be able to set things up in moments.

gruven said:
Very nice.
Would it be possible to hide the "demotions" or are they indistinguishable from promotions to the games's code? It would save space if the game wasn't reminding us that archers can not melee attack, horsemen don't get defensive terrain bonuses, etc.

Erendir has quite a nice solution for you. I just wanted to pipe in that personally I would hide any promotion which you don't acquire via spending XP when you level up. Some aren't "demotions" but are still quite useless to see since ALL of those units have it. And others (embarkation comes to mind) are absolutely nothing but annoying clutter.

Erendir · Jan 26, 2011

I made a new improved version of this mod.
Player-view features:

in-game options menu, with options stored between sessions -- no need to edit any lua file to amend visible promotions.
promotions like shock I,II,III are shown only once (the highest level)

Screenshots (big size!):

Spoiler :

Modder-view features:

the are as few changes on core files, as was possible: MiniMapPanel.xml is unchanged, in UnitFlagManager.lua are changed 3 lines (remover local keyword), and only 2 uncommented lines added (1 of them can be removed). Look at diff

Spoiler :

unfortunally, i found no possibility to leave UnitFlagManager.xml untouched.

I hope, it's easily integrated in any other mod.

This is alpha, because it's was not enough tested.
To install, simply place the FlagPromotions__v_2_.civ5mod file in your \My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\ directory.
This version of the mod is currently NOT available anywhere else.

Sneaks · Jan 26, 2011

Where is the options menu opened from?

Mentos · Jan 26, 2011

I also think that showing only the additionally earned combat-relevant promotions is enough.
This easier distinguishes between new built units and experienced ones.

I guess it would be too much to ask if the tooltip info of e.g. Shock III icon would also include the cumulative bonus of I and II too.
Doesn't matter, saving some icons is already nice enough!

PS: Ehm, call me a newb but I can't install Erendir's civ5mod file somehow.

Erendir · Jan 26, 2011

Sneaks said:
Where is the options menu opened from?

oh, i indeed forget to mention this: right click on "Unit Promotions", the last item in minimaps sidemenu.

Mentos said:
I also think that showing only the additionally earned combat-relevant promotions is enough.
This easier distinguishes between new built units and experienced ones.

just disable all the others. (It's possibly to catch your promotion-choices at level up, and so let the game know, what promotions a unit earned for xp, but not for ai-players - or i don't know the way. So just disable what You don't need...)

Mentos said:
I guess it would be too much to ask if the tooltip info of e.g. Shock III icon would also include the cumulative bonus of I and II too.

look at the last screenshot in my prev post. Or do you mean to show the sum of bonus damage, like in "All Promotions description tooltip" ? This isn't so simple, but possible (or just copy that part of code)

Mentos said:
I can't install Erendir's civ5mod file somehow.

You can always simply unpack the file -- it's a 7z-archive -- to the MODS folder.

Sneaks · Jan 26, 2011

Instead of the Right Click options menu, which is hardly intuitive, I suggest adding a button to the DiploCorner using alpaca's diplocorner addin tool. It will still be 100% workable with other mods this way.

Thalassicus · Jan 26, 2011

I really like this!

It's worthwhile to make accessing the options more clear, though I'm not sure compatibility would be improved much - it still wouldn't work with other mods altering unit flags.

I've attached an updated ModUserData.lua with a loop that automatically default-hides any promotion that is unit attribute and not a special UU attribute. Attributes are things like ranged units "cannot attack in melee" that are obvious by looking at the unit, and there's dozens of them so it takes a while to disable them all with manual clicks.

I also added a "resetToDefaults" parameter to the updateIgnoredPromotions() function, and cleaned up the code a bit in this file (it's possible to use "for promotion in GameInfo.UnitPromotions()" to loop them instead of a sql query).

Erendir · Jan 27, 2011

Nice someone finds it useful

Thalassicus said:
I've attached an updated ModUserData.lua

there're some typos, like PROMOTION_ForEIGN_LANDS and TXT_KEY_PROMOTION_GAIN_EXPERIENCE
Here's corrected version:

Spoiler :

Code:

-- ModUserData
-- Author: Erendir
-- DateCreated: 1/23/2011 12:36:56 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------
local _VERBOSE = false
local print
if not _VERBOSE then print = function() end end

ModID        = "44311931-9c7a-4f55-b465-7dc8d814e24d";
ModVersion    = Modding.GetActivatedModVersion(ModID) or 2;
ModUserData = Modding.OpenUserData(ModID, ModVersion);

default_ignoredPromotion = {}
for promotionType in GameInfo.UnitPromotions() do
    if promotionType.PediaType == "PEDIA_ATTRIBUTES" then
        default_ignoredPromotion[promotionType.Type] = true
    end
end
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_JAGUAR"]                             = false --jaguar
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_PARTIAL_HEAL_IF_DESTROY_ENEMY"]     = false --jaguar
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_FASTER_HEAL"]                         = false --immortal
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_MOHAWK"]                             = false --mohawk
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_SPAWN_GENERALS_I"]                     = false --companion cavalry
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_ANTI_MOUNTED_I"]                     = false --siamese elephant
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_CITY_ASSAULT"]                         = false --songhai cavalry
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_SECOND_ATTACK"]                     = false --chu-ko-nu
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_SPAWN_GENERALS_II"]                 = false --samurai
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_IGNORE_TERRAIN_COST"]                 = false --minuteman
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_HEAL_IF_DESTROY_ENEMY"]             = false --janissary
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_FREE_PILLAGE_MOVES"]                 = false --sipahi
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_EXTRA_SIGHT_I"]                     = false --sipahi
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_STRONGER_VS_DAMAGED"]                 = false --cossak
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_FOREIGN_LANDS"]                     = false --foreign legion
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_ANTI_FIGHTER"]                         = false --zero
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_EXTRA_SIGHT_I"]                     = false --ship of the line
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_IGNORE_TERRAIN_COST"]                 = false --scout
default_ignoredPromotion["PROMOTION_GAIN_EXPERIENCE"]                     = false --keshik
    
ignorePromotion = {}

function updateIgnoredPromotions(resetToDefaults)
    print'updateIgnoredPromotions'
    -- get list of ignored promotion from ModUserData
    for promotion in GameInfo.UnitPromotions() do
        local id = promotion.ID
        local ignore = ModUserData.GetValue(id)
        if ignore == nil or resetToDefaults then
            ignore = default_ignoredPromotion[promotion.Type];
            ModUserData.SetValue(id, ignore and 0 or 1)
        else
            ignore = (ignore == 0) and true or false
        end
        ignorePromotion[id]=ignore
        --if ignore~=nil then print(string.format('ignorePromotion[%d]=%s', id, tostring(ignore))) end
    end
end
updateIgnoredPromotions ()
--updateIgnoredPromotions (true) -- resets to defaults

Thalassicus said:
it's possible to use "for promotion in GameInfo.UnitPromotions()" to loop them instead of a sql query

i know, i just thought a SQL-query is better for performance: i'm pretty sure the GameInfo.UnitPromotions is defined like this:

Code:

GameInfo.UnitPromotions = function ()
    return DB.Query"select * from UnitPromotions"
end

and using it directly may save some memory and CPU-time. Of cause this needs benchmarking, but i'm sure this loop:

Code:

for promotionType in GameInfo.UnitPromotions() do
    if promotionType.PediaType == "PEDIA_ATTRIBUTES" then
        default_ignoredPromotion[promotionType.Type] = true
    end
end

is slower than this one:

Code:

for promotionType in DB.Query"select * from UnitPromotions where PediaType='PEDIA_ATTRIBUTES'" do
        default_ignoredPromotion[promotionType.Type] = true
end

(and replacing * with Type will save another bit of memory used)

request If someone makes icons for PROMOTION_MEDIC and PROMOTION_FASTER_HEAL (enchanced medic), i'll (try to) add them to the game.

!!! there's a bug in UnitFlagManager_addin: line 232 is now

Code:

        if unit

but should be

Code:

        if [B]not[/B] unit

Thalassicus · Jan 27, 2011

Erendir said:
i know, i just thought a SQL-query is better for performance: i'm pretty sure the GameInfo.UnitPromotions is defined like this:

Code:

GameInfo.UnitPromotions = function () return DB.Query"select * from UnitPromotions" end

While possible, it might reading from a Lua table already imported from the database, which would only be memory access time. It's all hypothetical since we can't see the game's core code though. Either way the main thing is there's always the tradeoff in programming between performance and code readability. Most lua scripts have execution time in milliseconds (unless writing data to disk), and in today's world paying programmers cost more than performance, so I typically go for easily readable code. :thumbsup:

I really like the concept of this mod so I put a few hours of work in to get it to match the unit panel. I think it only refreshed the icons when the option was toggled? Now there's just the matter of icon size... working on it.

Keeps up to date when a unit receives promotions.
Displays promotions when units become visible by leaving fog of war.
Defaults 'shared' category promotions to hidden in addition to non-UU attributes, though one exception that might be desired is Morale. In most of my games only a portion of my army has that promotion.
Fixed a few bugs here and there.

Would it be acceptable if I include this mod in a package I'm putting together? If yall want to keep it independent I would understand. The only reason I ask is merging lua files can be a little tricky for CiV players unfamiliar with programming.

Erendir · Jan 27, 2011

I would really like to see this mod as part of Your package, as i'm using it

Your improvements/fixes are good, also if i disagree with disabling my performance tweaks...
As of shared promotions: i find it useful to see if an enemy has something like Oligarchy. I would say a checkbox is needed to turn shared promotions on/off at once. Another improvement i'm thinking of is to show "ignores terrain cost" promotion on all units except scout -- just to know, this archer/crossbowman/... is really fast.

Thalassicus · Jan 27, 2011

I think creating a new UI element for each mod when it's a simple on/off map display toggle like this one could quickly clutter the screen. Adding it the built-in minimap panel makes sense for something like this. I adjusted the tooltip slightly so the right-click option is prominently featured in green, capitalized text.

Since there's a small number of 'shared' promotions they could be default-hidden or default-shown, either way would be alright for those. I'm not disagreeing with the performance adjustments either, they're a good idea. A good place to do so would probably be the UpdatePromotions main loop since it's run often, accessing the options screen and storing retrieving user data is more rare.

FlagPromotions (v 3)

I've created a new 16px size for the icons. It's a choice of 32px or 16px because texture processing in games usually goes in powers of 2, I suspect CiV has the same restriction. One challenge is Civ4's 0-1-2 icon style scaled better than CiV's 1-2-3 style. It's hard to distinguish CiV's ranks at smaller sizes. There's still a few icons using Civ4's method like Interception, but most don't. These are the 256px (civilopedia) and 16px (unit flags) below.

For me at least, on the 16px size top row I can tell one rank from the next , but the bottom row icons all look the same.

I've done some editing today on the graphics side of things to improve the presentation of the icons. My goal is to make them visually unobtrusive, yet clear to recognize when looking at. They're sharper ingame than the screenshot below because vBulletin automatically compresses images when viewed.

I also found and fixed a minor bug opening the options menu, where it added everything to the list each time it's opened. RefreshFlagPromotionsOptions() only needed to be called once.

Promotions Displayed with Unit Icon

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