[PYTHONCOMP] Civ4lerts: Alert messages about in game events

[Jorunkun]

Apologies if this has been suggested or done already, but I am really missing alert messages on known AI tech advances.

In Civ3, you would be notified if an opponent you were in contact with acquired a tech advance. Specifiers for Civ4 would be that a) you'd have to have alphabet, b) be in contact with that civ and c) information be limited to the advances visible on the tech trading screen (i.e. no info about techs beyond the ones you can currently research up to).

I greatly miss this feature when I am holding back from trades to protect a lead, or when catching up - as it stands, you need to check the techscreen every turn to see if something changed.

Would be v grateful if someone came up with a solution to this. Any takers?

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Apologies if this has been suggested or done already, but I am really missing alert messages on known AI tech advances.

So am I.

If you're playing Civ IV Classic, then it's already available. The Hall of Fame mod includes an enhanced version of my alerts mod that supports several additional features such as notifications about technology trades. Unfortunately, I don't think it's compatible with Warlords yet, though I'd love to find out I'm wrong about that.

For Warlords, I'm sort of hoping the Hall of Fame folks will do an update themselves, but if I get impatient enough I might try to merge their changes in myself. You could, of course, try to do it yourself too.

Regarding the documentation, I had taken it out because it was a lot of crap that I hadn't kept totally up to date, but I guess some useful things got removed as well. I'll see about updating the ZIP file to include the README again.

 

[Denniz]

For Warlords, I'm sort of hoping the Hall of Fame folks will do an update themselves, ...

We are, but you didn't hear that from me. The answer to the next question is: soon.

 

[Keroberos]

Thanks for all your work on this mod. I've come to depend on it, and it feels odd playing without it. I too am eagerly awaiting the HOF Warlords update.

 

[Jorunkun]

If you're playing Civ IV Classic, then it's already available. The Hall of Fame mod includes an enhanced version of my alerts mod that supports several additional features such as notifications about technology trades.

(..)

Regarding the documentation, I had taken it out because it was a lot of crap that I hadn't kept totally up to date, but I guess some useful things got removed as well. I'll see about updating the ZIP file to include the README again.

Thanks for the swift reply. Not playing warlords yet, so will check out the HOF one immediately.

Gracias!

 

[vorshlumpf]

Dr. Jiggle, thanks a lot for this mod. I used to use CivAssist, and this definitely fills a need (especially for cities about to become unhealthy or unhappy).

Has anyone noticed a discrepancy in the reported gold/turn available and the actual g/t available? I don't know if I broke anything when integrating this into Fall from Heaven II but, as an example, I'll get a message about X person having 9 gold per turn available for trade and it's not necessarily the case.

Any thoughts on how I can track down and fix the problem?

- Niilo

 

[Acrobat]

I am new to using mods, and this one sure sounds very useful

However I am lost on how to install it (the readme in the warlords beta mod points to a documentation file which i cannot seem to find)

Can someone tell me how/where to install it?

Also do I have to start a new game so that it works?


Thanks!

 

[Ket]

There has been some mention that this mod has issues with muliplayer. Now I dont know for sure as I never play muli but I was wondering if anyone can confirm that it does not work or it does work in multiplayer (Under Warlords)

 

[AlanH]

Hi

Someone asked how to get your mod working on the Mac version of Civ4. I am a fan of CivAssist, and a Mac user and programmer, so I took up the challenge.

The problem appears to be that CvPath.py assumes the existence of the Windows Registry and makes Windows-specific Python calls to find the game software and the user's My Documents folder structure.

Soooo, I have worked out a change to CvPath.py that emulates these functions, and Civ4lerts now appears to work on a Mac .The modified CvPath.py is attached, and subject to confirmation that it still performs on a Windows installation, I recommend that any modders who use CvPath.py should use it in place of the current one wherever it's needed. Then your mods are more likely to be compatible with the Mac version.

[Techie details alert]
My change checks sys.platform to determine whether to use my Mac OS X code or your original code, and the latter is unchanged except that I've put import _winreg within the conditional code section used for Windows only, so it doesn't fail on a non-Windows system.

 

[AlanH]

Follow-up: While testing I get inconsistent alert messages. Sometimes on an early city growth I get a correct orange text message. Other times it just displays TXT_KEY_CIV4LERTS_ON_CITY_GROWTH in white. Nothing shows up in the Python Error Log when this happens. Is this a known issue, or should I be looking for some weird problem with the Mac version of Civ4?

 

[vorshlumpf]

I have yet to experience a similar error.

I recently noticed, though, that the code will warn you of impending growth even if you have growth manually shot off for the city.

- Niilo

 

[podraza]

I have 1.61. I just unzipped the file and put the whole folder into "mods". From what I understand, that is what I'm supposed to do. But nothing is happening. It did make me restart the game at the start, but nothing happened in game after that. What did I do wrong?

 

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

I have been using this mod on a Mac by making use of AlanH's CvPath update.

Although it works pretty well, I have noticed some odd behaviour that I was wondering whether it was Mac specific or a bug in the mod itself:

a) On loading the game it always goes through an XML (uncached) stage. Typically this only happens the first time I start up with a new mod and then Civ uses cached XML on subsequent startups leading to faster startup. Does this also happen with this mod on PCs?

b) The notifications about gold available for trade are sometimes inaccurate. For example, I got a notification that Victoria had 1320 gold available for trade. When I went to trade she only had 30. She was annoyed or cautious towards me - does that affect things?

 

[AlanH]

I put it in CustomAssets in my Documents/ folder path so that it's always active. Seems to work OK, except for the intermittent effect I noted above.

 

[flamingzaroc121]

i really have been waiting for this , but one question, where do you download it to

 

[AlanH]

I just expanded the mod, and moved everything in it into the equivalent places in CustomAssets. If you want to try a bit of pioneering, try using my Drag and Drop Mod Installer - see my sig.

 

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

Civ IV recreates the structure of the CustomAssets folder if it is missing anything. Thus, you can just drag the contents of the mod folder onto the CustomAssets folder and click yes to replace anything (i.e. folders) that already exist (assuming no other mods already installed). Importantly, this places the .ini file in the top level of CustomAssets and you can edit the preferences in there to tweak the alerts. (For example, I don't worry about unhealthiness as much as unhappiness, so I changed the alerts to reflect this.)

Removal is also easy - you just trash the entire CustomAssets folder and Civ will recreate it at the next startup. (Or drag the whole folder to some storage area for easy reinstalation at a later date.)

 

[deleted]

deleted

 

[Chazcon]

Does this mod alert you when your roaming Scout finds a resource, like Copper or Horses off-screen?

 

[Jeff1787]

How do you install this into an existing mod?