Realism Invictus

[sazhdapec]

A bit of feedback, if I may.
1) The options in the custom game creator are a quite confusing. There are a bunch of negative options like "no revolutions" or "no religion shock" which should be ticked so the feature is disabled. I think it would be more clear if all of the options lost the word 'no' so ticking the option should mean that the feature is enabled.
2) I was already reporting this bug but I guess I described it poorly. Trying again) After I end the turn the Roman civ rises from the dead. Since it was conquered it automatically makes peace with civs it was at war. The event log however doesn't show the leader of a Roman civ.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Fair question but new game this time.

Try now and see if the issue is fixed.

Ok I'll tell you what I've done.
1. download the mod which has the CvGameUtils.py and PythonCallbackDefines.xml
2. Open the mod files and the game files with notepad++
3. I have a pluging that lets me compare the differences between files so I do that and edit the game files. There really wasnt much to edit, just copy the code from the mod which has even #start/#end of the mod part and then change the 0 into 1 in the other file.
4. Save both files and launch the game.

That's it. Did I do something wrong? Maybe I need to put it in differently for RI because I tried it on vanilla game and the mod worked and I couldn't progress past Medieval Era, everything after that era was highlighted in red and unselectable meaning its working.

What it looks like:

    def canResearch(self,argsList):
        ePlayer = argsList[0]
        eTech = argsList[1]
        bTrade = argsList[2]
        return False

    def cannotResearch(self,argsList):
        ePlayer = argsList[0]
        eTech = argsList[1]
        bTrade = argsList[2]
       
        # <---------- begin tech limit changes ----------------->
        # Change the following number to limit eras civs can tech to
        # 0 = Ancient, 1 = Classical, 2 = Medieval, 3 = Renaissance, 4 = Industrial, 5 = Modern, 6 = Future
        iMaxEra = 2
       
        iTechEra = gc.getTechInfo(eTech).getEra()
       
        if( iTechEra > iMaxEra ) :
            # True means cannot research
            return True
       
        # <---------- end tech limit changes ----------------->
       
        return False

    def canDoCivic(self,argsList):
        ePlayer = argsList[0]
        eCivic = argsList[1]
        return False

Looks kosher, especially if you tested it on vanilla first. One stupid question though - did you edit the mod's files? As in the stuff that can be found in Mods/Realism Invictus/Assets... folders? If you just edited those in vanilla BtS folder, it will only work for vanilla BtS.

A bit of feedback, if I may.
1) The options in the custom game creator are a quite confusing. There are a bunch of negative options like "no revolutions" or "no religion shock" which should be ticked so the feature is disabled. I think it would be more clear if all of the options lost the word 'no' so ticking the option should mean that the feature is enabled.
2) I was already reporting this bug but I guess I described it poorly. Trying again) After I end the turn the Roman civ rises from the dead. Since it was conquered it automatically makes peace with civs it was at war. The event log however doesn't show the leader of a Roman civ.

1) The logic in naming the options is that "No ..." options are to turn off a mechanic that is supposed to be on by default. I guess with Revolutions no longer a default option, this one should be changed. The rest are deliberately worded this way.
2) Eh, this is minor enough and I'm bad enough at modding interface stuff that I will probably categorize this one as "Won't fix"

 

[ElderWolf]

Looks kosher, especially if you tested it on vanilla first. One stupid question though - did you edit the mod's files? As in the stuff that can be found in Mods/Realism Invictus/Assets... folders? If you just edited those in vanilla BtS folder, it will only work for vanilla BtS.

Yeah the files inside Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Realism Invictus\Assets\ Python and XML.
It feels like RI does something that would interfere with that code or perhaps it needs to be added somewhere other than those 2 files. I honestly have no idea why it wouldn't work :s

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Yeah the files inside Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Realism Invictus\Assets\ Python and XML.
It feels like RI does something that would interfere with that code or perhaps it needs to be added somewhere other than those 2 files. I honestly have no idea why it wouldn't work :s

To be honest, neither do I. Long long time ago, in pre-BtS era, python callbacks were disabled at the code level in then-not-yet-RI, but I don't think that code migrated to BtS version. So no, no ideas on my side.

 

[ElderWolf]

To be honest, neither do I. Long long time ago, in pre-BtS era, python callbacks were disabled at the code level in then-not-yet-RI, but I don't think that code migrated to BtS version. So no, no ideas on my side.

Alrighty, thanks anyway!

 

[Sathar]

Try now and see if the issue is fixed.

Looks better. The penalty is no longer displayed, though I'd swear the research time didn't change (possible just my imagination playing tricks).

 

[sazhdapec]

The logic in naming the options is that "No ..." options are to turn off a mechanic that is supposed to be on by default. I guess with Revolutions no longer a default option, this one should be changed. The rest are deliberately worded this way.

OK, but that's not the point. I don't think that default options matter when creating the nth custom game. I don't know how others feel but every time I create a custom game my brain melts trying to understand what to tick (or to check if the settings are correct).

 

[Sathar]

A few things (SVN 5295, new game):

-- The Classical penalty is still being displayed even after the pop-up notification that it has expired. It's hard to tell, but I think the penalty is being properly removed (Horseback Riding is Classical, Ritual is Ancient but both are the same price tier and are displaying the same base price of 740 in my game). This might be a cosmetic bug only, as I think it goes away on save and reload, however I did not notice a price change in the Classical tech I was currently researching at the time the penalty expired.

-- For the past couple of games I am noticing strange behavior of defended Barbarian cities suddenly becoming vacant with no sign of where their units disappeared to. (I'll attach a save file, the city next to my lone spearman was occupied a few turns ago, I'm not sure what it looks like in this save but by the next turn in my live game, it's empty)

Oldies:

-- Not a high priority, but Statue of Zeus and at least one of its variants get a production bonus from Gems. Gems aren't revealed until Aesthetics, and it's fairly unlikely that it hasn't been built by then.

-- At least once a year I have to vent/rant about my ongoing frustration with random map generators, knowing full well nothing will come of it. I've been "spoiled" that I really can't enjoy maps from scripts other than PerfectWorld and it's offshoots. I use the PerfectMongoose RI version that's bundled ("giant" map size, default settings), but 9 times out of ten it makes narrow, stringy continents pushed up against the poles, which I don't enjoy, plus it seems to love to start me on a tiny, polar peninsula with little useful land and no neighbors. I really don't like inspecting every map with Worldbuilder, as it destroys the Exploration and discovery game aspects.

I've experimented with the Totestra (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/totestra-a-new-perfectworld2-fork.461262/) script, which is a PW2 derivative, and I generally like the landmasses and resource placement (it's just mostly vanilla PW2 except that you can fine tune a lot of the internal variables). Unfortunately, it does not add RI's unique features like PM:RI does. I took a look at the code myself to see if I could graft PM's feature code into Totestra, but it's completely beyond the skills of someone with my lack of experience (in fact, it looks like the Totestra author and LunarMongoose tried something similar several years ago, with no public success).

That's it, I just needed to vent that. Meanwhile I'll keep alternating between the Huge World Map and running PM:RI over and over until I get a playable map and hope I'm not dogpiled in the first 200 turns and have to start again.

edit/addend:

Even with PM, I'm still not seeing a lot of Limestone being generated. It's possible that it's being placed in limited large groups, as the PW scripts like to do with some resources, or that it's being generated in terrain areas I'm just not starting near very often (it felt better distributed in Totestra).

Wishful thinking, but since Limestone is such an essential resource that is a major pain to do without, it would be nice if a (rare) random event could generate a new resource, similar to metals appearing in worked mines (last game I had Deer spawn about ten turns in right next to my capital -- I don't think I've ever even seen that event before).

 

[[Y]]

At least once a year I have to vent/rant about my ongoing frustration with random map generators, knowing full well nothing will come of it. I've been "spoiled" that I really can't enjoy maps from scripts other than PerfectWorld and it's offshoots. I use the PerfectMongoose RI version that's bundled ("giant" map size, default settings), but 9 times out of ten it makes narrow, stringy continents pushed up against the poles, which I don't enjoy, plus it seems to love to start me on a tiny, polar peninsula with little useful land and no neighbors. I really don't like inspecting every map with Worldbuilder, as it destroys the Exploration and discovery game aspects.

I've experimented with the Totestra (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/totestra-a-new-perfectworld2-fork.461262/) script, which is a PW2 derivative, and I generally like the landmasses and resource placement (it's just mostly vanilla PW2 except that you can fine tune a lot of the internal variables). Unfortunately, it does not add RI's unique features like PM:RI does. I took a look at the code myself to see if I could graft PM's feature code into Totestra, but it's completely beyond the skills of someone with my lack of experience (in fact, it looks like the Totestra author and LunarMongoose tried something similar several years ago, with no public success).

That's it, I just needed to vent that. Meanwhile I'll keep alternating between the Huge World Map and running PM:RI over and over until I get a playable map and hope I'm not dogpiled in the first 200 turns and have to start again.

This has been my experience as well (same size setting). It's a large part of why I don't play as often as I used to. I alleviate it somewhat by setting sea levels to low--the map is far larger than necessary, but the rate of playable maps goes up significantly. I never tried setting it to huge with low sea levels. Maybe that would be a fair middle ground.

And while ranting is in vogue, I'd like to make a quick rant about the random event for medicinal discoveries. The one that, if you go all-out, removes 1 population in cities and adds +2 temporary unhappiness in cities, in exchange for a 90% chance of getting +2 health in cities. I think if a 90% chance of success is considered fair, a 100% chance of success is fair as well. Making the population/unhappiness sacrifice for no gain is a hard price to pay, especially knowing that 9 times out of 10 it should have been fine. I don't think there's any need for there to be a random chance attached to this particular event, but if it's absolutely required, the "failure" should at least give +1 health in cities (half of what it would normally give).

 

[Sathar]

I used to go with low sea levels many moons ago, but I stopped because the land still doesn't feel right, there's just a lot more of it.

I also have mixed feelings about that medicine event, but nothing useful to add.

Possible art bug: Some German melee units (Fyrdman, I think) are walking around with purple/magenta shields (missing texture sort).

 

[ElderWolf]

Has anyone ever figured out how to disable the build/research recommendations in cities/tech tree? I am talking about these.

 

[PKSRoman]

Special zoroastrian unit - Dastur shouldnt be one per era for every city?
i literally spawn dasturs in indrustal era (+1200 culture, one unit per turn) like mad and win on king difflucty without any problem

 

[Sathar]

-- For the past couple of games I am noticing strange behavior of defended Barbarian cities suddenly becoming vacant with no sign of where their units disappeared to. (I'll attach a save file, the city next to my lone spearman was occupied a few turns ago, I'm not sure what it looks like in this save but by the next turn in my live game, it's empty)

Update -- it seems to happen when barbs settle into a new civ. It just happened to some revolting serfs who despawned (or possibly relocated) just as the Tartars formed.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

-- For the past couple of games I am noticing strange behavior of defended Barbarian cities suddenly becoming vacant with no sign of where their units disappeared to. (I'll attach a save file, the city next to my lone spearman was occupied a few turns ago, I'm not sure what it looks like in this save but by the next turn in my live game, it's empty)

Thanks for pointing that out - found the culprit and fixed for the next revision. While the method for finding cities to join the new barb civ is new, as indicated in one of the past revision notes, the method for assigning units was still old, which meant that it would look for all units in a given land area (which might be a huge Pangaea continent). Which means every barbarian unit on a landmass was given to a new civ, even in the cities that didn't join. While it did result in some properly scary settled civs (and there I was thinking where did they get these huge armies they weren't supposed to), that's definitely not the intended behaviour.

-- Not a high priority, but Statue of Zeus and at least one of its variants get a production bonus from Gems. Gems aren't revealed until Aesthetics, and it's fairly unlikely that it hasn't been built by then.

Thanks, will check.

-- At least once a year I have to vent/rant about my ongoing frustration with random map generators, knowing full well nothing will come of it. I've been "spoiled" that I really can't enjoy maps from scripts other than PerfectWorld and it's offshoots. I use the PerfectMongoose RI version that's bundled ("giant" map size, default settings), but 9 times out of ten it makes narrow, stringy continents pushed up against the poles, which I don't enjoy, plus it seems to love to start me on a tiny, polar peninsula with little useful land and no neighbors. I really don't like inspecting every map with Worldbuilder, as it destroys the Exploration and discovery game aspects.

I've experimented with the Totestra (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/totestra-a-new-perfectworld2-fork.461262/) script, which is a PW2 derivative, and I generally like the landmasses and resource placement (it's just mostly vanilla PW2 except that you can fine tune a lot of the internal variables). Unfortunately, it does not add RI's unique features like PM:RI does. I took a look at the code myself to see if I could graft PM's feature code into Totestra, but it's completely beyond the skills of someone with my lack of experience (in fact, it looks like the Totestra author and LunarMongoose tried something similar several years ago, with no public success).

That's it, I just needed to vent that. Meanwhile I'll keep alternating between the Huge World Map and running PM:RI over and over until I get a playable map and hope I'm not dogpiled in the first 200 turns and have to start again.

I may look at adapting Totestra. Meanwhile, did you give PlanetGenerator a spin? It is very highly customizable and I found I could get almost any desired result out of it. Just play around with settings until it starts producing the kind of maps you like.

Even with PM, I'm still not seeing a lot of Limestone being generated. It's possible that it's being placed in limited large groups, as the PW scripts like to do with some resources, or that it's being generated in terrain areas I'm just not starting near very often (it felt better distributed in Totestra).

Wishful thinking, but since Limestone is such an essential resource that is a major pain to do without, it would be nice if a (rare) random event could generate a new resource, similar to metals appearing in worked mines (last game I had Deer spawn about ten turns in right next to my capital -- I don't think I've ever even seen that event before).

It is currently set to fairly common, and that is also my own experience from playtesting. Moreover, since 3.5 we have a script in place that post-processes any generated map to ensure it has enough of every resource. While it still does not result in resources being perfectly balanced (as all things should be), it makes quite a long time when I last saw a glaring deficit of anything.

And while ranting is in vogue, I'd like to make a quick rant about the random event for medicinal discoveries. The one that, if you go all-out, removes 1 population in cities and adds +2 temporary unhappiness in cities, in exchange for a 90% chance of getting +2 health in cities. I think if a 90% chance of success is considered fair, a 100% chance of success is fair as well. Making the population/unhappiness sacrifice for no gain is a hard price to pay, especially knowing that 9 times out of 10 it should have been fine. I don't think there's any need for there to be a random chance attached to this particular event, but if it's absolutely required, the "failure" should at least give +1 health in cities (half of what it would normally give).

TBH, I never touched vanilla events much. Any bad design therein (and there definitely is some) is purely on BtS dev team's heads. But yeah, I can take a look at that.

Possible art bug: Some German melee units (Fyrdman, I think) are walking around with purple/magenta shields (missing texture sort).

Thanks, found and fixed.

Has anyone ever figured out how to disable the build/research recommendations in cities/tech tree? I am talking about these.

Nope, no idea.

Special zoroastrian unit - Dastur shouldnt be one per era for every city?
i literally spawn dasturs in indrustal era (+1200 culture, one unit per turn) like mad and win on king difflucty without any problem

I agree with this assessment, they are overpowered. For now I just nerfed their cultural output, as anything else I'd do with them is a lot harder. With their new culture output, I'd say your cities should have better things to do with their turns in industrial era.

 

[[Y]]

TBH, I never touched vanilla events much. Any bad design therein (and there definitely is some) is purely on BtS dev team's heads. But yeah, I can take a look at that.

Ahh, I didn't realize it was vanilla! I haven't experienced vanilla in... a decade? Never mind then.

 

[Sathar]

I may look at adapting Totestra. Meanwhile, did you give PlanetGenerator a spin? It is very highly customizable and I found I could get almost any desired result out of it. Just play around with settings until it starts producing the kind of maps you like.

Every so often after a string of particularly bad PerfectMongoose maps, I give PlanetGenerator another try... and give up after a few turns. Yes, it makes very "playable" maps, but they feel... too balanced.

What I like about the PerfectWorld scripts (when they work) is the more natural flow to the landscape. I feel like I'm staking out a flawed but workable domain which I'm adapting to my needs and desires.

With PlanetGenerator, I'm being assigned a parcel of land to manage, which is different but the same as everyone else's.

I'm sorry that it's tough to quantify, but that's it. PW/PM is "fun", PlanetGenerator less so. Said another way, PM generates "Realistic" maps, PG generates "Game" maps.

 

[Sathar]

Possible bug with the ahead of time tech penalty:

I was researching a Renaissance tech in the late 1300s, completing it in roughly 1406. My next tech was significantly shortened (I think I picked up Metallurgy in 2 turns). I suspect that the carry-over from my previous tech was exaggerated, similar to the old open borders/tech transfer bug.

 

[PKSRoman]

i played in Civ4 Reimagined mod and some ideas would be nice for this mode
like main factor in relations is ideology in indrustar or laters eras or increase separatism for overseas colonies
or instead full revolution in cities you set puppet governent and still have some control over newborn civ
corporations are also simpler instead sid sushi and other stuff it just "luxury industry" or "food industry" "computer indrusty"

 

[PKSRoman]

I'd say your cities should have better things to do with their turns in industrial era.

absolutley not, second big imperium fall and i cant expand because i had +140% to separatism (70% from size and military power combined
so instead grow i start spawn culture, spying (buildings like jail or tavern reduce separatism) and start produce dasturs and i goes full culture as korean empire and wait until another power grow
in the end it was reduced to 30% but i said, i almost won culturally so instead disover new techs or build army i just push it further into culture

I also notice AI is an idiot and goes with almost entire army from cities at war and when revolution start growing it 1-2-3 turn and revolution break and from nothing their score is split by half because revolutionists capture half country
they should leave more units in city? like half army in town in case of..

or just put in code if separatism grows their warmongering is decreased by the same % as separatism (like +50% separatism means for AI that they chance that declare war goes down by 50% or something like that)

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Every so often after a string of particularly bad PerfectMongoose maps, I give PlanetGenerator another try... and give up after a few turns. Yes, it makes very "playable" maps, but they feel... too balanced.

What I like about the PerfectWorld scripts (when they work) is the more natural flow to the landscape. I feel like I'm staking out a flawed but workable domain which I'm adapting to my needs and desires.

With PlanetGenerator, I'm being assigned a parcel of land to manage, which is different but the same as everyone else's.

I'm sorry that it's tough to quantify, but that's it. PW/PM is "fun", PlanetGenerator less so. Said another way, PM generates "Realistic" maps, PG generates "Game" maps.

Actually, I know very well what you're trying to say and I agree with it. I've noticed the same thing long ago - it's just I kinda like both kinds of maps, depending on my mood. Anyway, the upcoming SVN revision should bring you lots of joy.

Possible bug with the ahead of time tech penalty:

I was researching a Renaissance tech in the late 1300s, completing it in roughly 1406. My next tech was significantly shortened (I think I picked up Metallurgy in 2 turns). I suspect that the carry-over from my previous tech was exaggerated, similar to the old open borders/tech transfer bug.

I feel you're experiencing stuff working as intended. You likely crossed the ahead-of-time threshold while researching an ahead-of-time tech. As you have already likely sunken more into it than its full research cost, when its price reset to normal, the game refunded you that extra cost.

absolutley not, second big imperium fall and i cant expand because i had +140% to separatism (70% from size and military power combined
so instead grow i start spawn culture, spying (buildings like jail or tavern reduce separatism) and start produce dasturs and i goes full culture as korean empire and wait until another power grow
in the end it was reduced to 30% but i said, i almost won culturally so instead disover new techs or build army i just push it further into culture

I also notice AI is an idiot and goes with almost entire army from cities at war and when revolution start growing it 1-2-3 turn and revolution break and from nothing their score is split by half because revolutionists capture half country
they should leave more units in city? like half army in town in case of..

or just put in code if separatism grows their warmongering is decreased by the same % as separatism (like +50% separatism means for AI that they chance that declare war goes down by 50% or something like that)

I adore it when people tell me to "just" do this and that. It clearly shows how easy it is for them to implement this kind of stuff and makes me feel kinda inadequate. Could you perhaps kindly implement that change if it's so simple? I'll gladly credit you.