[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

[Isabelxxx]

I don't suggest anything because that's it's your decision, you have to choose how to implement this. (But I changed that!)

Will that notably increase performance? I don't think so, you can left that as it is.

But as I tell you, that can be changed. It took me some time to figure how to remove variables, check if they exists or have been changed in FVarSystem, etc. and do it in a clean way.

The biggest problem was that I didn't wanted to add more and more code when creating my own variables but I found my way to do it.

The only problem (but I prefer it this way) with my system is that you MUST know what you are doing. That's said, I still have the possibility to add/modify global via python but you must follow an specific structure to tell the DLL you want to rewrite things for ex.

As I promised a long time ago I will create a thread with my founds as soon as I have time.

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:

New revision available in SVN.
(Corrected a few small errors.)

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:

New revision available in SVN.

1. Small Performance Improvement
2. Fixed / Improved AI Balancing for decisions about Yield

Please somebody test.

Edit:

Testing not necessary anymore.
I have done several rounds in Autoplay.
AI behaves fantastic.
(Considering Yields and Buildings.)

 

[raystuttgart]

I was working on the Europe Screen. I've fixed it. Could someone check?

I will take a look.

What was that bug ?

AI was heavily unbalanced considering decisions about Yields.
But now it behaves really great.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Robert:

Your Europe Screen looks good.

 

[Robert Surcouf]

Hi,

@Robert:

Your Europe Screen looks good.

Thank you!
Have you checked every resolution? Colonists are sometimes quite close to the ocean... But with my standard resolution (1024*768) everything seems ok.

@team:

New revision available in SVN.

1. Small Performance Improvement
2. Fixed / Improved AI Balancing for decisions about Yield

Please somebody test.

Edit:

Testing not necessary anymore.
I have done several rounds in Autoplay.
AI behaves fantastic.
(Considering Yields and Buildings.)

OK. Today I'll be quite busy. I can only check tomorrow or even Sunday... I'm sorry
Can anyone else check before me?

 

[raystuttgart]

Have you checked every resolution ?

No, I have not tested several resolutions.
(I have just taken a basic look with my default resolution.)

 

[raystuttgart]

Release 1.1 is available here.

 

[raystuttgart]

I will have some time this week to work on our mod.

Currently there are no big bugs I need to fix and no further graphics for Founding Fathers.

So I will probably implement one or two small features from our list.
(e.g. High Sea Fishing or more DLL-Diplomacy-Events)

 

[AbsintheRed]

Release 1.1 is available here.

IMO it would be better if you post a changelog when releasing a new version
It's always nice to have it on the forum, after all that's where people decide whether they will dl the new version or not
(I mean a little more detail than:
Many Bugfixes and Improvements
Some new Founding Fathers)

 

[raystuttgart]

IMO it would be better if you post a changelog when releasing a new version

As I said, the change log is only this:

1. Many fixes and improvements
2. A few new Founding Fathers

It is mainly a bugfix release.

What else do you need to know.

 

[AbsintheRed]

As I said, more detail would be nice IMO
For example this is my changelog for the next version of RFC Europe, and it's open to everyone:

Spoiler :

Changes for RFCE 1.1:
(to-be-released: 2012.10.14.)

General changes:
- Protestant Church School requires Protestantism as a state religion
- Revised AI distance settings for city placement - territory coverage should be better now
- A couple changes and fixes in the settler maps in light of these AI distance changes
- Improved UHV counter for the Polish 3rd UHV - by HolyHandGrenade
- Added a Spawn map in the Reference folder (with all civs' spawn areas and spawn dates, and the indy/barb cities) - by HolyHandGrenade
- Olive plantation gives 1 food but one less commerce; unimproved grapes already give 1 food; additional 1 commerce from improved Silk
- As of revision 993, the russian version is a separate download. An add-on to the mod

• The main reason behind this is the need of the original special characters of Civ IV (Latin-1 character set instead of a russian one)
• This will enable us to use such characters: âáäéëíöüúó... (actually we could use them before, but only in the civilopedia)
• Now we can have civ-specific names everywhere, including everything that appear on the map
• Specifically: UUs, UBs, civ specific Great People names, and most importantly: city names
• Added special characters to some of the hungarian and german city names as a test
• Instead of Russian, Portuguese is being added as the 6th language, as it uses the same gamefont set as the other main languages

- Added option in the dll for stable and unstable text icons. Can be referenced with [ICON_STABLE] and [ICON_UNSTABLE] in the XML files
- Update of Caliom's WB tool: can handle all special chars from the Latin-1 set, settler/war maps and spawn/respawn areas are shown on the minimap when editing
- Inquisition overhaul (still incomplete) - parts of the code are based on SoI, huge thanks to edead for his additional help

• All persecutions can remove maximum one religion
• Chooseable religion for the human, with a popup on persecution if there are more than one target religions
• The AI will choose it's target religion based on preset order of the religions:
• Catholicism as state religion: Islam, Protestantism, Judaism, Orthodoxy
• Orhodoxy as state religion: Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism
• Protestantism as state religion: Catholicism, Islam, Orthodoxy, Judaism
• Islam as state religion: Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism
• Judaism as state religion: Islam, Protestantism, Orthodoxy, Catholicism
• Holy cities cannot be persecuted from their holy religion
• Your state religion cannot be persecuted, and you can only persecute if you have a state religion
• Persecution has a base chance to succeed between 60% and 90%, based on your civ's faith
• Religious buildings of the target religion may lower this chance
• Religious wonders of the target religion seriously lower this chance
• Jerusalem has a lower base chance on default
• If persecution succeeds, all religious buildings are destroyed (including religious wonders - this will fix the inconsistency with the Spanish UHV)
• Small revolt and unhappiness after both successful and unsuccessful persecution
• Short term stability loss (Swing Stability) after successful persecution
• Some of the population is killed/expelled if persecution succeeds
• Gold loot from the killed/expelled population and the buildings destroyed
• Successful persecution increases your faith by one
• Interface message for the successful/unsuccessful persecution

- UHV counters (on the interface) are removed after the UHV goal is completed/failed
- Lithuania got a culture UHV counter
- New mercenary message if the merc is available in a province where your culture do not allow you to hire it
- Tavern changed back to Brewery: +5% commerce, +1 happy with barley
- Burgundian Winery replaces Brewery: +5% commerce, +1 happy, +3 culture, +1 health with wine
- Byzantium starts with Religious Law. Historically fitting, and may increase early orthodoxy spread in a couple games.
- Separated leaderheads FPK into 2 smaller files. Might increase LH loading performance
- Collapse Dates: AI civs get a small but increasing stability penalty after their historical collapse dates
- The civil war mechanics (instead of instant collapse) are in empires with 10 or more cities
- Stability is accounted properly for cities and buildings placed in WB
- Added missing Morea province from Hungarian UHV 3

Map and province changes:
- Atlantic Access near Sevilla
- Forest near Antioch, so AI Arabia will have Damascus as it's first city -> it will be the holy city of Islam
- Belgrade moved 1 tile south, now it's in province Serbia - rebellions to be expected there
- Village near (previously under) Belgrade moved to Dacia/Transylvania. Added another one for Mesembria/Nesebar.
- Adjusted culture of preplaced Byzantine cities - Byz starting area on the map will be a bit more realistic (and look better)

XML/text updates:
- New Dawn of Man text for Hungary, Kiev, Cordoba. Minor fixes in most of the other texts
- Small updates in the reference files
- Added a couple Spanish translations by mijamobu and felyux
- Added many Italian translations by Fede14
- Huge XML cleanup in most files. XML reorganization, in particular in the DCN, civic, and artdefine files
- Text updates and fixes in the reference files
- German translations by HolyHandGrenade
- New XML name tag for the 6th language
- Minor diplotext fixes (in the generic diplotexts)
- Various updates in the wording of the UP texts
- Changes in mercenary naming
- Updated strategy tooltips for the civics
- German grammatical cases for units by HolyHandGrenade
- Palacio del Escorial renamed to El Escorial, Paco da Ribeira renamed to Palacio da Pena, Tower of London renamed to Royal Dungeon
- New text for Palacio da Pena, Atlantic Access, Protestant Church School

Art/sound updates:
- Fixed button for Golden Bull, West India Company
- Removed Religious School icon from the tech tree
- New LH for Barbarossa and Isabella - both of them made by Melcher Kurzer
- New LH for Mindaugas, Vytautas, Simone Boccanegra and William the Conqueror - made by Novator
- Removing a couple unnecessary/unused art files from the LH folders, optimizing LH graphics in a few cases
- New flag for Germany by zwei833
- New button for Germany, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, Venice, improved button for almost all other civs
- Separated, uncompressed dds atlas for civilizations - better button quality
- Seperated all atlas' into more smaller ones for better organization
- Main map icons for great general points and stability
- New soundtrack - 22 medieval themed songs
- Era specific water worked graphics, era specific fishing and whaling boats
- New art for Triumphal Arch, Copernicus Observatory, Gardens of Al-Andalus, Amsterdam Beurs, Round Church, Cluny Abbey, El Escorial, Tomb of al-Walid, Marco Polo Embassy
- New art for Hagia Sophia, St. Basil's Cathedral, Palazzo San Giorgio, Chateau de Fontainbleau, Royal Academy, Heroic Epic, Theodosian Walls, Temple Mount, Umayyad Mosque
- Revised Orthodox buildings: New art for Cathedral, Temple, Monastery, old Belfry changed to Seminary, old Cathedral changed to Reliquary, old Monastery changed to Belfry
- Revised Catholic buildings: New art for Cathedral, Monastery, Seminary, old Cathedral changed to Temple, old Temple changed to Belfry (both with improved textures)
- New art for English Royal Exchange, Lithuanian Vaivadija, Arabian Bazaar, Polish Folwark, Austrian Operahouse, Cordoban Noria, Jewish Quarter, Islamic Minaret
- New art for Guild Hall, Star Fort, Archery Range, Forge/Blacksmith, Manor House, Walls, Barracks, Stable, Dungeon, Brewery, Tannery, Wharf, Harbor, House of Wisdom
- Fixed art for La Mezquita, Pressburg Castle, All Saints' Church, Dome of the Rock, St. Sophia, Torre de Belem, Alhambra, National Gallery and Burgundian Winery
- Revised the size of all wonders and buildings - both ingame and in the civilopedia
- Wondermovie for Kazimierz and Palacio da Pena
- Seperated the Wondermovies and the Colonymovies for better organization
- New button for Triumphal Arch, St. Peter's Basilica. Button updates for many of the changed/updated buildings

Balance:
- Separated Mongol and Seljuk spawn: very hard on the human player, easier for the AI. Additional minor tweaks in a few other barbarian spawns
- Lowered the number of extra units you get on initial war for most civs
- Small changes to a couple civs initially spawned units too - mostly increasing defensive units for the AI
- Lots of smallish base balance changes for most of the civs (both growth and production modifiers)
- Indy Augsburg and Ragusa starts with an additional archer - so it won't be razed so often by barbs before the German and Venetian/Hungarian spawn
- "Prebuilt" walls for Augsburg, Porto, Prague, Novgorod, Riga
- Belograd (Alba Iulia/Gyulafehérvár) spawns in 880 AD, changed to be an indy city instead of barbarian, and starts with 2 archers instead of 1 crossbowman
- A couple additional starting units for Poland, Lithuania and Germany
- Small changes in the starting techs. Poland got an additional tech, many civs got one less
- Minor leader personality, memory, and attitude modifications
- Sistine Chapel gives only 3 culture to state religion buildings. Marco Polo's Embassy don't give happiness (there is the Silk resource) and adds less trade routes
- San Marco Basilica has +50% trade route modifier and only adds 2 merchant slots. St. Basil's Cathedral gives less free specialists
- Increased temporary but lowered permanent stability loss from losing cities in your core provinces. You may reconquer them after all
- Small temporary stability loss for losing a city in your OK or unstable provinces
- Lowered permanent stability loss from being in anarchy, both for small nations and for big empires
- Free Religion got low upkeep (previously it was the only civic with no upkeep)

Bugfixes:
- Bulgarian, Hungarian, Polish and Lithuanian cottage/hamlet/village/town improvement art
- UHV counter display bug for Portugal and France
- Workboat is no longer a military unit
- Fixed bug with Arabian UP when Judaism is the state religion
- Fixed Jewish Quarter counting bug in the Polish 3rd UHV when Kazimierz is built - by HolyHandGrenade
- Fixed small bug in stability counting when using Divine Monarchy and Paganism civics together - by HolyHandGrenade
- Removed the UHV check for the old Spanish 3rd UHV (conquer protestant cities). It was possible to trigger both 3rd UHVs!! - by lzd
- Fixed small python mistakes: on city name convertion, and on destroying barbarian improvements
- Fixed 2 different bugs with mercenary appearance/mercenary hiring. No more unhireable Welsh Longbowman for example
- Stability fixes by HolyHandGrenade
- Fixed improvement size of medieval mines
- Magellan's Voyage now correctly shows up on the coast, not inside the city
- Fixed mistake where Ragusa got free walls instead of Venice

 

[raystuttgart]

As I said, more detail would be nice IMO

Of course it would be nice.

But I am busy.
Thus I am cutting away all things that are not necessary from my todo list.

The team and the partners do know exactly what I do, don't worry.
I have close communication with them and they have access to SVN (where they can see the change logs).

Community needs to know the new features.
(Which we have in our change logs.)

 

[AbsintheRed]

Naturally, the changelog is not for the team members and the partners
This is just a very minor thing, everyone in your team can sum up a quick change list based on the SVN. It don't have to be you if you don't have time
Anyway, it was only a suggestion. I meant it as constructive criticism, do whatever you like with it

 

[raystuttgart]

Naturally, the changelog is not for the team members and the partners

Exactly.
It is for the community, meaning people that simply play the mod.

And they are being told the new features because that is what they need to know.
The rest is simply summed up as "Many Bugfixes and Improvements".

Everyone in your team can sum up a quick change list based on the SVN.

Theoretically yes.
But currently the active team is really tiny and we are all very busy.

I meant it as constructive criticism.

I have not been insulted or annoyed.
I simply tried to explain why it currently does not happen.

At the moment we need to focus on the important / necessary things.
If we get more active team members, this might change ...

But currently we should rather spend time and motivation on doing things, than talking or writing about it ...

 

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

I have started working on one of my very old concepts.
(Which I had created a technical concept for but then never implemented it.)

I am trying to teach NativeAI to trade with Europeans proactively by itself.
(So it is supposed to transport a few goods and initiate trade.)

For Human a DLL-Diplo-Dialog will pop up to choose if he wants to buy or not.
(Actually the part AI <-> AI is already done.)

All of you probably know, that the Natives sometimes gift a few goods to Europeans in the beginning of the game.
(What I am doing is similar but more complex because the Human player has the choice to accept or decline.)

So in the beginning, Natives will usually gift you goods.
If you treat them in a good way, they will later on still bring goods to your cities and sell them for good price.

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:

I proudly present our newest feature.
(It is uploaded to SVN.)

Natives proactively trading with Europeans

From time to time Natives will bring goods to trade to the European cities.
A DLL-Diplomacy-Dialog will popup where you can decide if you want to buy or not.

Hope you like it.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Looks good
Is it connected to your relations with the natives?
So it can only happen if they are at least friendly or something like that?

 

[raystuttgart]

Is it connected to your relations with the natives ?

Yes, similar rules apply for "Natives Trading" as with "Natives Gifting".
(Chances are a little bit higher though.)

The less threatened they feel, the more Units they will spend to walk to Europeans to gift or trade goods.

So as long as you have not damaged the attitude to a level, where they will start raiding,
you should have good chances for some decent (proactive) trade with the Natives.

 

[orlanth]

Yes, that looks like a great addition! Let's definitely keep it.