[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

[Schmiddie]

It is a really nice picture.

But it is a completely different style compared to the Achievment images we already have.
Our Achievments images usually show ingame graphics combined with less realistic backgrounds that also look like game graphics.

I am convinced that Willi will come up with really awesome images for the "Sea Battle Achievments".
If he doesn't have time for those Achievment images I wouldn't mind using such images as well.

However, I will leave such graphical decisions to Schmiddie, our graphical specialist.

I have tested the picture ingame. Although we are generally using "ingame" graphics for our achievements I think that this picture fits perfectly with the other pictures and for a high number of victories at sea. Due to the fact that we have asked Willi to create achievements for 10 and 30 victories at sea I have made an achievement for 50 victories. I assume that this will be a bonus / incentive for the player in late game and if the player makes excessive use of his fleet.

 

[raystuttgart]

I have made an achievement for 50 victories.

Great.

 

[agnat86]

I have tested the picture ingame. Although we are generally using "ingame" graphics for our achievements I think that this picture fits perfectly with the other pictures and for a high number of victories at sea. Due to the fact that we have asked Willi to create achievements for 10 and 30 victories at sea I have made an achievement for 50 victories. I assume that this will be a bonus / incentive for the player in late game and if the player makes excessive use of his fleet.

BTW, I was wondering about this, is there a way to make the game ignore battles that are won against Animals or escaped slaves? I always get these achievements way too early because of those. I think it would be much more gratifying if "50 sea battles won" doesn't mean "45 Orcas killed and 5 Caravels sunk."

 

[raystuttgart]

BTW, I was wondering about this, is there a way to make the game ignore battles that are won against Animals or escaped slaves? I always get these achievements way too early because of those. I think it would be much more gratifying if "50 sea battles won" doesn't mean "45 Orcas killed and 5 Caravels sunk."

It would be possible to check but that would be ugly, since it would be checks on UnitTypes.
("Ugly" meaning not very performant or nice to do.)

We can't check for Player "Barbarian" because he also own "Pirate Fregates".
(Also, we don't know yet what else we will do with that player in the future.)

I really don't believe it is that big of a problem that achievments for battles count fights against Animals (or Runaway Slaves) as well.
(Catching this in code would be a bit over reacted to my opinion.)

Again, we are only talking about Achievments.

 

[Nightinggale]

It would be possible to check but that would be ugly, since it would be checks on UnitTypes.
("Ugly" meaning not very performant or nice to do.)

bool CvUnitInfo::isAnimal()

 

[raystuttgart]

bool CvUnitInfo::isAnimal()

Thought about that.
But it won't work for Runaway Slaves.
(But that could be checked by checking "unarmed".)

I really don't believe that fights against Animals or Runaway Slaves are also counting towards Achievments for Battles is a big problem.

Edit:

Actually I am not even sure if I would even want to have that removed.
(It has never disturbed me.)

Edit 2:

I just checked that part of code and realized that I had accidently introduced a small bug.
So I had to adjust it anyways.

I changed to logic for Achievments for Battles to not count Fights against Animals.
(Fights against Unarmed Runaway Slaves and Wagon Trains and such, still count. Those cases are relatively rare though.)

 

[agnat86]

I have finished the last of the Strategy Texts for the Colopedia today. I might be making minor changes in the future, but this is more or less how it will look like. I hope you like it!

 

[raystuttgart]

I have finished the last of the Strategy Texts for the Colopedia today.

Great.

I hope you like it!

Of course I do.
Thanks a lot for all of the effort you put into this.

----------

I am currently still working on the translations of your improvments for Game Concepts.

Progress is a bit slow though.
(Soccer Worldcup, generally private life, ...)

I believe though, that I will finish translations of that part at the end of the next weekend.
(Will be gone again during the upcoming week.)

But there is no need to hurry anyways.
(Schmiddie is on vacation, several other todos like "Names of Admirals" are still open as well, ...)

We will simply continue our work step by step.

 

[agnat86]

@ all members of the team,

Apart from XML improvements, there are other things I can add to this mod. About a year ago, I gave all civilizations, both native and European, a facelift. I changed their attitudes and behavior and gave them traits with new functionalities.

If you like, I can commit those to the SVN as well. I have been testing them extensively, and haven't encountered any bugs or crashes. What I did discover was that the gameplay became much more interesing and diverse, and because of the many days of playing, I've already balanced things out.

Here is an overview of all things I've changed in this respect. All the programming work has been done for these functions, so if you want me to, I can add them very quickly. All the features listed here have been tested and work perfectly.

Spoiler :

New Traits:

Agricultural (Swedish)
+10% Food in all settlements
-10% Food required for Population Growth

Imperialist (Russian)
+1 Culture in all Settlements
-25% Culture required for border expansion
Free promotion: Homeland Guard (Combat bonus when fighting inside your own cultural borders)

I added these because I didn't like the previous traits for these nations, Foresters and Hunter Tradition, because they focused on very minor aspects of the game (Lumber and Fur production), while I think that Leader Traits need to focus on much larger aspects, in this case Population and Territory.

Strategist
-25% Guns, Cannons, Blades, Tools and Hammers required to build units (Cannons, Wagon Trains, Ships, etc.)

Terraformer
Pioneers require less Tools
Pioneers work faster
Pioneer actions cost less gold to accomplish

Sophisticated
+25% Education in all settlements
+50% chance colonists gain specialisms through learning-by-doing
-50% gold required to make students adopt these specialisms

Capitalist
+25% better prices from bargaining with natives
+25% Storage Capacity in all settlements

Patriarch (native)
+25% Gold when first visiting a native settlement
-25% cost of purchasing land

Changes to existing traits:

Prosperous:
+25% production bonus for silver, gold and gems

Farmers:
+2 Food production on all land tiles
Homeland Guard promotion (see Imperialist trait above)

Nomads:
-15% Food required for population growth

Raiders:
-50% XP required for unit promotions

Coastal Warriors:
Renamed as Fishermen
+2 Food production on water tiles

Climber:
+2 Food production on Hills tiles

In addition to this, I've revamped the leader attitudes of the natives in Civ4LeaderheadInfos.XML. Previously, there were only four or five different "molds" from which each leader came. For example, Montezuma, Quechquemitl, Cocijoeza, Chul Ahau and Erendira were more or less interchangeable. Likewise, every North American culture was peaceful and welcoming, while most South Americans were hostile and treacherous.
With my changes, every civilization has a unique character, and friendly and hostile groups are spread much more evenly.

Note that, apart from the original traits for the Swedish and Russian, I have not deleted anything, I only added many things.

Please tell me what you think of them, I would love to see them in included the mod.

 

[raystuttgart]

Woah, there is a lot to consider about that.
(e.g. Balancing)

And I would probably need to do a lot of code checking / code improving.
(e.g. Performance optimizations with caching at Player instead of looping through traits all the time)

Also, there are Traits in there, that make no sense considering gameplay.

Spoiler :

e.g. this one:

Climber:
+2 Food production on Hills tiles

AI would usually still always make more food with hunting, fishing and farming (on flat lands)
Why should it farm on a hill, if it can get more food otherwise ?

For Release 2.1 I definitely do not want to do any change like that change.
Sorry, but there would be way too much to discuss / work / check about that for now.

After Release 2.1 we could take a look at it again.

 

[agnat86]

Also, there are Traits in there, that absolutely make no sense considering gameplay.

Spoiler :

e.g. this one:

Climber:
+2 Food production on Hills tiles

AI would usually still always make more food with hunting, fishing and farming (on flat lands)
Why should it farm on a hill, if it can get more food otherwise ?

For Release 2.1 I definitely do not want to do any change like that change.
Sorry, but there would be way too much to discuss / work / check about that for now.

Of course, I understand that.

It seems necessary to discuss many of these changes. But maybe you can consider it for a later edition, Release 2.2 or 2.3?
For me that won't be a problem, I keep an edition with these changes implemented updated at all times, so I could add things any moment. It's just that I really enjoy these changes myself (as I said, I've spent countless hours playing the game with them), and I think you would really enjoy them too.

And of course, I won't implement anything you don't like. The Food on Hills feature for example is a very small change anyways, which only affects cities lying in areas of unvegetated Hills. Removing it won't make much of a difference, I just liked to have some nations like the Incas being able to thrive in the highlands, because that's where they historically lived.

 

[raystuttgart]

But maybe you can consider it for a later edition, Release 2.2 or 2.3?

After Release 2.1 we can discuss that in detail.

I could add things any moment.

I would still need to find the time to check and eventually do some improvments.
(Quality Assurance should be done with everything that is added. Especially if it is functionality.)

Adding code is not only about functionality and stability.
(Other aspects like game play, performance and potential side effects need to be considered as well.)

Also, it is important to understand that AI simply is very different to Human.
(Functionality that might be useful for a human player is sometimes completely worthless for AI.)

--------

We would simply need to discuss this properly and also do the changes properly.
Throwing lots of XML modifiers into the mod without careful consideration and quality assurance is not our development strategy.

 

[shivan]

I noticed that native slave has no penalty to producing health in cities. This this an oversight when health was introduced? Or WAD since they know about natural Indian medicine? Medicine man!

 

[raystuttgart]

I noticed that native slave has no penalty to producing health in cities.

Ok, I will check and correct.

Edit:

It is corrected now.
(For Native Slaves, African Slaves, Indentured Servants, Criminals and Converted Natives.)

Thanks for reporting.

This this an oversight when health was introduced ?

Correct.
There are really many details to think about when introducing such a feature with a new Yield.

 

[gay_Aleks]

I'd actually enjoy keeping the Converted Native health bonus, but if it's possible to exempt him from becoming a Renowned Medic by learning?

 

[agnat86]

@Team

I've committed some additional Historical Quotes to the SVN. I hope you like them!

 

[raystuttgart]

Oh nooo, more translation to be done.
Well I guess, such historical quotes don't necessarily need to be translated.

Nice addition.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok guys, have a nice week.
Will be back next weekend.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Alright, I've committed to Assembla the latest update of the French translation.

Everything which has currently an English text has been translated in French. The only exceptions are 2 or 3 pedia texts and some historical quotes in the _Credits_Readme_Hints.xml file that I haven't really figured out when they are actually used.

@raystuttgart:
The few <French>[TA.B]</French> tags have also been corrected, they don't appear anymore.

 

[raystuttgart]

Alright, I've committed to Assembla the latest update of the French translation.

Great.