Requests for new components (and features)

[PieceOfMind]

I've got another request - I don't think it'd be easy to implement though.

I often wonder how strong the *defensive* position of my unit/stack is. Here's an example from the very early game: Let's say a warrior was wounded by animals, I now have him healing, and I see a lion approaching him. My options are to attack, move away, or do nothing (and possibly be attacked). I can see easily how good his chances of winning are if I attack the lion. But it's difficult to find out how good his chances are if he waits and lets the lion attack. I can calculate it, since the formula is known and all necessary variables can be looked up in the game, but that's a lot of work especially when many factors are involved.

So my question is, is it possible to let the player choose a unit he doesn't own, and see its combat chances against another unit?

This is being worked on in Advanced Combat Odds. We've had limited success with what we've called the switcharoo code where the atacked and defender units are swapped for the odds display. However there are problems with what modifiers are being applied (being shown for the wrong unit) and so forth. If you have any C++ skills you could perhaps help?

 

[Psyringe]

This is being worked on in Advanced Combat Odds. We've had limited success with what we've called the switcharoo code where the atacked and defender units are swapped for the odds display. However there are problems with what modifiers are being applied (being shown for the wrong unit) and so forth. If you have any C++ skills you could perhaps help?

I've used ACO as part of Rise of Mankind, and immediately loved it. Actually I was wondering whether I should suggest it for inclusion in BUG, but I wanted to read up a little on it, I haven't been following the Civ4 forums closely for the past few months. It's great to see that the ACO team is already working on the feature I suggested. Unfortunately my C++ skills are limited to figuring out what some piece of code might do, copy/pasting things around, and recompiling the DLL.

 

[EmperorFool]

So my question is, is it possible to let the player choose a unit he doesn't own, and see its combat chances against another unit?

I made this exact request of PieceOfMind for his Advanced Combat Odds mod, and he's been trying to get it to work. There are certain cases where he's having issues that aren't easily resolved yet.

This mod, BTW, is in BULL. It would be a considerable amount of work to put it into Python for BUG.

Edit: "Next Page" button, you have foiled me for the last time!

 

[mystyfly]

That sounds like a great idea to me. Could one even go further and check odds of one of his own units against a stack of his, to try and detect weaknesses (like, for example, "I have a formation musket. Does adding a pike really help?", etc)...

@EF: Dunno what you mean... There's still everything on page 22

 

[Contox]

OH MY GOD!
ITS FIXED!
Thank you very very very much!

 

[mystyfly]

@Contox: What exactly worked? Reinstalling civ so you could properly install the 3.17 patch? Just so we know, for the next time someone has the same problem like you.

 

[Yxklyx]

Is there any way that the listing of buildings can be improved in the city view?

 

[r_rolo1]

That was already sugested atleast once, and EF said it was not only possible, but relatively easy ( as soon as we know exactly how we want to optimize it )

 

[mystyfly]

IIRC the answer was like "What for?" as you can use the buttons on the right to scroll easily to units/buildings/wonders.

But, if features really are requested, they should be posted on the tracker.

 

[Yxklyx]

Maybe it's because I use a small font but I hardly use that list because it's so hard to find what you're looking for. I end up using the buttons on the bottom to see what I can build to determine what I've already have built. Alphabetizing the list might make for a marked improvement. On the other hand, I think right now the list is organized by building type - maybe add an extra separator line to denote this like so:

--- Religion
Monastery
Temple
--- Commerce
Bank
Market
--- Wonders
Temple of Artemis

etc...

It would also be nice to include the +50% bonuses on the line. Maybe the coders should just try a few ideas with options to turn on/off and then we can decide after playing with them whether they improve things or not.

 

[EmperorFool]

The buildings are sorted by the order in which they appear in the XML (a.k.a. declaration order). The suggestion I think gives the most bang for the buck is to have several buttons in the heading: one to toggle alphabetic sort and several filters to show only buildings that affect various aspects: , , , , , , , , .

It will take a lot of coding to test for each type of building effect (each one in the XML has to be coded specifically and assigned one of the filters above). The other option is to use the flavors already assigned to the buildings: Military, Growth, Science, Culture, etc. I think we'd also need a Wonder filter if we go this way as there is no Great Person flavor AFAICR.

Finally, the word Buildings would have to be removed from the heading since only about 9 total buttons will fit with no text (Raw Yields has 7 with 2 gaps and room for 1 or 2 more).

As for showing more information in the list itself, we're a bit limited due to how Civ4's table control works. The right column already gets cut off sometimes, especially if you use BlueMarble's larger font, even though there's still a healthy gap between the text in the two columns. There's no way to add a line between two rows; we'd have to have a full row to separate sections just as you've shown in your example. However, even the text in your example would be cut off by the right column.

 

[Yxklyx]

How about color coding the building names to their "type"? Can the background color be changed?

 

[EmperorFool]

The text can be color-coded, but not the background. The whole table must have a single background color/pattern.

Do you have color suggestions for the non-obvious buildings? How about the multi-purpose buildings such as the Forum, Courthouse, and Drydock?

 

[mystyfly]

I don't like too deep distinctions. I'd rather have more "superficial" ones but not so many. I have in mind something like military/economy/city growth ?

 

[Yxklyx]

The text can be color-coded, but not the background. The whole table must have a single background color/pattern.

Do you have color suggestions for the non-obvious buildings? How about the multi-purpose buildings such as the Forum, Courthouse, and Drydock?

I just mentioned the background because white (or any light color) is usually a better color to have in the background if you're going to have colored text on top - so the whole thing would be lighter in color.

Not sure about the actual color-coding. Is this very easy to change in the XML - maybe I could even muck with it? Seems like I can change the order easily enough.

Forum and Courthouse would go with the Treasury buildings, Drydock with Military.

Science - Blue
Treasury - Gold
Culture - Purple
Espionage - Black
Military - Red
Religion - Silver
Growth - Green
Wonders - Pink?

Sure there's overlap - but the point is to divide that list into sections (color coded foreground text perhaps) with each section containing buildings of the same type so that when you look there you will have a good idea where to find something. The buttons idea I think is a bit too much but might work.

 

[ruff_hi]

Don't color code. It plays havoc with people that have different themes. Break them up into groups is a much better ploy. IIRC, the little symbols are actually part of the font file and can be entered in the table as headings.

 

[Yxklyx]

AP log messages aren't always appearing - are they supposed to be there? Messages for proposals passed and defied, etc...

 

[Cybah]

What about a "Load Last Save" Button for the main menu? =)

 

[EmperorFool]

AFAICT you cannot mod the MAIN MENU or its submenus. If anyone finds different, I'll jump at it. The first problem is that BUG isn't loaded until the first game is loaded or started.

 

[dirtyparrot]

This is probably not that difficult to put in (maybe change the colour of the AI's font in the scoreboard), but as we know, some leaders will not declare war on pleased. So, once we get them to that point, barring an AP religious vote we pretty much know we're safe from attack. That info would be nice to know for people who don't know the list by heart.