Requests for new components (and features)

[Cammagno]

Please use our SourceForge Feature Tracker to suggest new features and components you'd like to see added to BUG.

Not only does this help us and other BUG users save time, but it also increases the likelihood that your suggestion will be addressed in a timely manner.

When suggesting an existing mod component, please include a link to its forum post and/or download page.

Thank you!

 

[Anthrax]

Any plans to repair and incorporate the Plot List Enhancement mod ?

 

[Cammagno]

Any plans to repair and incorporate the Plot List Enhancement mod ?

Sure, it is planned.
Maybe not for the 1.0 release, though.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Request Feature addition: Alert when the AI has new resources for trade. This can be handy in the time period when the AI has researched a technology like calendar and is placing plantations on the map but you don't want to check each turn whether one of the AI's has connected a resource for trading.

Request Feature optional change: An option to change the Reminder mod to not get a pop up during the start of the turn but only an entry in the event log (and mentioned as one of the events during the start of the turn).

Thanks for this great mod.

 

[alerum68]

Great idea there RJ. Will defiantly plan on putting that in, if possible.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Here is another request which might be outside of the concept of this mod.

In BTS, Firaxis decided to add a list of bonuses when you hold the mouse over a trade route. This should make it possible to see how the value of a trade route is determined. However, the calculation often doesn't make sense.

It consists of a base trade route yield plus bonuses. The base trade route yield is (almost) always 1 or 2 and the bonuses can vary depending on whether you're trading with a foreign city or not and whether the city is oversees or not and whether you have a harbour or custom house or no such building.

The reason that the calculation often doesn't make sense is because the base trade route output is dependent on the distance and size of the other city and the value is often a number between 1 and 2. The ingame display rounds it to 1 or 2 which results in strange math.

You can take a look at this bug report for more detailed information.

Now, I know this mod isn't about bug fixing and maybe Firaxis will fix it themselves in the upcoming patch (supposedly arriving within one-two weeks). But on the other hand, you did add a calculation for the commerce production to the city screen and this is similar. However you will decide about this, it's probably best to wait and see what Firaxis does in its upcoming patch.

There is a War Academy article about the way trade route revenues are calculated. It was written before BTS arrived on the market and is thus based on Warlords code, but maybe it can still be useful for you guys when you wish to change this. The article is called Trade Routes. If the article is correct, then the way the city displays the trade route revenue calculation is incorrect because some bonuses seem to be multiplicative and not additive like the ingame breakdown of trade route revenue suggests.

 

[EmperorFool]

Those are some great ideas, Roland. I tried implementing a new alert (when civs will sign OB) the other night without success. This one is hard to test, but I needed it because I got the strange "almost everyone cancels OB and most trades with you" bug(?) in my game. Killed my tech rate and sent many cities into disarray. Everyone was willing to start up trades immediately, but everyone wanted to "wait and see" about OB. Whatever.

Everyone was either Pleased or Cautious with me, so this makes no sense. It happened the turn that someone was elected as SG of the UN, but I voted for the leader and he was pleased with me. Bizarro-world I guess.

Regarding the trade routes, the problem with this is that the popup is generated in C++. Our plans don't include modding the DLL at this time, but I'd recommend suggestion this same thing (perhaps just display initial 1/2 value to two decimal places like and ) in the World of Civilization mod or Solver's Unofficial Patch threads.

 

[alerum68]

More and more things I want to do seem to be tied to the DLL. I'm starting to think we'll have to do it to go to the next level.

 

[ruff_hi]

Request Feature optional change: An option to change the Reminder mod to not get a pop up during the start of the turn but only an entry in the event log (and mentioned as one of the events during the start of the turn).

You have just described its original format ... a message in the log and that was it. The problem I found was that I put in these reminders and then I missed them. Hence, I created the popup up that forces you to act. I think it also writes to the log.

 

[Elandal]

My problem with reminders is that the pop up in the beginning of the turn and block other actions so I can do nothing but close it. Then I get whatever other popups there are and promptly forget about the reminders while handling those...
My most common reminder is "whip city x", so what I'd want to do when the popup is up is to go to city X, check whipping situation and either whip or set a new reminder for probably next turn (miscalculations).

 

[EmperorFool]

My most common reminder is "whip city x", so what I'd want to do when the popup is up is to go to city X, check whipping situation and either whip or set a new reminder for probably next turn (miscalculations).

I had been toying earlier with the idea of reminder-setting buttons in various places. This is a perfect example. You'd have a button near the production bar on the city screen that, when clicked, only asked you for the number of turns to wait. The reminder message would be set automatically to "Whip <City>" and put an icon over the city (like when a building is completed).

I wonder if there's a way to set popup-style alerts like when you learn a tech that opens a new civic or a new religion spreads to one of your cities. It would popup at the end of the turn so you don't forget. Do any mods you guys play do this?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Those are some great ideas, Roland. I tried implementing a new alert (when civs will sign OB) the other night without success. This one is hard to test, but I needed it because I got the strange "almost everyone cancels OB and most trades with you" bug(?) in my game. Killed my tech rate and sent many cities into disarray. Everyone was willing to start up trades immediately, but everyone wanted to "wait and see" about OB. Whatever.

Everyone was either Pleased or Cautious with me, so this makes no sense. It happened the turn that someone was elected as SG of the UN, but I voted for the leader and he was pleased with me. Bizarro-world I guess.

I've also had that one turn when 2 civilisations suddenly stopped their trades with me and closed the borders. I could immediately restart the trades, but the borders needed to stay closed. In my case however, the civilisations weren't that pleased with me and thus I guessed that closing borders somehow also temporarily stopped the trades (which would be a bug, but still). I've seen this reported earlier. I hope it might be fixed in the upcoming patch.
A reminder for open borders could be very useful as sometimes it just takes some random amount of turns before a civilisation will consider (re)opening borders with you.

Regarding the trade routes, the problem with this is that the popup is generated in C++. Our plans don't include modding the DLL at this time, but I'd recommend suggestion this same thing (perhaps just display initial 1/2 value to two decimal places like and ) in the World of Civilization mod or Solver's Unofficial Patch threads.

I'm not familiar with the World of Civilisation mod and I believe that Solver isn't planning to do any more changes until the patch arrives.

Still, I don't expect you to fix everything that I would like to see different in this game.

You have just described its original format ... a message in the log and that was it. The problem I found was that I put in these reminders and then I missed them. Hence, I created the popup up that forces you to act. I think it also writes to the log.

My problem with reminders is that the pop up in the beginning of the turn and block other actions so I can do nothing but close it. Then I get whatever other popups there are and promptly forget about the reminders while handling those...
My most common reminder is "whip city x", so what I'd want to do when the popup is up is to go to city X, check whipping situation and either whip or set a new reminder for probably next turn (miscalculations).

I'm playing in a similar style as Elandal, so I would prefer to see it mentioned in the start of turn event + in the event log. I always check the event log before I end my turn. But I expected that there could be many who would prefer the stronger, more obvious pop-up reminder. So that's why I suggested a best of two worlds: an option to change the Reminder mod to your own preference whether that is a pop-up or a start of turn event + event log or both. The options menu (CTRL Alt O) is one of the strongest points of this mod as it allows you to customise every aspect of this mod to your own preferences. Maybe I wasn't that clear that I just wanted an option and not a change.

It's nice to hear that you like some of my suggestions.

 

[EmperorFool]

I definitely like the option to have the reminder appear in two places (each optionally).

I was going through the available events and found "endTurnReady" that looks promising for some serious changes to the alerts. I assume it triggers when the "End Turn" button turns red. This would be a good time to alert you to city growth/starvation, trades, etc.

This is far off in the future stuff since there are high priority items still, but it'd be good to start a discussion on this. The alerts are a very powerful aid to the user, and I think they could be improved (and errors fixed) to great effect.

 

[NikNaks]

Just a thought, but would this be a good addition?

 

[alerum68]

Would be a perfect addition NikNaks.

 

[EmperorFool]

Request Feature optional change: An option to change the Reminder mod to not get a pop up during the start of the turn but only an entry in the event log (and mentioned as one of the events during the start of the turn).

How's this for a compromise: When the reminder pops up, it also goes into the chat log (I thought it already did this). Also, it asks you if you'd like to show the reminder again next turn.

Note that I tried something far better at first but was denied by Civ4. I had it ask if you wanted to show the reminder again at the end of the turn. If you did, you'd then get to choose to show it again next turn as well. The problem is that Civ4 defines an event called endTurnReady but doesn't fire the event. Such a tease! I have the code written and committed, but it's commented out since it doesn't work. We're left with the suboptimal solution above. Is this at least helpful?

Before posting this, I reread your suggestion see that I forgot about making the popup optional. I suppose that's possible, but then you'd lose the ability to have the reminder fire again the next turn. Thoughts?

 

[EmperorFool]

I tried implementing a new alert (when civs will sign OB) the other night without success.

I must have been really tired or something because the reason it was failing was utterly obvious (and in the error log): a cut-n-paste error. Once I pasted the right function name, voila! I have committed the change.

Let me know of any trouble with this one. If none, I'll add DP, PA and Vassal State as well.

And a variation on this idea. I had created the faded OB/DP icons for the scoreboard but ended up not using them. How about showing the faded version if the civ is willing to trade that item? This way if you miss or forget about the alert, you can always just look at the scoreboard to see who's willing to sign OB or DP. PA makes you a team so there's no icon for that, though.

This might be trickier, but I'd also like a message "Catherine is willing to go to war against Montezuma."

Who wants to learn Python?

 

[Roland Johansen]

How's this for a compromise: When the reminder pops up, it also goes into the chat log (I thought it already did this). Also, it asks you if you'd like to show the reminder again next turn.

Note that I tried something far better at first but was denied by Civ4. I had it ask if you wanted to show the reminder again at the end of the turn. If you did, you'd then get to choose to show it again next turn as well. The problem is that Civ4 defines an event called endTurnReady but doesn't fire the event. Such a tease! I have the code written and committed, but it's commented out since it doesn't work. We're left with the suboptimal solution above. Is this at least helpful?

Before posting this, I reread your suggestion see that I forgot about making the popup optional. I suppose that's possible, but then you'd lose the ability to have the reminder fire again the next turn. Thoughts?

I see that you want to improve the reminders in a different direction. It all depends on the way you play. I like to play in the following way:
1) I get the city pop ups to build new stuff in my cities
2) I get top of screen messages while moving my units and giving my workers new orders.
3) I go into the event log (Ctrl Tab) to see what else needs to be done.

In step 3, I'll read about the reminders (which have been logged) and react to them. It doesn't really help me to have to click on them at the start of the turn before step 1; the pop up doesn't help me and just slows me down a little bit. But other players like that as it is a more active form of reminding than the event log. Because there are many types of players with many different preferences, your settings/options menu (CTRL ALT O) is very useful. It could be used to allow different reminder settings for different players. I would like a setting without pop ups and just a log entry in the event log.

It's a pity that a 'remind me again next turn' option is only available with the active pop up reminder. On the other hand, I don't see me using it that often. It doesn't really fit in my play style. This mod adds lots and lots of features but a single player will probable use only a third of them. However, another player will use a different third of the features and is not troubled by the features he/she doesn't use. This mod allows you to customise the game to your needs. Thank you for that.

I must have been really tired or something because the reason it was failing was utterly obvious (and in the error log): a cut-n-paste error. Once I pasted the right function name, voila! I have committed the change.

Let me know of any trouble with this one. If none, I'll add DP, PA and Vassal State as well.

And a variation on this idea. I had created the faded OB/DP icons for the scoreboard but ended up not using them. How about showing the faded version if the civ is willing to trade that item? This way if you miss or forget about the alert, you can always just look at the scoreboard to see who's willing to sign OB or DP. PA makes you a team so there's no icon for that, though.

This might be trickier, but I'd also like a message "Catherine is willing to go to war against Montezuma."

This sounds great. The alerts section of this mod is one of my favourites as I use it very much during playing the game. Such additions will only make it more useful. Will these be added to the next version of your mod?

The scoreboard addition could also be useful. Sometimes, it is nice to know that someone is willing to sign open border with you, but you don't wish to do so directly. You want to settle that city in the back of your empire first before opening your borders. You won't get an alert anymore about the willingness to open borders because the AI was willing to do that several turns ago, but you can still observe this willingness by one look at the scoreboard. It would be a very useful addition.

 

[EmperorFool]

@Roland - If you are grabbing this mod from the SVN repository, sync up and enjoy!

 

[Roland Johansen]

@Roland - If you are grabbing this mod from the SVN repository, sync up and enjoy!

Ok, did that. The version number is still the same, but I guess it was updated nonetheless. Is there a way to tell?