Requests for new components (and features)

[ruff_hi]

I was thinking that we add a row under the top 3 with the number of cities that are Influential and leave it up to the player to work out which (defense percentage?).

 

[EmperorFool]

The first one and the easiest to use is the culture overlay.

Do you mean by inspecting the culture overlay to see the cultural border of each city to determine its level? That only works if the city is on the edge of their empire, right? If a city is in the middle of a group of cities, you won't see its edge.

Note: I never use any of the built-in overlays. Perhaps I'm missing out on a great feature, but they just never seemed useful to me. The only time I used that layer was for drawing lines to make BFCs, but we all know that's old hat.

 

[r_rolo1]

Do you mean by inspecting the culture overlay to see the cultural border of each city to determine its level? That only works if the city is on the edge of their empire, right? If a city is in the middle of a group of cities, you won't see its edge.

Note: I never use any of the built-in overlays. Perhaps I'm missing out on a great feature, but they just never seemed useful to me. The only time I used that layer was for drawing lines to make BFCs, but we all know that's old hat.

The color intensity the plots show is proportional to the plot culture there. It is surely hard for untrained eyes to unwrinkle it all but it is definitely possible to isolate the culture contribution of a single city in every map ( a knowledge of the story of the area helps a lot , but it is not strictly needed). I rarely use it for this propose, but it is definitely doable ( I prefer to use that to calculate the "close borders" modifier and to locate cities settled after the last time I had a fresh map of the area ( given that the culture overlay, unlikes the standart map , refreshes every turn even you don't pass a unit there )

 

[Ulysses]

First: I've played now a few games with BUG/BULL and I have to say I love this mod!
From time to time I will post a few suggestions here, but bc I don't read all the stuff in this thread it may be possible, that some things have already been suggested. So, don't be annoyed if this happens.
Here we go:
1. All decays (production and research) should be adjustable in the alerts-tab.
2. On the religion screen I would like to see how much money I'm generating if I possess a shrine and maybe any surpluses of wonders (university of sankore, apostolic palace, etc...) at the city rows.
3. Would be nice, if BUG could be installed to the ..civ4\bts\mods folder. I did this once and the mod worked fine. Only the Alt+Ctrl+O key doesn't work sometimes, which is annoying if you change alerts often in game as I do. I normally install all my mods to the root mods folder and backup the whole gamefolder. With the install to the MyGames folder I have to backup twice.
4. The helpfile seems a bit outdated/incomplete.
(Some requests may be stupid bc I'm not one of the all-day-civers who know all the game mechs.)

On the members tab on the victory screen I can see if a diplo-victory is possible the next turn. Isn't this a cheat? I don't know the game-mechs for diplo-victory and haven't played Civ4 for a long time now, maybe it's a new feature of a patch? Explain, please.

 

[EmperorFool]

1. All decays (production and research) should be adjustable in the alerts-tab.

Do you mean the decay for units and buildings in a city's queue? These are configured on the City Screen tab. If you are suggesting to have alerts added for them, e.g. "The Market in London will decay 2 this turn", that's a good idea.

Normally, alerts only trigger when the condition changes. For example, if a city is unhappy, it only alerts you when it becomes unhappy--not every turn thereafter. Should it alert you each turn of the amount of decay, or only the first turn that it starts to decay?

2. On the religion screen I would like to see how much money I'm generating if I possess a shrine and maybe any surpluses of wonders (university of sankore, apostolic palace, etc...) at the city rows.

Good idea. You can currently see your shrine income (lumped together) on the Finance Advisor (F2), but not the other things.

3. Would be nice, if BUG could be installed to the ..civ4\bts\mods folder.

This is where it goes when you do the Multi-Player install method as of v3.6 I believe. If you mean the Single-Player install method, that's impossible. It must go into the "root" folder (not where the EXE is), but you can put the root folder anywhere you want using Civ4's /altroot command-line (shortcut target) option.

4. The helpfile seems a bit outdated/incomplete.

Indeed. It takes a lot of time to design and code the features. It's a choice between keeping the docs up-to-date or having more features. Are you volunteering to help update the help file? I'm always hoping for some budding, young tech-writer-to-be to come along.

On the members tab on the victory screen I can see if a diplo-victory is possible the next turn. Isn't this a cheat? I don't know the game-mechs for diplo-victory and haven't played Civ4 for a long time now, maybe it's a new feature of a patch? Explain, please.

Some of the game mechanics are fixed in the code. You can read strategy articles that will tell you exactly when a diplomatic victory is available given only the knowledge of the turn # of the last vote which you clearly know. We've erred on the side of exposing this not-well-hidden information given that anyone can learn it with a little Googling.

 

[Ulysses]

If you are suggesting to have alerts added for them, e.g. "The Market in London will decay 2 this turn", that's a good idea.

Yes, I do.

Normally, alerts only trigger when the condition changes. For example, if a city is unhappy, it only alerts you when it becomes unhappy--not every turn thereafter. Should it alert you each turn of the amount of decay, or only the first turn that it starts to decay?

The same way as it is adjustable in the city screen tab, where you can edit the number of turns BEFORE the yellow exclamation mark appears. But as I know decays happen also with research, that's why I said for production AND research.

You can currently see your shrine income (lumped together) on the Finance Advisor (F2).

I think it should be mentioned somewhere on the religion screen. Would be a nice feature.

This is where it goes when you do the Multi-Player install method as of v3.6 I believe. If you mean the Single-Player install method, that's impossible. It must go into the "root" folder (not where the EXE is), but you can put the root folder anywhere you want using Civ4's /altroot command-line (shortcut target) option.

Maybe you didn't get me? With "..civ4\bts\mods folder" I mean f.e. "c:\programs\sid maier's civilization 4\beyond the sword\mods folder". But maybe I didn't get you.

Indeed. It takes a lot of time to design and code the features. It's a choice between keeping the docs up-to-date or having more features. Are you volunteering to help update the help file? I'm always hoping for some budding, young tech-writer-to-be to come along.

I was thinking about totally rewriting the sevopedia (you hadn't thought this I know ). Many things could be done there to make the game even more fun (with BUG/BULL mod of course). F.e.: Improvements with different underlying terrains/features/civics/railroads etc... But as you might have seen I'm German. This is problem number one and it is a big problem number one, believe me ... Problem number two is: I'm a total newb to game-mechs and a total newb to BUG/BULL. I have so many questions to the original game (f.e. plot-culture, money-mechs) and the same goes for BUG, as you will see when I start to ask silly questions in another thread. Let's shorten it: It would be a LIFETIME-project ...

We've erred on the side of exposing this not-well-hidden information given that anyone can learn it with a little Googling.

Here you can see, how weak my English is. I don't have the slightest clue what you told me here . OK, let's make it short: I, from time to time, will give you a few suggestions and if you like my idea, put it in. If not, don't cogitate about it.

 

[EmperorFool]

But as I know decays happen also with research, that's why I said for production AND research.

It does? Yikes. Okay I'll have to poke around in the SDK.

I think it should be mentioned somewhere on the religion screen. Would be a nice feature.

Agreed. I'm just pointing out where you can find that information now.

Maybe you didn't get me? With "..civ4\bts\mods folder" I mean f.e. "c:\programs\sid maier's civilization 4\beyond the sword\mods folder". But maybe I didn't get you.

I got you; that's where it is installed now. What version do you have installed? 4.2 is the latest, but it's gone there since 3.6 I believe.

I was thinking about totally rewriting the sevopedia

indeed! I eagerly await your suggestions.

Here you can see, how weak my English is. I don't have the slightest clue what you told me here

You had said that the information shouldn't be given to the user because they shouldn't know it. However, that information is easily learned by players just using a search engine. It is static in the game--it does not change--and so there is nothing hidden about it. That's all I said.

 

[Ulysses]

It does? Yikes. Okay I'll have to poke around in the SDK.

Not too sure, but I think I've read about it somewhere.

I got you; that's where it is installed now. What version do you have installed? 4.2 is the latest, but it's gone there since 3.6 I believe.

Interesting. I installed it there first, but couldn't open the BUG screen via ALT+CTRL+O sometimes. Then I read the helpfile of BUG where is stated to install it to ..MyGames\BTS\Mods. I did this and since then everything works.

Indeed! I eagerly await your suggestions.

Suggestions? No problem! A rewrite? Definitly no, as stated above.

 

[ruff_hi]

Some of the game mechanics are fixed in the code. You can read strategy articles that will tell you exactly when a diplomatic victory is available given only the knowledge of the turn # of the last vote which you clearly know. We've erred on the side of exposing this not-well-hidden information given that anyone can learn it with a little Googling.

I think this game mechanic is pretty easy to work out via observation too. That was my rational for putting it in. Almost anything is discoverable via google with enough effort ... just have to work out what we think is the right amount of effort .

 

[Ulysses]

I think this game mechanic is pretty easy to work out via observation too. That was my rational for putting it in. Almost anything is discoverable via google with enough effort ... just have to work out what we think is the right amount of effort .

When CIV5 comes out, play it in Germen language please . And then google only on german pages for game-mechs. This would be a lot of fun for me .

You can currently see your shrine income (lumped together) on the Finance Advisor (F2).

OK, I've seen it now (my game rig is on another place than my internet PC). It's clearly labeled as religious shrine and so another consideration unnecessary.

Here a few other thoughts (yes I know I'm a nag ):
1. On the civics screen you could be told how high your costs are per population point, if you change settings.
2. If you found a city it would be cool, if there were an alert which tells you "Your next city will cost you x gold" (without distance costs, of course). And in the hover of the build city button of your settler there should be mentioned all costs for building this city (this time including distance costs).
3. Alerts that your next military/civil unit will cost you x gold (only one time, to know when you hit the free unit limit).

Don't know if this is possible only suggestions.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I think that having a cumulative diplomatic points when you hover over a particular leader on the scoreboard would be useful (i.e. adding all the diplomatic demerits and bonuses together). Also I would like to be able to see who they are worst enemy of while hovering on the scoreboard.

 

[Afforess]

This is a request for BULL, by the way:

Is it possible to take the new hover bars with the suggested buildings one step further? I had a user ask me for, what I think is a great feature. He wanted, somewhere (preferrably near the construct queue in the city screen), some small buttons, one for culture, research, hammers, and gold, and clicking one would hide all the buildings in the list, except those that would offer a specific boost to culture, or whichever button he pushed.

I'm sure this is possible, just not sure how to add new buttons to the city screen and make them interact with the CanConstruct function. Any pointers on adding this?

 

[EmperorFool]

The control for this would be in CvMainInterface.py since that's what would have the filter buttons and displays the build buttons. It would need to call the new functions from BULL to do the filtering, however. I'm pretty sure I exposed all of the getBuildingAdditionalXXX() functions, but let me know if I missed any if you give this a shot.

The code that draws the build buttons is in a function named something like updateSelectionButtons(). If you look for "multilist" you'll find the name of the control. You can then search for that name to find the draw code. It's addMultiListGFC() or something similar.

 

[Afforess]

The control for this would be in CvMainInterface.py since that's what would have the filter buttons and displays the build buttons. It would need to call the new functions from BULL to do the filtering, however. I'm pretty sure I exposed all of the getBuildingAdditionalXXX() functions, but let me know if I missed any if you give this a shot.

The code that draws the build buttons is in a function named something like updateSelectionButtons(). If you look for "multilist" you'll find the name of the control. You can then search for that name to find the draw code. It's addMultiListGFC() or something similar.

Sure, I found the canConstruct calls fine. But I'm a total interface n00b, how do I go about adding new buttons, with the culture icon, or gold icon, etc?

 

[EmperorFool]

There are a few examples in BUG: Raw Yields, PLE, and F9:WONDERS tab (top 5 cities) come to mind. These are all "checkbox" buttons: round buttons that can be selected or not which makes sense for what you want.

You need to think about how you want these to work. Should the player be able to select multiple? (show me buildings that will give and ). This would be a little more complicated but not that much more. These would operate like the PLE filters then, and you'd want a "clear" button.

Post your idea to the SDK/Python forum to get a wider modder audience. Maybe you can enlist the help of a Python modder to help with this. It would make sense to put the buttons in the same place that BUG puts the PLE filter buttons since they will be mutually exclusive. You'd need to change BUG to hide the PLE filter buttons when no units are selected, but I could help with that once you got this going.

 

[Afforess]

There are a few examples in BUG: Raw Yields, PLE, and F9:WONDERS tab (top 5 cities) come to mind. These are all "checkbox" buttons: round buttons that can be selected or not which makes sense for what you want.

You need to think about how you want these to work. Should the player be able to select multiple? (show me buildings that will give and ). This would be a little more complicated but not that much more. These would operate like the PLE filters then, and you'd want a "clear" button.

Ugh, I knew not understanding the UI was going to bite me one day.

I looked through the Wonder screen code and the PLE, and didn't understand most of it. Mostly, I understood what the if checks were doing, and some of the var assignments, but most of the function calls and widget types are completely foreign to me.

What I would really appreciate is some crash course to BTS's interface, but I suspect no such thing exists.

Post your idea to the SDK/Python forum to get a wider modder audience. Maybe you can enlist the help of a Python modder to help with this. It would make sense to put the buttons in the same place that BUG puts the PLE filter buttons since they will be mutually exclusive. You'd need to change BUG to hide the PLE filter buttons when no units are selected, but I could help with that once you got this going.

The reason I posted here is because you and Ruff_hi are hands down, the best interface modders on CFC. I realize you both are busy creating BUG, and I don't want to take away from your modding time, or other activities. I guess if it's not going to be easy to do, I'll just write it on my future wish list.

 

[EmperorFool]

The wonders tab is the best example because those buttons were added as a single feature in a few commits (first to switch from a dropdown to buttons, and one to add hover text). Thus you'll see just the code that is needed by diffing revisions of that file in BUG's SVN.

1. Add button to screen -- addCheckboxGFC()
2. Initialize state(s) -- __init__()
3. Read state(s) -- draw code
4. Store state(s) -- handleInput()

 

[Afforess]

The wonders tab is the best example because those buttons were added as a single feature in a few commits (first to switch from a dropdown to buttons, and one to add hover text). Thus you'll see just the code that is needed by diffing revisions of that file in BUG's SVN.

1. Add button to screen -- addCheckboxGFC()
2. Initialize state(s) -- __init__()
3. Read state(s) -- draw code
4. Store state(s) -- handleInput()

Interesting. This may be do-able after all. I'll tackle it and report back with success/failure in a few hours.

 

[cripp7]

Still need a BUG Options button on the top left instead of hitting ctrl-alt-o.

 

[ripple01]

Still need a BUG Options button on the top left instead of hitting ctrl-alt-o.

I'll second this request...

Cheers,
ripple01