RifE 1.20 Ideas, Requests, and Feedback

[Iceciro]

Still keep intending to make Broader Alignment versions of some religious troops for FF+ - more than graphical changes. Perhaps instead of Crusaders you create Zealots (not the OO preists, so we'll need another name for them, but you get the idea.)

 

[armyofwhispers]

perhaps 'radical extremists'?

 

[Valkrionn]

Nothing to do with the recent discussion, but I just found JRouteNative..... Going to be using that instead of ZRoutes for the Mechanos fort. Allows me to do several things, including setting units to require roads to move, setting them to be unable to move on certain routes, setting them to ignore the movement bonuses of a route, and setting them to use the bonus from one route, on a different route... So I could have, say, a Hippus Raider UU use the bonus from an (unused) improved road, on normal roads, giving them even greater mobility.

Edit: Also, might move the Bezeri away from a hard limit on the number of cities, to use code from JCityLimit to limit the number based on the Era... Which FF still uses a few of. Not sure how that'll conflict with religions, though.

Edit2: Jesus, wishing I'd gone through Jeckel's modcomps before now. Here's another, JCultureControl. Basically does exactly what I already planned to do myself, in that allows me to set a tag for an improvement that will automatically spread it's borders... No code to run each turn, searching out the improvements and then relying on a unit's promotions. Fort Commanders will remain, but they will have significantly less effect on the cultural borders.

Edit3: And another minor miracle. JImprovementLimit. I get two things from this: First, Rather than needing a python check to limit certain improvements (Pirate Harbors? Bedouin Sits?) from being built next to each other, I can set a simple tag that does it all... Meaning the AI should be able to understand it, without slowing the game. Second, there is another tag preventing certain improvements from being built in cultural borders... I can easily see applying that to forts.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Jeckel's mods are awesome, no doubt about that

 

[far_wanderer]

Just had a new thought: with the new commander system from FF, you could do a whole new set of interesting things with Fort Commanders. At the very least, it would be a way to make that generic combat bonus within three tiles into something a whole lot more flexible.

 

[Valkrionn]

I actually think that's the way I'll be going with them, now that they won't affect culture... I like them too much to get rid of them completely. I'm thinking of having them apply a strong bonus to units following them, but only for a one tile range, and they themselves will still be confined to the fort... Basically lets you build a strong defensive force.

 

[far_wanderer]

I actually think that's the way I'll be going with them, now that they won't affect culture... I like them too much to get rid of them completely. I'm thinking of having them apply a strong bonus to units following them, but only for a one tile range, and they themselves will still be confined to the fort... Basically lets you build a strong defensive force.

I was thinking of even more than that, like the ability to build different types of fort-like improvements for special commanders. Like a wizard's tower with a commander that boosts arcane units. Or a lighthouse commander that can lead nearby coastal units.

On a different note, I noticed in the FF051 bug thread you were interested in aquatic cities. The Planetfall mod has that set up already quite nicely, it would be a good place to go if you need to work out any difficulties.

 

[Valkrionn]

Yep, I was looking at the Planetfall mod... Believe they're in another one also, but I'd have to hunt that one down.

As for the commanders, that could work. One of the JImprovementLimit tags allows you to make an improvement require you to build it on top of an existing one... So I allow them to upgrade to specific commander types, which then have build orders for their 'forts' requiring a Citadel to be built on.

 

[armyofwhispers]

Yep, I was looking at the Planetfall mod... Believe they're in another one also, but I'd have to hunt that one down.

As for the commanders, that could work. One of the JImprovementLimit tags allows you to make an improvement require you to build it on top of an existing one... So I allow them to upgrade to specific commander types, which then have build orders for their 'forts' requiring a Citadel to be built on.

So when a fort commander hits a certain level, he can choose one of these promotions like arcane commander or something and then he can upgrade his citidel to wizard's tower?

How would this work for specialized forts like dwarven mines, malakim tower of light, and (soon) mechanos mobile forts?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Nothing to do with the recent discussion, but I just found JRouteNative..... Going to be using that instead of ZRoutes for the Mechanos fort. Allows me to do several things, including setting units to require roads to move, setting them to be unable to move on certain routes, setting them to ignore the movement bonuses of a route, and setting them to use the bonus from one route, on a different route... So I could have, say, a Hippus Raider UU use the bonus from an (unused) improved road, on normal roads, giving them even greater mobility.

Edit: Also, might move the Bezeri away from a hard limit on the number of cities, to use code from JCityLimit to limit the number based on the Era... Which FF still uses a few of. Not sure how that'll conflict with religions, though.

Edit2: Jesus, wishing I'd gone through Jeckel's modcomps before now. Here's another, JCultureControl. Basically does exactly what I already planned to do myself, in that allows me to set a tag for an improvement that will automatically spread it's borders... No code to run each turn, searching out the improvements and then relying on a unit's promotions. Fort Commanders will remain, but they will have significantly less effect on the cultural borders.

Edit3: And another minor miracle. JImprovementLimit. I get two things from this: First, Rather than needing a python check to limit certain improvements (Pirate Harbors? Bedouin Sits?) from being built next to each other, I can set a simple tag that does it all... Meaning the AI should be able to understand it, without slowing the game. Second, there is another tag preventing certain improvements from being built in cultural borders... I can easily see applying that to forts.

I've been asking Xienwolf to merge all those into the FF base code for quite some time, to no avail. If you go ahead and add them to FF+, then I have to borrow your dll instead. (Well, base it on that at least, there are a few minor changes I'd need/want, like my TempFeature and TempImprovement functions and the removal of the "you've grown too powerful for us" block to joining a permanent alliance or the reduction of the number of turns a common war or defensive pact is needed for an alliance from 40 to 5. I may also want to use some schema changes from Opera's Leaders Enhanced modmod for Orbis. As I'm a lore purist I don't care for much of the content, but like the fuctionality.)

 

[Valkrionn]

So when a fort commander hits a certain level, he can choose one of these promotions like arcane commander or something and then he can upgrade his citidel to wizard's tower?

How would this work for specialized forts like dwarven mines, malakim tower of light, and (soon) mechanos mobile forts?

Something like that, I think... In the case of the Dwarves, they have normal forts as well still. They'll be one of the few civs, possibly the only one, to be allowed forts in their borders, at least the Dwarven ones. For the Malakim, I may well make their Citadel of Light be one of their fort upgrades, rather than the ONLY fort upgrade. For the Mechanos, I'm not sure yet. I may let them choose between a mobile, but slightly weaker, fort, versus a strong, stationary fort.

 

[armyofwhispers]

I've been asking Xienwolf to merge all those into the FF base code for quite some time, to no avail. If you go ahead and add them to FF+, then I have to borrow your dll instead. (Well, base it on that at least, there are a few minor changes I'd need/want, like my TempFeature and TempImprovement functions and the removal of the "you've grown too powerful for us" block to joining a permanent alliance or the reduction of the number of turns a common war or defensive pact is needed for an alliance from 40 to 5. I may also want to use some schema changes from Opera's Leaders Enhanced modmod for Orbis. As I'm a lore purist I don't care for much of the content, but like the fuctionality.)

I've always wondered about that 'you've grown to powerful for us' block. It seems to be saying 'no, qwe like getting tossed about by everyone else on the board, we don't want to be permanently allied with someone whom other civs are afraid of.'

More than once I've been in a map where all other civs have paired up but me and one guy, and that one guy refuses to ally with me because I'm too powerful. Since when is it a bad idea to ally with the powerful civ?

EDIT- I do understand it from a mechanical perspective, keep the most powerful civ from getting more powerful, but it's a dumb excuse

 

[xienwolf]

Nothing to do with the recent discussion, but I just found JRouteNative..... Going to be using that instead of ZRoutes for the Mechanos fort. Allows me to do several things, including setting units to require roads to move, setting them to be unable to move on certain routes, setting them to ignore the movement bonuses of a route, and setting them to use the bonus from one route, on a different route... So I could have, say, a Hippus Raider UU use the bonus from an (unused) improved road, on normal roads, giving them even greater mobility.

Edit: Also, might move the Bezeri away from a hard limit on the number of cities, to use code from JCityLimit to limit the number based on the Era... Which FF still uses a few of. Not sure how that'll conflict with religions, though.

Edit2: Jesus, wishing I'd gone through Jeckel's modcomps before now. Here's another, JCultureControl. Basically does exactly what I already planned to do myself, in that allows me to set a tag for an improvement that will automatically spread it's borders... No code to run each turn, searching out the improvements and then relying on a unit's promotions. Fort Commanders will remain, but they will have significantly less effect on the cultural borders.

Edit3: And another minor miracle. JImprovementLimit. I get two things from this: First, Rather than needing a python check to limit certain improvements (Pirate Harbors? Bedouin Sits?) from being built next to each other, I can set a simple tag that does it all... Meaning the AI should be able to understand it, without slowing the game. Second, there is another tag preventing certain improvements from being built in cultural borders... I can easily see applying that to forts.

Careful about merging. Do it slow at the very least. There are a LOT of differences scattered through the code, and some merges are pathetically simple because they don't overlap with much and are well contained, but others require minor updates of references in dozens of locations, meaning that there are probably MORE such references in FF than in BtS which you must be careful to also catch. And once you have a merge in your code you will always be quick to blame it for bugs which you don't understand unless you are VERY comfortable with the other mod's code (ie - could write it yourself)

Basically, if you think they worked miracles with the code, then yes it makes you want to use it, but that is precisely when you do not WANT to use it, because it is over your head and doesn't use the same base. So understand, THEN merge

 

[Valkrionn]

Oh, I'm going to do a careful merge against the standard DLL so I can be absolutely certain to find all of their changes, which I'll mark... Then I'll make sure I understand it before attempting to merge it into FF. Had enough issues merging things using just python.

 

[far_wanderer]

I've always wondered about that 'you've grown to powerful for us' block. It seems to be saying 'no, qwe like getting tossed about by everyone else on the board, we don't want to be permanently allied with someone whom other civs are afraid of.'

More than once I've been in a map where all other civs have paired up but me and one guy, and that one guy refuses to ally with me because I'm too powerful. Since when is it a bad idea to ally with the powerful civ?

EDIT- I do understand it from a mechanical perspective, keep the most powerful civ from getting more powerful, but it's a dumb excuse

Actually, in my experience that's not what it does. What you describe would actually make sense. I don't know the code involved, so this is just based on in-game experimentation, but what it appears to be is a hard cap on how powerful you can be before a given civ won't want to be your partner.
It doesn't appear to be affected by the other civ's power level, or any other situational factor. It's a "you must be at least *this* weak to ally with us."

 

[armyofwhispers]

Actually, in my experience that's not what it does. What you describe would actually make sense. I don't know the code involved, so this is just based on in-game experimentation, but what it appears to be is a hard cap on how powerful you can be before a given civ won't want to be your partner.
It doesn't appear to be affected by the other civ's power level, or any other situational factor. It's a "you must be at least *this* weak to ally with us."

That makes even less sense. That's simply restricting all civs from making powerful friends. In terms of both a mechanical and flavor sense, that's silly. If you're not the most powerful civ, but still over the 'too powerful' cap you're sol? Flavor-wise, it means that you can't make friends with someone above a certain level. Is this sorta a torerate no rivals deal? What about good civs? What about the Elohim?

 

[darkarrow56]

i would like to c more tribal village events like foxford except couldnt you make the werewolfs spawn in a normal tribal village? maybe add vampires and have the unit that visits lairs could have a more chance of encountering things other then money warriors and free tech those are what i seem to get off of trbal villages the majority of the time

 

[WarKirby]

Careful about merging. Do it slow at the very least. There are a LOT of differences scattered through the code, and some merges are pathetically simple because they don't overlap with much and are well contained, but others require minor updates of references in dozens of locations, meaning that there are probably MORE such references in FF than in BtS which you must be careful to also catch. And once you have a merge in your code you will always be quick to blame it for bugs which you don't understand unless you are VERY comfortable with the other mod's code (ie - could write it yourself)

Basically, if you think they worked miracles with the code, then yes it makes you want to use it, but that is precisely when you do not WANT to use it, because it is over your head and doesn't use the same base. So understand, THEN merge

This man speaks the truth.

Simple facts of life

1. If it seems too good to be true, it is.
2. If you don't know what you're doing, stop doing it, until you do.

Though I've done almost nothing with python in Civ, and nothing with the DLL, I am a coder professionally in other mediums. Rule of thumb, understand everything, on every possible leve, before you do stuff with it. There should never be "magic" or "miracles". You should know exactly what everything does, and how it does it. And if you didn't think of it yourself first, your response should usually be "I should have thought of that. why didn't that idea hit me" or even "I had that Idea, and thought it would never work".

 

[Valkrionn]

Actually, in my case I called them minor miracles because they were things I already intended on doing, put in front of me.

I'm going over them carefully before I even think about starting to merge... Same reason I haven't tried to merge in any of the AI work, or Sephi's magic-AI's.

 

[Opera]

When I merged LeadersRelations, I didn't have any idea of what was going on. Well, I knew why I pasted that there, but I didn't know what that did exactly. Worked great!
(now, I think I know how it works even without looking at the code )