Single Player bugs and crashes v38 plus (SVN) - After the 20th of February 2018

[raxo2222]

Then why did Firaxis put it in the game?

Firaxis did not think so. Straight from the vanilla Civ IV GlobalDefines.xml :
<Define>
<DefineName>INITIAL_AI_CITY_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>10</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>

I know, I know, modders know better than the Original Devs. But they also made the engine and exe that we can not see or manipulate directly either. Hmmm.........dumb Firaxis.....

Well on Noble/Eternity they won't grab free building - 10 is not enough, when on Eternity/Noble alpha male/female building costs 40
And even on Blitz/Nightmare they can use it on one building or unit only.

It isn't 10 per turn, its just one time help on city founding - it can be used only on one thing no matter what is this.

On BTS it made more sense as every unit and building was more significant than on C2C due to smaller amount of them.
Also there were only few hundreds of turns.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I know, I know, modders know better than the Original Devs. But they also made the engine and exe that we can not see or manipulate directly either. Hmmm.........dumb Firaxis.....

They did not make the exe or engine they bought the rights to use it off GameBro who own it.

 

[JosEPh_II]

They did not make the exe or engine they bought the rights to use it off GameBro who own it.

So what's your point DH? They can See what we can not. So what is the point, to put me in my place?

Well on Noble/Eternity they won't grab free building - 10 is not enough, when on Eternity/Noble alpha male/female building costs 40
And even on Blitz/Nightmare they can use it on one building or unit only.

It isn't 10 per turn, its just one time help on city founding - it can be used only on one thing no matter what is this.

On BTS it made more sense as every unit and building was more significant than on C2C due to smaller amount of them.
Also there were only few hundreds of turns.

So why take it down to 1?

And why do you think I took our longest GS Eternity and reduced it by 6,000 turns when I reset the GS. 20,000 turns is Ludicrous for the present Eternity. Skews the scaling so badly it actually breaks it. Just like Eternity did when it 14,000 turns. At least at 8250 turns it was somewhat manageable and scaleable! I would have taken it down more but I was a "new" modder and had to watch how far I could change things. And I got plenty of heat from other Team members and players at 1st. Till they actually started playing it and saw there was some rhyme and reason to the game play. Of course there were still those that boohoo'd because their techwas not taking 20+ turn to research even on Snail back then. Which is again ludicrous because we have 900+ techs. And they were only concerned about playing with the stone age thru medieval military units as well! "Screw the later eras we want to play with our stone spearmen till they are become Hero units thru promotions" is and was the cry! Give me a freakin' break!

 

[raxo2222]

So what's your point DH? They can See what we can not. So what is the point, to put me in my place?

So why take it down to 1?

And why do you think I took our longest GS Eternity and reduced it by 6,000 turns when I reset the GS. 20,000 turns is Ludicrous for the present Eternity. Skews the scaling so badly it actually breaks it. Just like Eternity did when it 14,000 turns. At least at 8250 turns it was somewhat manageable and scaleable! I would have taken it down more but I was a "new" modder and had to watch how far I could change things. And I got plenty of heat from other Team members and players at 1st. Till they actually started playing it and saw there was some rhyme and reason to the game play. Of course there were still those that boohoo'd because their techwas not taking 20+ turn to research even on Snail back then. Which is again ludicrous because we have 900+ techs. And they were only concerned about playing with the stone age thru medieval military units as well! "Screw the later eras we want to play with our stone spearmen till they are become Hero units thru promotions" is and was the cry! Give me a freakin' break!

Even on 4000 turn GS Alpha Male would cost 5*0.8*4 = 16 on Noble or 16*0.58 = 9,28 on Nightmare (latter cost is for AI only).
This bonus is irrelevant when founding city after Prehistoric era.
On fastest GS still AI would get any use of this one time bonus on few first cities.

Also something wrong is with AI if it can't deal with longer GS or if it needs one time boost, that doesn't scale at all.
We already have 10x longer turns, 10x more techs, and way more buildings than in BTS.

Reducing production cost global for example would be more effective way to help AI.
Or anything, that has constant effect for everyone for example obsoleting workshops at relevant Peppers megafactories.

By the way AI already has stronger construction cost benefits than it used before balance overhaul up to Immortal.

Also units are relatively cheaper for AI above Noble handicap.

Tech/Building/Project step up should be higher for Deity/Nightmare though.

 

[futar]

SVN 10011

Units who can attack multiple times only can attack 2 times. If it's the end of turn, then that's that. If not I can select the unit again and then continue with the attacks left. Seems to happen to both hunter units, cats and other military units. Maybe it's been discussed before, however I didn't find it mentioned.

 

[raxo2222]

SVN 10011

Units who can attack multiple times only can attack 2 times. If it's the end of turn, then that's that. If not I can select the unit again and then continue with the attacks left. Seems to happen to both hunter units, cats and other military units. Maybe it's been discussed before, however I didn't find it mentioned.

It could be fixed in later SVN though.

 

[Thunderbrd]

20,000 turns is Ludicrous for the present Eternity. Skews the scaling so badly it actually breaks it.

Just so as to make this clear, the amount of game turns does not directly influence the scaling factors in the least.

And they were only concerned about playing with the stone age thru medieval military units as well! "Screw the later eras we want to play with our stone spearmen till they are become Hero units thru promotions" is and was the cry! Give me a freakin' break!

Sorry... what's your problem with people having different opinions to yours? Why does that bother you?

As for the variable that raxo brought up, perhaps firaxis had a reason to give the AI a little boost when they founded a city. It's pretty insignificant to game play overall but they must've had some kind of plotted out reason to include it. Not being scaled it does seem a little arbitrary.

 

[raxo2222]

Just so as to make this clear, the amount of game turns does not directly influence the scaling factors in the least.


Sorry... what's your problem with people having different opinions to yours? Why does that bother you?

As for the variable that raxo brought up, perhaps firaxis had a reason to give the AI a little boost when they founded a city. It's pretty insignificant to game play overall but they must've had some kind of plotted out reason to include it. Not being scaled it does seem a little arbitrary.

When I searched forums for INITIAL_AI_CITY_PRODUCTION it appears its brought to attention once few years
Some people treated it as outright cheating.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Just so as to make this clear, the amount of game turns does not directly influence the scaling factors in the least.

Totally and absolutely disagree.

Sorry... what's your problem with people having different opinions to yours? Why does that bother you?

It's Not about opinions, it's about the effects it has on making the game playable thru the later eras. And a persistent ideology that it is all Okay. That it presents no problems for the mods play at all. Which is blatantly untrue.

I proved to myself and to many other players as well that these Game speeds that are over 8,000 turns are detrimental to the Mod. You on the other hand don't agree and think they are fine. But because I disagree and voice my disagreement you project that I'm having a problem with allowing "others" to have a different opinion? Really? Vilify much?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

So what's your point DH? They can See what we can not. So what is the point, to put me in my place?

Just a minor correction. However as with most engines the programmers using it can't see what is happening. You can only call it with parameters and hope it is working as it says it is. Just like XML programmers can't see the stuff happening in the dll or python that is relevant to their XML. Just look at the XML section of Modiki where you will see tags with "don't know what this does" comments next to them.

SVN 10011

Units who can attack multiple times only can attack 2 times. If it's the end of turn, then that's that. If not I can select the unit again and then continue with the attacks left. Seems to happen to both hunter units, cats and other military units. Maybe it's been discussed before, however I didn't find it mentioned.

I have had units attack three and more times in recent games.

Multiple attack means that a unit can attack up to the number of movement points it has left. Each attack is the same as one movement point. This is adjusted by the cost of moving into the plot. If you are attacking a stack that is in a plot that would take two moves for the unit to move into then each attack costs two moves.

 

[Snofru1]

I have observed that units that can attack 3 times do attack twice, then get out of focus and after other units had their turn they become active again and can attack the third time. A little bit irritating but not tragic.

 

[Toffer90]

Then why did Firaxis put it in the game?

Firaxis did not think so. Straight from the vanilla Civ IV GlobalDefines.xml :
<Define>
<DefineName>INITIAL_AI_CITY_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>10</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>

I know, I know, modders know better than the Original Devs. But they also made the engine and exe that we can not see or manipulate directly either. Hmmm.........dumb Firaxis.....

I can't claim to know what prompted the creation of that define.
But I can ascertain that:

The define is not used in the exe.
That all that define does is to give the first city the AI found a free hammer overflow of X hammers that can be spent on whatever the AI choose to build or train.​

I don't know why Firaxis gave the AI a one time only 10 head start in the beginning of the game, perhaps the argument was that the AI spend more turns moving their starting settler around than most human player would in vanilla civ and that the AI therefore needed to catch up on city development when it finally founded its first city 2-3 turns later than what most human players would found their first city? I really don't know.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Totally and absolutely disagree.

Well, you're arguing against a fact. You can disagree with a fact all day long but the fact stays a fact. All I can say is you're wrong. Period. You can stick to your guns on this and argue all you want and you'll still be wrong because I'm not giving you an opinion. I'm giving you a fact.

There, as we've explained many times already, is only ONE application for the number of turns in a gamespeed. One. ONLY one. And that is that this number determines the turn count when the game ends on a Time (and by derivation, Mastery as well) victory setting, and then compiles the point scores to determine the winner. That's it. Period. NOTHING else. And guess what? The game can continue past that point because all that means is technically a winner has been determined. But the game can play on and it doesn't change the AI's behavior at all. There is no connection to scaling factors - the number of turns doesn't play a role in any game math at all past being derived from the way the calendar has been setup.

It DOES suggest a few things that do have game effects, like how the calendar has been pieced together and the amount of time in each era. Era boundaries are defined there and those can influence quite a bit as a game definition for what era the game is in as a whole is defined there and in some places that may have a real game effect.

But the number of turns is as irrelevant to game rules and game processing as what someone had for lunch 392 days ago. Unless you want to know the exact turn count that your Time or Mastery game will end and a winner defined. If you don't play either of those, and say, just play any other victory setting without Time or Mastery, then the number means absolutely nothing at all.

I'm not going to say that again. You already know. Which tells me you're just trying to pick a meaningless fight. Perhaps you're bored with things being peaceful lately?

It's Not about opinions, it's about the effects it has on making the game playable thru the later eras. And a persistent ideology that it is all Okay. That it presents no problems for the mods play at all. Which is blatantly untrue.

I proved to myself and to many other players as well that these Game speeds that are over 8,000 turns are detrimental to the Mod. You on the other hand don't agree and think they are fine. But because I disagree and voice my disagreement you project that I'm having a problem with allowing "others" to have a different opinion? Really? Vilify much?

I'm not trying to vilify. I'm insisting that what you are making a big deal out of for the upteenth time means nothing more than a matter that is covered by player preference and opinion. You have shown that the AI can function more competitively on a faster speed due to a few small factors. It's always been that way between gamespeeds. And it is indeed more pronounced the longer the game speed gets. But has that ever stopped anyone who likes a longer gamespeed from playing that longer game and hoping that certain AI improvements can be made to account for that? And is it wrong for those players that want that to want it? If it works fine the way it is for those who like a faster game, why gripe about anyone wanting a longer one? It works fine for you right? I don't see anything detrimental to the mod in allowing those players who want that length game to be able to play it that way. It's not a completely unplayable game by any means, even though you lack the patience to personally play it. The AI doesn't collapse... it just doesn't play as well because it's not as good at keeping it's best units alive as long. That's pretty much it. More steamrolling tends to take place because more conquest can take place. So what? Honestly? So what? There's a point to some of the balance options - to keep games competitive despite this happening. That's a 'detriment' to the mod? Sure sucks that more people get to experience what they want while others also get to have what THEY want too. Can't be having that.

That all that define does is to give the first city the AI found a free hammer overflow of X hammers that can be spent on whatever the AI choose to build or train.I don't know why Firaxis gave the AI a one time only 10 head start in the beginning of the game, perhaps the argument was that the AI spend more turns moving their starting settler around than most human player would in vanilla civ and that the AI therefore needed to catch up on city development when it finally founded its first city 2-3 turns later than what most human players would found their first city? I really don't know.

Has the AI ever not just planted its first city right where the first settler is spawned? I'm not sure if I've ever seen the AI walk the first settler somewhere else. I'm honestly asking... I don't know.

 

[Toffer90]

I've never checked how the AI use its first settler, I honestly don't know either.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

With the Extinction mod I do need to know the turn number for the date that the extinction happens according to history. That said I was going to aim for the extinction happening near that date or possibly not at all but the latter would require access to the Spawn infos some how.

So eventually there will be something linked to the number of turns

 

[Thunderbrd]

With the Extinction mod I do need to know the turn number for the date that the extinction happens according to history. That said I was going to aim for the extinction happening near that date or possibly not at all but the latter would require access to the Spawn infos some how.

So eventually there will be something linked to the number of turns

Don't we already do that to some extent with animals? The spawns stay within defined years on the calendar if they are animals.

 

[Shoobs]

=.
Has the AI ever not just planted its first city right where the first settler is spawned? I'm not sure if I've ever seen the AI walk the first settler somewhere else. I'm honestly asking... I don't know.

Yes, it will do so. I've seen cities spawned up to three turns after game start. If the location has little resources/bonuses, the AI will seek out something if it can see them.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yes, it will do so. I've seen cities spawned up to three turns after game start. If the location has little resources/bonuses, the AI will seek out something if it can see them.

This is one good reason to have mapscripts attempt to place the first settlers for all players in a fairly advantageous city site, even if you can't see the bonuses nearby. On rivers/coasts as starts is critical for us for a mapscript here because we'll just spend all night initiating games if it doesn't give us both a halfway decent start. The missus is more picky about it than I am but I'm not above feeling disadvantaged and thus disgruntled by the initial placement, specially if I'm in the middle of a swamp, no rivers or coast in sight, all 1 production tiles etc... and she's on a coast with an initial tile with a slew of rivers and a 4 production plot in the first rung.

 

[Shoobs]

This is one good reason to have mapscripts attempt to place the first settlers for all players in a fairly advantageous city site, even if you can't see the bonuses nearby. On rivers/coasts as starts is critical for us for a mapscript here because we'll just spend all night initiating games if it doesn't give us both a halfway decent start. The missus is more picky about it than I am but I'm not above feeling disadvantaged and thus disgruntled by the initial placement, specially if I'm in the middle of a swamp, no rivers or coast in sight, all 1 production tiles etc... and she's on a coast with an initial tile with a slew of rivers and a 4 production plot in the first rung.

I know that feeling well.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Don't we already do that to some extent with animals? The spawns stay within defined years on the calendar if they are animals.

Yes, I have to test every turn to see if the game has reached that point.

Unfortunately there is no way for python to get at the Spawn info information. Not only that but there are many spawns that change so that the same unit has multiple spawn entries changing the rate etc when the unit spawns. Of course some don't have dates at all and are based on tech level.

It would be nice if it was not fixed so that we could have cases where it does not go extinct.

This is one good reason to have mapscripts attempt to place the first settlers for all players in a fairly advantageous city site, even if you can't see the bonuses nearby. On rivers/coasts as starts is critical for us for a mapscript here because we'll just spend all night initiating games if it doesn't give us both a halfway decent start. The missus is more picky about it than I am but I'm not above feeling disadvantaged and thus disgruntled by the initial placement, specially if I'm in the middle of a swamp, no rivers or coast in sight, all 1 production tiles etc... and she's on a coast with an initial tile with a slew of rivers and a 4 production plot in the first rung.

The mapscripts place water features near the suggested starting points after choosing where they are! It is why we can't have islands and the like in game. If they give or etc. then they wont get placed except near starting points. The ocean stuff is still stuck on vanilla settings.