SMAN's The World at War

[sman1975]

did the new patch replace the old one in the download link?

When you go to the link, you'll see the big "Download Now" button in the top right side of the screen. Clicking on that will always give you the most recent version of the mod. Posted it last night, so most discussions not involving that version might be moot. It did make quite a lot of changes to the compatibility script ( techs, units, buildings, etc.).

I think I added the Cruiser (NAVRANGED) last of all - mostly to fill a historical vacuum in the game. There was a need for a "light" battleship in the design (weaker but faster), but not having Cruisers overlooked the massive role they played, at least in the wider Pacific and the Atlantic convoys in WW2. The 'battlewagons' were tethered the mission of pulverizing beachheads in the Island Hopping campaigns, but most of the bigger ships cruising the open seas were, well, Cruisers...

Most of the "battleships" sank/damaged at Pearl Harbor were of the Superdreadnought category, rather than what we think of Battleships, which that appeared later (development primarily urged by the sudden realization of the importance of Air Defense). Cruiser production in early 1942 was greatly accelerated, as these ships could be deployed a half a year sooner than the Superdreadnought replacements that were being built in 1940-1942.

Since I was trying to expand the scopes of warfare offered in the game, and give it a more historical/immersive gaming experience, I feel pretty strongly about keeping Cruisers right about where they are.

Iron as the required resource for late-model ships? I'm looking at the Unit_ResourceQuantityRequirements table right now. I see the disconnect. I question the design criterion, as it takes only a finite amount of Iron to build a ship, true, but it takes a continuing amount of Oil to move the beast. It seems to me, if a Civ has to dedicate Resources to feed their war machines, the ongoing need for Oil (a consumable) should be more "impacting" than a one-time need for Iron (static).

I'm sure they decided this to give a use for Iron in late-game, when there are already enough units clamoring for Oil. But WAW also uses Iron for the HighRises (residential/commercial), and in all the games I've played, I've always ran out of Iron long before I ran out of Cities wanting HighRises.

Even today, the planning considerations of maintaining/replenishing fuel supplies (Oil) impact almost every military in the world on a continuous basis, in a way that the raw materiel of Iron (well, Steel actually) doesn't.

Still, for a consistent gaming experience, I suppose Resource Requirements need to be harmonized. But I really can't see a valid argument for favoring Iron over Oil/Coal for any of the LBE ships or later. I'll rework the Resource Requirements (there are a few units have have both!) and make sure at least the ships use Resources in a consistent manner.

don't forget the location of these vp units

Good catch, @ofmiciv5 - I'll double check these numbers/locations and "normalize" them in the next version.


BTW - I'm not trying to be difficult - mostly trying to work out in my own head, what specific changes we need to make to get the mod into a place where VP fans would actually enjoy playing it. Alot of my typing has a lot to do with me trying to work things out. I sincerely appreciate all suggestions, and will try to put the best ones into the mod if I can figure out how (e.g. I'm only about halfway finished with the "policies" fix we talked about yesterday. For the last version of the mod, I simply left the WAW policy changes out entirely).

Another way of saying this is, "THANKS for the suggestions!" Keep 'em coming!

 

[ofmiciv5]

When you go to the link, you'll see the big "Download Now" button in the top right side of the screen. Clicking on that will always give you the most recent version of the mod. Posted it last night, so most discussions not involving that version might be moot. It did make quite a lot of changes to the compatibility script ( techs, units, buildings, etc.).

I think I added the Cruiser (NAVRANGED) last of all - mostly to fill a historical vacuum in the game. There was a need for a "light" battleship in the design (weaker but faster), but not having Cruisers overlooked the massive role they played, at least in the wider Pacific and the Atlantic convoys in WW2. The 'battlewagons' were tethered the mission of pulverizing beachheads in the Island Hopping campaigns, but most of the bigger ships cruising the open seas were, well, Cruisers...

Most of the "battleships" sank/damaged at Pearl Harbor were of the Superdreadnought category, rather than what we think of Battleships, which that appeared later (development primarily urged by the sudden realization of the importance of Air Defense). Cruiser production in early 1942 was greatly accelerated, as these ships could be deployed a half a year sooner than the Superdreadnought replacements that were being built in 1940-1942.

Since I was trying to expand the scopes of warfare offered in the game, and give it a more historical/immersive gaming experience, I feel pretty strongly about keeping Cruisers right about where they are.

Iron as the required resource for late-model ships? I'm looking at the Unit_ResourceQuantityRequirements table right now. I see the disconnect. I question the design criterion, as it takes only a finite amount of Iron to build a ship, true, but it takes a continuing amount of Oil to move the beast. It seems to me, if a Civ has to dedicate Resources to feed their war machines, the ongoing need for Oil (a consumable) should be more "impacting" than a one-time need for Iron (static).

I'm sure they decided this to give a use for Iron in late-game, when there are already enough units clamoring for Oil. But WAW also uses Iron for the HighRises (residential/commercial), and in all the games I've played, I've always ran out of Iron long before I ran out of Cities wanting HighRises.

Even today, the planning considerations of maintaining/replenishing fuel supplies (Oil) impact almost every military in the world on a continuous basis, in a way that the raw materiel of Iron (well, Steel actually) doesn't.

Still, for a consistent gaming experience, I suppose Resource Requirements need to be harmonized. But I really can't see a valid argument for favoring Iron over Oil/Coal for any of the LBE ships or later. I'll rework the Resource Requirements (there are a few units have have both!) and make sure at least the ships use Resources in a consistent manner.




Good catch, @ofmiciv5 - I'll double check these numbers/locations and "normalize" them in the next version.


BTW - I'm not trying to be difficult - mostly trying to work out in my own head, what specific changes we need to make to get the mod into a place where VP fans would actually enjoy playing it. Alot of my typing has a lot to do with me trying to work things out. I sincerely appreciate all suggestions, and will try to put the best ones into the mod if I can figure out how (e.g. I'm only about halfway finished with the "policies" fix we talked about yesterday. For the last version of the mod, I simply left the WAW policy changes out entirely).

Another way of saying this is, "THANKS for the suggestions!" Keep 'em coming!

i get the idea of G regarding resource usage. i think you are forgetting here the clash of your philosophy to G's. not to mention, twaw has plenty of buildings that gives 'free' strategic resources that are deemed OP/imbalanced to VP. vp's approach on that is balance, not about totally historically accuracy. just as to the incentive of exploring, settling, contesting those areas who are rich in strategic resources and not freebies like twaw. every resource has it's use (category), rarity and purpose. in short, vp resource is all about being strategic and balance, compared to twaw that are free candies, openly encouraging wars and no worries of having short of it. this begs where you put yourself, on the balance (vp) vs warmonger (twaw) .

on vp, a total rework was done, from the tip of your hair, down to your toenails. from ai, civilizations, city states, tall and wide, happiness, capping, golden age, policies, ideologies, religion, techs, units, buildings, wonders, victory conditions, literally everything, all was changed. all of them helped each other to balance the game. all are in the name of fair balance and consistency, no one is OP, all are equal. i think it will be hard for you to comprehend what i'm saying because you haven't played vp or having a good exposure to it's gameplay. i'm sorry for being too repetitive on my recent posts and will have to shut my mouth regarding this topic.

 

[XxPun12h3rxX]

Oops I wasn't talking about the WW2 era cruiser sorry. Shouldve clarified . VP adds an earlier cruiser for iron that comes at dynamite, literally right after your coal-burning ships. If you still want to leave that in and not override it that's fine after all it is slightly stronger than the other ranged units of the era save maybe the dreadnaught. I also agree with the design that late game ships should take oil as that makes more sense because that frees up more iron for siege units and such, and more buildings give oil than iron.
Also I didn't see it so feel free to correct me it but is there a super-battleship class in the tech tree somewhere? Because I love ships like the Bismarck and Yamato and a ship with a three tile range makes naval warfare so much more fun.

 

[sman1975]

There's a "Heavy Battleship" available at Transistor, obsolete at Advanced Ballistics, when the Missile Cruiser becomes available - think Iowa Class BB.

Technically, the Bismark was not a heavy battleship - appearing much earlier in the historical timeline, albeit it was quite ahead of its time in just about every naval combat system. Still, it fits comfortably with the with the U.S. South Dakota-class BB's appearing a couple of years later.

The Yamato, on the other hand, was truly in a class by itself. I kinda envisioned the Heavy Battleship as a midpoint between the U.S. Iowa class and the Yamato itself - the kind of ships most major powers could build - if they really, really wanted to invest the enormous cost (*cough* *cough* Montana class.....). I'm not sure any nation other than Japan, and perhaps the U.S. (if the Manhattan Project failed) could have ever have built a Yamato.

Both the Bismark (Battleship) and Yamato (Heavy Battleship) classes are added through the "WAW Unique Units Companion Mod" - for Germany and Japan respectively. I didn't buff them tooooo far from normal ships of those classes. Added more for aesthetics than reality - that pesky "balance" thingee....

In the WW2 scenarios, however, they are on par with the normal mod's successor unit (Bismark ~ Heavy BB, Yamato ~ Missile Cruiser). Still working on those two mods, though. Slow going - tons of custom units to add. And tons of custom Missions/Events. It's not easy to force the AI to perform like a human....

 

[XxPun12h3rxX]

I suppose youre right, I only consider the Bismarck and its sister ship to be heavy battleships because they were ridiculously expensive and ahead of their time, not to mention they were symbols of national pride and were dominated by aerial forces. But the classification of "super-heavy" is such a broad term, I mean, look at the differences between the Char-2c and the Maus. One was virtually indestructible for its time, the other was the ultimate tank-killer, but the Char was heavier and fell to conventional Panzers during the fall of France.

Still I should probably get to playtesting. I think ill try another Rome game and have some fun with the late units.

 

[Gabsau]

Hi everyone, a quick question regarding this mod:

My tech-tree is broken - no scroll bar is showing at the bottom. I have narrowed the culprit to this mod (SMAN World at War) after hours of trouble shooting. I have cleared my cache, uninstalled and then reinstalled mods, activated and de-activated mods until I narrowed it this one. However, I have noticed on the screenshots throughout this thread that you guys playing have the scroll bar so I am at a complete loss? Could it be a DLC like BNW or GNK causing the issue? Or is it a mod that I am missing which is required for this mod to work?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[sman1975]

@Gasbau - sorry you're having problems. The mod requires BNW, but I don't remember it reusing any of the DLC content.

Did you try to use only this mod after clearing cache?

If you have BNW and cleared cache with only checking this mod, it's time to review your logs.

First, you need to enable logging - check this for details: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-enable-logging.487482/

Then, clear cache again, restart Civ 5, then enable only the World at War mod, then start a new game.

If the error is still there, exit Civ 5, come back to this forum, start a new post, then press the "Upload a File" button in the bottom right, under the new post.

When the popup appears, select "Browse" - a Windows Explorer file navigation popup should appear. You need to navigate to the Logs folder, usually some place like:


C:\Users\XXXXDocuments\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Logs

Where XXXX is the account you installed the game under.


You want to "Open" both the Database.log and Lua.log files, attaching both of them to the new post.

Then "Post Reply" so we can see the log files and hopefully get an idea what's causing the errors you're seeing.

 

[MariusMagnus]

All right, I tried this with Super Warmongering AI. VP version of Communitas Map, Huge with 22 civs, Marathon Gamespeed altered to a 1000% research percent (unsure if my change went through or not, techs costs seem extremely cheap), starting in the Great War Era. I just entered the WWII era, but I've pretty much won already. Most of my conflicts were by sea, and while a majority of civs did throw some decently sized fleets at me, they were never really able to get past my City-State Ally buffers. GW ships feel balanced although I did prefer to use Destroyers over Flotillas simply because the former is faster and the differences in combat strength isn't great enough to justify building Flotillas IMO.

I like the changes to siege units.

I noticed that Gatling guns obsolete at Replaceable parts, and that machine guns aren't available until ballistics. This leaves a rather large gap during which you can't train ranged units and I'm not sure if that's intentional or not.

The free mobility promotion for naval units from the Naval Academy also seems to apply to land units.

 

[XxPun12h3rxX]

Finished my game as Rome (Emperor, epic pace, 7 civs on standard map size I think) last night with utter domination by the time I reached the WW2 era. The mod handles very smoothly, and the AI seems relatively good at using it. That being said, there are a few small things that I noticed:
1. Good news, my happiness never dropped below 20, and was only negative for a few turns. Its manageable, but I saw some huge swings and I had to pull out every stop sometimes. More good news is that you can actually put happiness balancing on the backburner because G might fix a few issues in the next patch.
2. Some upgrades are still confusing because of VP's new units, but five minutes of poking through files can fix this. In fact, it really isn't even that big of a deal.
3. Oil comes at combustion in VP, which means that several buildings and units that use oil actually come earlier than the source itself. Its not that huge of a deal but its awkward and the AI doesn't play very well with it.
4. We've already talked about national wonder cost, and when its fixed itll be perfect. The buildings themselves are also perfectly placed hammer-wise.
Right now it is looking good, I'm going to try another, larger game that's more focused on late-game conquest. Ill let you know how that goes, though I may drop it if you drop a patch.

 

[sman1975]

All-in-all, these sound fairly positive for this stage of the mod development!

@MariusMagnus - you started the game in Great War Era and won it by entering WW2? How many game turns was this????

On Gatling vs. Machine guns. Almost certainly an oversight. I've went back and forth a lot about removing MG's and Bazookas from the game with the mod. But left them in to make it more stable when combined with other mods that may count on them being there. WAW's upgrade path for Siege units is Volley Gun -> GG -> Field Gun -> Heavy Field Gun, etc. For this particular problem, I'll probably move the GG to Rifling, moving it earlier in the TT and making sure there's at least overlapping Siege units available with no gaps.

This mod resets all tech costs, aligning them with the standard cost/per Era for VP techs. If the 1000% research change came from a different mod, then the load-order is probably the issue - i.e. if this mod loads last, it will set the costs along "normal" VP lines, over-writing any tech cost changes from other mods.

The Flotilla Destroyer is meant to be a decent upgrade from the Destroyer. I'll have to look at its stats again to make sure it's a better unit.

You are 100% correct on the Mobility Promotion applying to ALL units, not just naval units. Of course, I used the wrong promotion - should have been "Ocean Movement" ala Elizabeth's Unique Ability.

@X - you finished by WW2 as well? Hmmm.... I'd always thought that WAWs design lends itself to starting in the Era you're most interested. And as a bookend to that, it's why I completed the "End at ... Era" mods early on.

1. Happiness of 20 isn't very high for normal WAW games. I'm sure this is a VP thing. Still - as long as it's manageable/playable, it might be "good enough" for now.

2. I'm not 100% confident the upgrade paths are in the right place. I took a brief look at it before publishing the last version. Based on @MM's notes about Gatling Guns, it's obvious this needs to be looked at more closely.

3. Oil @ Combustion is too late for WAW. The problem is we have Oil-using units halfway up the "main era" column. With Combustion also in the middle, this really breaks the TT. I'd propose moving Oil to Assembly Line, and moving the Oil Refinery, Armored Car and Armored Tractor to that tech as well. I'd also make sure that all units requiring Oil would have Assembly Line as a prereq to their own prereq techs (e.g. Combustion, Flight, Ballistics, and Motorized Log.).

4. I was hoping Wonder costs had been fixed in the latest version. Are their costs not escalating like normal national wonders - i.e. the second wonder costs more than the first, and so on?


Appreciate all the support getting this mod ready for prime-time. Quite happy how well it's progressing!

 

[MariusMagnus]

About under 150 turns. I haven't technically won, it's just that there's no one left to contest me. Captured 9 capitals, I am leading in science and I have a death-grip on the World Congress.

The Destroyer's extra 2 moves over the Flotilla really makes a difference for me.

If the 1000% research change came from a different mod

It did. That's probably why

 

[MariusMagnus]

I didn't know this, but I guess costs for nearly everything are reduced when you start in later eras. I thought it was a little off that I was researching techs in 1-2 turns with only 1151 science on Marathon...

 

[Gabsau]

@Gasbau - sorry you're having problems. The mod requires BNW, but I don't remember it reusing any of the DLC content.

Did you try to use only this mod after clearing cache?

If you have BNW and cleared cache with only checking this mod, it's time to review your logs.

First, you need to enable logging - check this for details: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-enable-logging.487482/

Then, clear cache again, restart Civ 5, then enable only the World at War mod, then start a new game.

If the error is still there, exit Civ 5, come back to this forum, start a new post, then press the "Upload a File" button in the bottom right, under the new post.

When the popup appears, select "Browse" - a Windows Explorer file navigation popup should appear. You need to navigate to the Logs folder, usually some place like:


C:\Users\XXXXDocuments\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Logs

Where XXXX is the account you installed the game under.


You want to "Open" both the Database.log and Lua.log files, attaching both of them to the new post.

Then "Post Reply" so we can see the log files and hopefully get an idea what's causing the errors you're seeing.

Hi SMAN,

Firstly, thank you for your comprehensive troubleshooting advice. I have followed your instructions and have started a new game with only your mod running. The error unfortunately is still persistent. I have updated to the latest patch and I also have all DLCs. Please find my logs attached below.

On another note, thank you for your hard work on this mod. I have been playing the game without the scroll bar (as I can still research) and am really enjoying it. The scrollbar however, would be a nice addition for forward planning

Thanks for your help.

 

[sman1975]

No worries, @Gabsau - a few people have asked about this at Steam, so I know there's something going on. I appreciate your help trying to nail this down.

I looked over the logs, and about the only thing I noticed were some missing references to DLCs (Babylon, Danish, Incan, Polynesia) in the Database.log. There's nothing obvious here, but from looking online for solutions to the "missing scroll bar on the tech tree" problem, I saw more than a few references to missing DLCs. Lua and XML logs are fine.

I looked over the game's databases after the mod loads - looking for any DLC content I may have re-used to save time/space, but so far I haven't seen anything. I did see a couple of instances where the mod updates some database values for items added to the game via DLC (e.g. Walls of Babylon now receives an Espionage flavor). In and of themselves, these changes don't go anywhere near the tech tree, but I've seen many times how errors in one part of the mod manifest themselves in odd ways some place else.

For example, in the current version of the mod, the game CTDs when you enter the Strategic View. I've traced the error down to a single unit (V1 Rocket/WW2). I remove the unit, the StratView works fine. If I create a new mod with just that V1 unit, it works just fine. So - the unit itself is fine, but for some reason, when combined with rest of the mod, the crash returns. There is a problem in the mod I haven't found yet, and it manifests itself by this crash, even though there's nothing technically wrong in the proximate area. These are by far the hardest things to fix in a mod. They take an enormous amount of time to find, and often the fix is a simple change of a key stroke or two...

A few questions:

- You DO have BNW installed, no?
- What is the screen resolution you're playing at?
- What does the tech tree do if you use the scroll wheel between the buttons?
- Do you have EUI installed? Or installed in the past?
- Do you have VP installed? Or installed in the past?

Thanks!

 

[Gabsau]

No worries, @Gabsau - a few people have asked about this at Steam, so I know there's something going on. I appreciate your help trying to nail this down.

I looked over the logs, and about the only thing I noticed were some missing references to DLCs (Babylon, Danish, Incan, Polynesia) in the Database.log. There's nothing obvious here, but from looking online for solutions to the "missing scroll bar on the tech tree" problem, I saw more than a few references to missing DLCs. Lua and XML logs are fine.

I looked over the game's databases after the mod loads - looking for any DLC content I may have re-used to save time/space, but so far I haven't seen anything. I did see a couple of instances where the mod updates some database values for items added to the game via DLC (e.g. Walls of Babylon now receives an Espionage flavor). In and of themselves, these changes don't go anywhere near the tech tree, but I've seen many times how errors in one part of the mod manifest themselves in odd ways some place else.

For example, in the current version of the mod, the game CTDs when you enter the Strategic View. I've traced the error down to a single unit (V1 Rocket/WW2). I remove the unit, the StratView works fine. If I create a new mod with just that V1 unit, it works just fine. So - the unit itself is fine, but for some reason, when combined with rest of the mod, the crash returns. There is a problem in the mod I haven't found yet, and it manifests itself by this crash, even though there's nothing technically wrong in the proximate area. These are by far the hardest things to fix in a mod. They take an enormous amount of time to find, and often the fix is a simple change of a key stroke or two...

A few questions:

- You DO have BNW installed, no?
- What is the screen resolution you're playing at?
- What does the tech tree do if you use the scroll wheel between the buttons?
- Do you have EUI installed? Or installed in the past?
- Do you have VP installed? Or installed in the past?

Thanks!

Hi Sman,

With regards to the DLCs, in the previous post I meant to say expansions. So yes, I am missing the Babylon, Danish, Incan, Polynesian DLC as I have not got them installed.

With regards to the questions:

- You DO have BNW installed, no?
Yes, I do

- What is the screen resolution you're playing at?
1920x1080 60hz and Anti-Aliasing Off (I can't seem to turn it on)

- What does the tech tree do if you use the scroll wheel between the buttons?
Nothing. No effect.

- Do you have EUI installed? Or installed in the past?
No, and have never used it

- Do you have VP installed? Or installed in the past?
No, and have never used it.

Hopes this helps!

EDIT: Also - I've attached a Dxdiag - maybe it might help?

 

[sman1975]

@Gabsau - try to use a different screen resolution than 1920x1080. Then start a new game and see if you see the same behavior.

 

[sman1975]

If anyone is still testing, please pop up and let me know what else needs changing. I'm anxious to go final on this version of the mod, so I can start working on the next. Thanks!

 

[XxPun12h3rxX]

Almost done with my latest game. Ill get a little list done at the end of that. Shouldn't be long.

 

[bigrube]

I really wanna enjoy this mod because it seems fantastic, but I have a weird issue where my tech is future even if i start in the ancient era. I'm sorry if this is a dumb issue but I've been looking both here and the steam page for anyone else with this problem and can't seem to find anything. I've tried clearing the cache, disabling all mods, etc. Am I missing something? It's really weird to start with biotroopers in the ancient age.

 

[sman1975]

@bigrube - do you have all DLC downloaded/installed?