Solver's unofficial BtS 3.17 patch

Solver

Mohawk Games Designer
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The Unofficial Patch has its own separate forum, please use it for discussions and comments

Unofficial BtS Patch forum

Welcome to the third installment in the series :D Following Bhruic's 3.13 patch and Solver's 3.02 patch, here's the unofficial patch for Beyond the Sword 3.17. Right now, this is a quick fix post, various boring information to come up later ;)

If you spot issues with BtS 3.17, please report them, a new thread in the Bug Reports forum is best. Attach savegames when possible, they make tracking down reproducible problems much easier.

The current version is a zip file that should be extracted to your BtS install directory. It's suggested that you back up the original files first manually. The zip also includes several files .cpp files in the CvGameCoredll folder. Those are for modders. Basically, if you don't know what those files are, don't worry - you don't need them.

Currently we have version 0.19, here's the changelog (should be read bottom to top).

  • AI plane/ship retreating logic when city is in danger extended to Forts
  • Vassal's spies no longer caught in master's territory
  • AI logic on banning nukes tweaked to account for AI leader personality and the global situation
  • Non-native collateral damage tweaked (thanks guys)
  • Civilopedia will now display "replaced by" lines for buildings that get replaced by UBs
  • AI guided missiles will lean towards destroying resource-producing tiles as opposed to improvements like Towns
  • Damaged AI attack planes may choose to continue attacking if no defending interceptors are around
  • Rivers running through deserts will result in floodplains
  • Start location tweaks per SevenSpirits
  • Workers not as lazy, per Bhruic's patch
  • Glance screen reactivated
  • AI will no longer settle Great People in cities that are in danger of being captured
  • AI will try to retreat air assets from endangered cities
  • AI will no longer refuse to retreat damaged planes
  • AI will change civics during Golden Ages
  • Revised collateral damage formula for non-native collateral units, if modded in
  • Fixed bug in the map generator with water starts
  • AI may now try to use Warlords to create super-medic units
  • Fixed bug that prevented random events that target a unit from triggering
  • Access to the Barrage line removed from armored units. If units with access to Barrage and no inherent collateral damage are modded in, they will work.
  • Fixed AI defender bug for newly captured cities.
  • Made the AI more likely to use missiles on cruisers/subs to strike against enemy improvements.
  • Made AI ships prioritize retreating if docked in a city which is in the danger of imminent capture by enemy.
  • Civilopedia and mouseover help for units that cause collateral damage will now show the collateral damage limit (50% for Catapults, etc.)
  • Somewhat experimental AI change: Aggressive AI now considerably less likely to want peace if it poses more of an immediate threat to enemy cities than it currently faces itself.
  • Fixed unavailability of foreign civ demographics if playing with espionage disabled.
  • Barrage promotions made working again on Tanks and other units with no base collateral ability

Okay, here's some information that might come in useful for those unfamiliar with unofficial patches:

To use this unofficial patch, you must first install the official 3.17 patch for BtS. Refer to the general 3.17 thread if you need help or have questions about that patch. This unofficial patch fixes some known issues from the official patch.

About multiplayer games: the unofficial patch will not work in multiplayer if you are playing with others who do not have it. Basically, to play multiplayer, everyone must have the same files. You can play fine with others who also install the unofficial patch, but you'll need to use the original 3.17 files to play multiplayer otherwise.

About mod compatibility: as a general rule, if a mod doesn't have its own CvGameCoreDll.dll file, then it's compatible with the unofficial patch, otherwise it's not.

Download: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9826

An installer courtesy of Grumbler is available (verify version in the installer!): http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9891
 
That was quick ;) How did you solved the barrage stuff, BTW ?

P.S Can we have the unreveal tiles button in the WB back, pls? :p ( I think that is simply commented out ( like Glance ) but I'm making a scenario now and I can't confirm.... )
 
In 3.17, only units with a base ability for collateral damage are considered for collateral combat. I made it also consider units that have an acquired (promotion) ability. The amount of collateral damage dealt by Barrage-promoted Tanks is very low, though. I'll try and find out what the intended effect was, then possibly tweak the code so that Barrage Tanks would do a bit more damage - they currently deal less than Catapults, I believe.
 
For what I understand from the code ( not much, as I'm not familiar with Python.... ;) ) the idea was make barrage to give a effect closer of what it stated in promo screen ( with stacking effects a thing that sometimes didn't happened very well in 3.13 , as stated in OTAKU thread ), but without OPing siege. The problem is that they forgot that small detail that barrage is acessible to non siege units.....

I think that by far the best solution is to get the old Coll strength formula.....
 
Python wouldn't help much as it's all in the SDK, which is C++ ;)

Going back to the old formula isn't really much good. Best to try and figure out what the intended effects are and adjust the fix to closer match those. For now it works... but I'm almost sure that I'll change the fix later.
 
I wrote Python... :hammer2: That is what you get for Atl-Tabing too much ;). I'm not so familiar with C as well ( my programming skills are wierd: Fortran, Pascal, VB, Matlab, Java... but no C :confused: ) : I can read it badly, but not even close of doing something useful out of it :p
 
I already posted this in another thread, but I can do it again if you wish. It's simply that thing where worst enemy stuff gives spoiler info. Nothing particularly great and I am thinking it's easily fixable?

Spoiler :
There is a bug I have found with this patch.



I really like the "worst enemy" feature, but here, it says Lincoln is the worst enemy of Shaka yet I have never met Shaka.


NOTE: save coming later when i can find it, maybe today
 
Balderstorm: yes, the source it's included, that being just one cpp file at the moment.

DMOC, can you post a save where this situation can be encountered?
 
here's a save like what DMOC is talking about... I presume it's happening in any game save though. I noticed it right away, kind of distressing when these patches miss big things like this. I think the game is the victim of its own complexity.
 

Attachments

  • LlamaCat BC-0775.CivBeyondSwordSave
    112 KB · Views: 305
Side note: I am thinking of tweaking the capitulation threshold as part of this. It's been changed in 3.17 and so far my experience is that AI civs capitulate very easily. I'm seeing them capitulate after losing 2 or 3 cities. It does help warmonger AIs gain vassals, but so far I find it have quite a negative gameplay effect.
 
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