Solver's unofficial BtS 3.17 patch

[grumbler]

From looking at the CIV4HandicapInfo.xml, tech freebies are handed out as follows:

Settler: human gets Wheel, Agriculture, Mining
Chieftain: human gets Wheel, Agriculture
Warlord: human gets Wheel
Noble: -
Prince: -
Monarch: AI gets Archery
Emperor: AI gets Archery, Hunting
Immortal: AI gets Archery, Hunting, Agriculture
Deity: AI gets Archery, Hunting, Agriculture, Wheel

So if you're playing Settler or Chieftain and you always get Wheel and Agriculture or if you're playing Deity and the AIs always get them, I'm afraid you're perfectly fine ...

 

[EmperorFool]

@Drago - The only places where files should be installed normally is C:\Program Files\Sid Meier's Civ 4\... and C:\Docs and Settings\User\My Games\Beyond the Sword\... As long as you deleted both of those, that should be it.

It's odd that the unofficial patch could alter the initial techs like that, but I can't think of anything non-Civ4-related that could have such a specific effect. Did you try an exorcism?

 

[Drago Askani]

Im a ****** then. I hadn't played in months and bumped it down to warlord to practice an 18ai game, and noticed the extra tech on my germans. So I had Assumed it was a change made in the unofficial patch I downloaded. Then when I unistalled everything I started those games to test it at the default settings (chieftien is default) I never realized that those handicaps exist for humans since I used to play on Monarch when I played all the time...wow I feel like a complete scatterbrain now....

 

[GravityWave]

In case my install is somehow botched (or I'm being thick) can someone else check to see if the "create colony uses dead civ's slot" bug is still there? I have attached screenshots, and should be able to upload the saves tomorrow if no one can replicate it. I am using BTS3.17 and the Unofficial Patch 0.21.

Thanks.

 

[Dresden]

I'm guessing that was an 18-civ game which means the colony has no choice but to recycle an old slot. However, things like espionage and name should have been reset. Please upload the save from before the colony was created and any other saves you think are relevant and we'll look into it.

 

[Shackel]

My entire thing just crashes when it gets to "XML(uncached)". What do I do?

 

[GravityWave]

I'm guessing that was an 18-civ game which means the colony has no choice but to recycle an old slot. However, things like espionage and name should have been reset. Please upload the save from before the colony was created and any other saves you think are relevant and we'll look into it.

Yep, it's an 18 civ game where Willem was bumped off, so a slot became available for a colony to be created. I have attached the save. On the next turn Qin should grant independence to his cities in Australia, but instead of picking a whole new civ and leader it reuses some of the data.

Thanks for looking in to this.

 

[Dresden]

@GravityWave: Thanks for the save. It's not a faulty install on your end, there are still bugs in this area.

The leader name and civ name are problems that I can't completely fix (they're stored outside the SDK ) but I'm pretty sure I can work-around them with methods similar to what the Revolution mod does. If I hadn't learned better in the past I would find it hard to believe Firaxis didn't fix the name issue when it fixed the problem of leftover culture...

The Espionage is actually not a bug -- colonies inherit their parent's espionage ratio. Since your ratio with Qin was 0/379, you get the same ratio with the colony when it starts.

The score... is almost impossible to fix properly. The score history is part of the player object and can't be separated without a ridiculous amount of work. If I reset the score history for the new civ, then the original civ's history gets wiped from the records; so I'm inclined to leave it the way it is (but with the other fixes it should at least be under the new civ's name).

 

[Dresden]

@Shackel: You're gonna need to supply some more information. Which version of the UP did you install? How did you install it? Was the Official 3.17 fully installed first? Are any other mods installed? When it crashed, did you launch the game by double-clicking a save file or from the regular shortcut?

 

[Willem]

I believe I've run into a problem with the latest version of the patch. I just caught one of my Workers trying to build a Farm over an existing Cottage even though I have "Workers Leave Old Improvements" selected. That's never happened before this latest version.

PS: BTW, I had the Worker set for Build Trade Network so it shouldn't even have been building a Farm.

 

[Woody1]

I believe I've run into a problem with the latest version of the patch. I just caught one of my Workers trying to build a Farm over an existing Cottage even though I have "Workers Leave Old Improvements" selected. That's never happened before this latest version.

PS: BTW, I had the Worker set for Build Trade Network so it shouldn't even have been building a Farm.

My bet is that your tile had corn, rice, or wheat. That's the way it should work; it's adding resources to your empire.

 

[Dresden]

@Willem: If you post a save I'll take a look, but do check to make sure there's not a farmable resource on that plot like Woody1 suggests.

 

[Willem]

My bet is that your tile had corn, rice, or wheat. That's the way it should work; it's adding resources to your empire.

Honestly, do you really think I'm blind enough not to be able to see a food resource? I already mentioned that I had built a Cottage on the tile, and it was on a Floodplain. Since it was only supposed to be building a Trade Network, there was absolutely no reason why it would even have been trying to build a Farm there. It already had a Cottage and a Road so it had no business even working the tile. And even if there was a food resource there, the fact that I had a Cottage there would have meant that he should have ignored it, since I had Leave Old Improvements checked.

 

[Willem]

@Willem: If you post a save I'll take a look, but do check to make sure there's not a farmable resource on that plot like Woody1 suggests.

Sorry, but I don't have a save for that. And there can be no resources on a Floodplain.

 

[GravityWave]

@GravityWave: Thanks for the save. It's not a faulty install on your end, there are still bugs in this area. If I hadn't learned better in the past I would find it hard to believe Firaxis didn't fix the name issue when it fixed the problem of leftover culture...

...or fix it when they fixed the colony inheriting the dead civs diplomatic values... if they'd beta tested it they must of (literally) seen it was still broke in places.

Personally I wouldn't be bothered if the behaviour was changed back to 3.13+Bhruic's Unofficial Patch, i.e. you can't create a colony if the only slot available became free by a civ getting killed off. If I want to play with colonies I start the game with less than 18 civs anyway, and when Qin sprouted one I was initially surprised he could having got used to the changes of the 3.13 Unofficial Patch.

Any fix you can implement will be much appreciated though.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Woody1]

Sorry, but I don't have a save for that.

Well, that's convenient.

 

[Willem]

Well, that's convenient.

Is that supposed to imply something?

 

[PieceOfMind]

Is that supposed to imply something?

Willem, in all fairness, I'm also surprised you don't have a save for it. Why wouldn't you make a separate save whenever you notice something like this? I do it all the time... Recently I've been noticing very poor city governor decisions in Better BTS AI so I'm taking screenshots and savegames in the hope that they can be looked at.

Surely you know by now that people's pointing out of bugs (that no one else observes) are shot down very quickly when there is no evidence. The thread by sirnsuggles comes to mind (with the submarines blitz-killing units on sea patrol). That thread went on forever before anything was actually proved.

By the way, isn't it possible to have a resource on a floodplain in some map types (like fantasy realm)? I can't remember but this is only a moot point anyway.

 

[Willem]

Willem, in all fairness, I'm also surprised you don't have a save for it. Why wouldn't you make a separate save whenever you notice something like this? I do it all the time...

I wasn't prepared or even willing to be a beta-tester, I just wanted to play the game. I don't want to go through a hassle everytime I encounter some bug. I simply stopped the game, then rolled back the DLL to the 19.1 version, where I never saw that happening. I don't even keep saves while I'm playing, I've disabled the auto-save function so all I ever have is the initial 4000 BC save and any manual saves I may make. I really only mentioned the problem as a courtesy since I'm no longer even using the 19.21 patch. I switched immediately upon seeing the problem.

Surely you know by now that people's pointing out of bugs (that no one else observes) are shot down very quickly when there is no evidence. The thread by sirnsuggles comes to mind (with the submarines blitz-killing units on sea patrol). That thread went on forever before anything was actually proved.

Well hopefully I've been around long enough that my word holds credence when I say that something's wrong. There must have been a reason why Firaxis had me as a beta tester for two of their patches.

By the way, isn't it possible to have a resource on a floodplain in some map types (like fantasy realm)? I can't remember but this is only a moot point anyway.

Yes it is a moot point since I wasn't playing any odd map type, just Huge Hemispheres.

 

[Wodan]

This aside, it definitely is a bug that the AI workers farm and workshop over cottages/towns. I consider this a pretty game breaking problem, since what it means is that the AI effectively nerfs its own research as the game goes along, getting worse and worse until the modern era when the human easily out-techs the AIs.