Solver's Unofficial BtS Patch

[KMadCandy]

In war situations it isn't that bad. Sometimes it is, though, in particular in cancel deal situations. I often have a situation where the master hates me and won't trade much but the vassal has some good trading relations. If they're both the same civ, I can never know who I'm asked to cancel deals with. Probably the most annoying of these situations.

actually you can. you can check the foreign advisor during a demand, but i didn't know that at first since i can't access it my usual way (F4). i had thought it was by design. i have to click the mouse on the button in the corner of the screen. then i can go check how whoever's making the demand feels about the various so-and-so's and usually can tell which ones he thinks are vile.

the trade screen is still up in the background while you're checking the advisor. i do this for tech demands too, to check whether it's a monopoly or maybe it's so well known that it's worth giving in, or to check the powergraph to see how scary the guy is.

what i've heard is that if you leave the advisor screens by hitting "escape", rather than clicking on exit with your mouse, that closes the diplomatic trade screen too with an automatic "no" answer. i haven't tested that since i'm little miss ultra-cautious, but be careful.

 

[Tryfan]

Out of curiosity, when the official patch comes will we need to fully reinstall the entire game if we've used this unofficial patch?

 

[Solver]

actually you can. you can check the foreign advisor during a demand, but i didn't know that at first since i can't access it my usual way (F4). i had thought it was by design. i have to click the mouse on the button in the corner of the screen. then i can go check how whoever's making the demand feels about the various so-and-so's and usually can tell which ones he thinks are vile.

It's a big hoop to jump through. I know you can open the advisors while negotiating, but having to check relations to make a guess which of the two Spains the proposal refers to isn't good game design by any stretch.

Out of curiosity, when the official patch comes will we need to fully reinstall the entire game if we've used this unofficial patch?

No, the real patch should just overwrite my changes.

 

[jkp1187]

That's in Assets\XML\GameInfo\Civ4CorporationInfo.xml. For each corporation, there's a segment that looks like

<HeadquarterCommerces>
        <iHeadquarterCommerce>5</iHeadquarterCommerce>
        <iHeadquarterCommerce>0</iHeadquarterCommerce>
        <iHeadquarterCommerce>0</iHeadquarterCommerce>
</HeadquarterCommerces>

Obviously, you want to change that 5 to 4 then - and do so for all seven corporations in the file.

Solver -- if I make these changes to the XML files, are they backward-compatible with save games, or no?

 

[OneBinary]

Solver: Have you heard any estimates on when the next official patch (with some/all of these changes) might come out?

 

[ori]

Solver: Have you heard any estimates on when the next official patch (with some/all of these changes) might come out?

Solver posted this a few days ago:

This is probably the last update. As Alexman said, the real patch is probably some three weeks away, and in all likelihood then I won't be updating this again.

And Alexman posted this a week ago:

Hey guys, we're basically done with the patch. You'll get it as soon as we can test it. I would guess about 3 weeks.

This is going to be the first real patch, by the way. v303 was meant to have no code changes, just a setting change to deal with some vista issues, and the latest DirectX version on the installer. Unfortunately, we messed up and built it off of a bad branch of the code. Sorry about that.

So there is an estimate

 

[Solver]

Solver -- if I make these changes to the XML files, are they backward-compatible with save games, or no?

They are, I believe. Essentially, if you change some numbers, they will be compatible with save games, if you add stuff (new units, events, whatever), you won't even be able to load an old save.

 

[Aamto12]

so I take it if I downloaded the game from Steam, I can't use this patch?

 

[Solver]

You can, it's just that the path to the folder where you need to put it is different for the Steam download version. I think it was mentioned somewhere in this thread...

 

[ebo]

I think the following code change fixes the bug(?) that workers building automated trade network go to full automation.

void CvUnitAI::AI_networkAutomated()

Remove the following:

if (AI_improveLocalPlot(3, NULL))
{
	return;
}

if (AI_nextCityToImprove(NULL))
{
	return;
}

Is there any chance of this being implemented? I really like the automated trade route, but it is a pain when they go and build improvements I do not want.

 

[lex_kravetski]

Solver, please compile your patch with 34 civs in it. I like to play with 18 civs on map, but 18 civs limit (in .dll) means no colonies in game.

 

[Solver]

Come on, you can easily recompile it yourself, I think it's just one define that changes

 

[lex_kravetski]

Come on, you can easily recompile it yourself, I think it's just one define that changes

I can. But though I'm LockOn's ex-programmer I have no Visual Studio installed now (vidit oko, da zub ne ymet). My way is Java these days. Maybe when you will compile patch next time you redefine one constant?

 

[LordGek]

I can. But though I'm LockOn's ex-programmer I have no Visual Studio installed now (vidit oko, da zub ne ymet). My way is Java these days. Maybe when you will compile patch next time you redefine one constant?

Just butting in here, but so far Solver has been pretty consistent not to work in any fixes for other mods. While this may be a very minor change it then takes this series out of the realm of "fixing the core game to what WAS intended" to "hey, wouldn't this be even BETTER than what the designers had in mind". Also, wasn't there a reason Firaxis chose to limit the number of allowable Civs (like the increased system requirements to run smoothly or other potential problems brought on by the code never having been adequately tested for 34 Civ games?)? Sure, as it is already Firaxis in no way supports this unofficial series of patches but still you know somebody would come whining here to Solver that his patch totally hosed this guy's game when he tried to run it with 34 Civs and it crashed his 1990's computer.

 

[lex_kravetski]

Just butting in here, but so far Solver has been pretty consistent not to work in any fixes for other mods. While this may be a very minor change it then takes this series out of the realm of "fixing the core game to what WAS intended" to "hey, wouldn't this be even BETTER than what the designers had in mind". Also, wasn't there a reason Firaxis chose to limit the number of allowable Civs (like the increased system requirements to run smoothly or other potential problems brought on by the code never having been adequately tested for 34 Civ games?)? Sure, as it is already Firaxis in no way supports this unofficial series of patches but still you know somebody would come whining here to Solver that his patch totally hosed this guy's game when he tried to run it with 34 Civs and it crashed his 1990's computer.

Designer's logic likes prohibiting "format" command in Windows this way. Maybe someone doesn't know what he's doing and destory all data in his hard drive. IMHO civs limit is option for configuration file and must not be hardcoded. I don't know reason of this Civ4's designers choice. Perfomance? It's an answer but I have perfomance settings in game. If my hypothetic Voodoo can't run fast at 1600*1400 I will decrease the resolution. If my Pentium I can't work with 34 civs it could be nice to play with 4 AIs. But if my PC can I need to recompile .dll. Oh, god! I program at work five days a week. Do I need to find any C++ compiler when I'm home? Thanks for Solver who did this patch for I'm not doing it.

 

[Lt. Bob]

lex: Just grab my 40civs mod from the mod components forum. It includes solver's changes and unless you change the xml files to add my features it won't change the game in any other way than to add >18 civ support and colonies.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=234779

 

[lex_kravetski]

lex: Just grab my 40civs mod from the mod components forum. It includes solver's changes and unless you change the xml files to add my features it won't change the game in any other way than to add >18 civ support and colonies.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=234779

Such a great news! Thank you, friend.

 

[Solver]

Designer's logic likes prohibiting "format" command in Windows this way. Maybe someone doesn't know what he's doing and destory all data in his hard drive. IMHO civs limit is option for configuration file and must not be hardcoded. I don't know reason of this Civ4's designers choice. Perfomance? It's an answer but I have perfomance settings in game. If my hypothetic Voodoo can't run fast at 1600*1400 I will decrease the resolution. If my Pentium I can't work with 34 civs it could be nice to play with 4 AIs. But if my PC can I need to recompile .dll. Oh, god! I program at work five days a week. Do I need to find any C++ compiler when I'm home? Thanks for Solver who did this patch for I'm not doing it.

The in-game performance options relate to graphics only, really.

Changing the amount of civs, though, does affect performance. Obviously, if you actually play with 30 civs, that's slower than with 18. But even if you don't, it's still slower. The amount of civs is defined as a constant in the code - there are many loops which iterate for the maximum amount of players. Of course, when you go from 18 to to 40, the extra 22 iterations aren't that long, but there are many of these loops and they get called many times during each turn, so it does add up.

Nice to see that Lt. Bob has a suitable version there

 

[Teg_Navanis]

Just butting in here, but so far Solver has been pretty consistent not to work in any fixes for other mods.

Do you have this post in mind by any chance? Funny thing is, I later found out that it also crashes unmodded games (more info). Consider this a sly bump

 

[lex_kravetski]

The amount of civs is defined as a constant in the code - there are many loops which iterate for the maximum amount of players. Of course, when you go from 18 to to 40, the extra 22 iterations aren't that long, but there are many of these loops and they get called many times during each turn, so it does add up.

What?! Loops depend on max available amount of players? Not on number of players still alive? I can't belive it!