Solver's Unofficial BtS Patch

[Welnic]

If you want a fix to the Military Academy bug, download the next file and
 place it into Assets\Units (again, preferably back up the original).

I don't exactly have this folder; is it safe to say its actually in Assets\XML\Units?

That's correct.

 

[Borya]

Thank you for the fixes!

Will the DLL changes take effect after loading a saved game?

 

[jprc]

unsure if it has been reported already... but I do it with my own words... I hope (for Solver) that what I say is just repeated, and if it is the case, I want to be banned as I will focus then more on my work...

major:
1- when playing for the 1st time BTS, I received a great Spy as my 1st Great Person. Not knowing what to do with it, I started a Golden Age (1 G.P. used). Then, later on in the game, I had another GP. I can't recall what it was... And again, I only needed 1 for starting a Golden Age!! I thought "Great, they changed this in the expansion", and had Golden Ages several times with 1 GP... until I was defeated...
In the next game, no such thing: I had to use an increased number of GP!!!
Unfortunately,as I thought it was ok with the 1st game, I overwrote my saved games with my new games...
Any one has experienced this before???

2- No saved game also because I was not on my computer: When using on a cruiser the option "cut the trade routes", it cuts ... MY vassals' trade routes! It shoudl be noted that I just had them capitulating a few turns before and they were still furious. It seems also that the cruiser was carrying on orders received while they were foes, and he AI did not update it properly afterward (a guess, only a guess)

3- why pointless buildings are still avalaible for building in cities? example, I have built 3 Gorges Dam, and even the city that built it still proposes coal/hydro/nuclear plants ... if I am not wrong (I hope), building these plants would not bring any bonus, and they should be desabled (especially if the city is under AI) ... until they are needed again (ex.: wonder destroyed or lost...)

minor:
a- (not a bug) when carrying an action in a city with a spy, missing the information related to the available amount of points, within the popup giving choices for actions (cost / total available)
b- (not a bug) I have the feeling zeppelins are coming way too early in the game. For compensating this archery and gunpowder units should be able to damage them -not destroy - ex: -50% maxi for them. After all, it is only a huge thin envelop...
c- (not a bug) Some small icons of faces are ugly, ex Darius... needs a fix
d- (not a bug) when starting a game, you have a "welcome screen" with the leader and units. It is possible to see the details for the unit and building and learn about the civilization's specs, but no way to know more about the leader itself (useful when choosing randomly a leader and recalling what he can do...)
e- (not a bug?), the prescience of some units is annoying and unfair. Example, hen placed in exploring mode a unit seems always to know where are the tribes, even if still placed in the fog of war.
f- (not a bug?), are you sure barbarian spearmen and galleys are correctly activated? Up till now, in Warlords and BTS I have found none, and I like to play with ragging barbarians...
g- (not a bug) when playing in custom mode, with the advanced start option, modern age, a pop up should come and suggest to turn off some victory modes (ex.: cultural? Spaceship?) as it would be near impossible or not very funny to forget to do it before hand and just play a game where you always race against space ship builders.

 

[anth]

Where is this patch supposed to go? I know the dll goes into bts/assets but what all the other files?

 

[Horace]

Hello, Will these changes affect saved games - in particular a multiplayer hotseat game? or do they only affect newly started games? thanks

 

[Solver]

anth - you don't need the other files unless you're a programmer / SDK modder.

Horace, it affects the game immediately. In multiplayer, though, you need to have the same files as all your opponents, so I presume you'd also need your opponents to install this.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Horace, it affects the game immediately. In multiplayer, though, you need to have the same files as all your opponents, so I presume you'd also need your opponents to install this.

Well, hotseat they'd all have it at once.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

Thanks for the great 'unofficial' effort.

One thing that concerns me about the Corporation change (and any that Firaxis might be planning that are similar)....they make Corporation spreading a no-brainer now. I cant see any real reason not to do it in all your cities. The maintenance cost is not likely to outweigh the +5gpt in the HQ city (particularly with all the bells and whistles). So you are getting usually MORE money AND the other benefit. So it becomes like Religions...spread it everywhere.

Personally, I think that takes some of the strategy and decision-making away from corporations. Obviously some tweak needed to be done at the higher difficulties where the double whammy of increased corporate maintenance penalty AND increased inflation combined to make them not worth while. But de-coupling Corp maintenance from Inflation altogether makes them entirely too good IMO, particular on Prince and below...probably Monarch and below for that matter although I havent tried above Prince yet.

 

[Solver]

I think the right balance will be found for the official patch for sure. It's just a matter of tweaking the formula.

Also, don't forget that corporation maintenance increases as you have more resources, so having really powerful corporations will also be more expensive.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

But de-coupling Corp maintenance from Inflation altogether makes them entirely too good IMO,

the baseline cost might need to be increased, but to make tie corporation balance to game turn seems like it will result in lots of frustration if anyone doesn't manage to win in time. Why should corporations get progressively worse, when most other means of income get better over time?

I cant see any real reason not to do it in all your cities. The maintenance cost is not likely to outweigh the +5gpt in the HQ city

As long as the maintenance cost is used to balance the HQ income, corporations in foreign lands will be losing propositions. In which case, there is no more strategy than otherwise, the optimum strategy will always be to send your branches to opponents and hurt them while you enrich yourself.

I believe that HQ income should scale to map size so it doesn't get out of control, and then you will come to cases where you need to think twice about spreading corporations, without foreign corporations being a noose you slowly close.

 

[46852]

I think the right balance will be found for the official patch for sure. It's just a matter of tweaking the formula.

Also, don't forget that corporation maintenance increases as you have more resources, so having really powerful corporations will also be more expensive.

Won't comment on the right balance, but I agree with Uncle Joe, corporations shouldn't be too profitable.

With Solver's fix, in big cities (25+) the maintenance of a corporation consuming around 20 resources is about 60 gold => 30gold after courthouse. You'll get around 40 commerce worth of bonuses from 20 resources. That nets you 20-30 gold/beakers for a domestic corp branch if the HQ is in Wall Street city. That's quite a lot. And its 50-60 gold for a branch placed in a foreign city.

Before the fix, the figures would've been around -15 gold for domestic branch and +15 gold for foreign branch, with 1900 inflation (around 140%). This doesn't sound bad to me really, but when the inflation rises, it goes out of whack.

I hope the designers keep couple of facts in mind when rethinking corporations:
- Don't make them like religions (spammable)
- The AI most likely doesn't know how to use them efficiently, don't make them too powerful weapon to cripple your opponents economy or boost your own
- Free market needs to be competitive with state property, so corporations must be of some use


Just my hasty 2c, feel free to correct my calculations based on a quick analysis of a late-game save

 

[GIR]

@Solver:

wow - thx for the Unofficial BtS Patches!
thats so great, what an awesome service!

 

[jkp1187]

Won't comment on the right balance, but I agree with Uncle Joe, corporations shouldn't be too profitable.

With Solver's fix, in big cities (25+) the maintenance of a corporation consuming around 20 resources is about 60 gold => 30gold after courthouse. You'll get around 40 commerce worth of bonuses from 20 resources. That nets you 20-30 gold/beakers for a domestic corp branch if the HQ is in Wall Street city. That's quite a lot. And its 50-60 gold for a branch placed in a foreign city.

Before the fix, the figures would've been around -15 gold for domestic branch and +15 gold for foreign branch, with 1900 inflation (around 140%). This doesn't sound bad to me really, but when the inflation rises, it goes out of whack.

I hope the designers keep couple of facts in mind when rethinking corporations:
- Don't make them like religions (spammable)
- The AI most likely doesn't know how to use them efficiently, don't make them too powerful weapon to cripple your opponents economy or boost your own
- Free market needs to be competitive with state property, so corporations must be of some use


Just my hasty 2c, feel free to correct my calculations based on a quick analysis of a late-game save

The problem is that they way they're implemented now, they are too much of a weapon.... They should have some cost internally, but not to the point of choking the economy (especially for the spam-happy AI,) unless the cities are weighed down by more than one branch.

I think the key question should be not so much whether or not to expand the corporations to your own cities, as whether or not to expand them overseas for lots of profit (but with the downside of providing your enemies with the benefits of that branch.) I think expanding the corporation to core cities should be a given (although perhaps not to each outlying city of the empire.)

And, yes, I am hugely in favor of corporations as a way to make FM compete with SP for production/population growth....

(Sorry to hijack this thread -- that's what I get for reading posts while I'm working, and forget what the original subject was....)

 

[Solver]

Updated

Final update for this week, one change but a very pleasant one:

* Blockade code rewritten so that blockading is now much faster, as per Gyathaar

 

[Roland Johansen]

Thanks Solver and all the ones who have contributed to these bug fixes. It's great to have the bugs fixed long before the official patch and with bug fixes which are probably very similar to the official ones.

Have a virtual from me.

 

[jkp1187]

Thanks Solver and all the ones who have contributed to these bug fixes. It's great to have the bugs fixed long before the official patch and with bug fixes which are probably very similar to the official ones.

Have a virtual from me.

I agree. You are definitely going above and beyond here.

 

[IronCrown]

I always liked the baltic countries

 

[Spammurabi]

Hooray! Now I can play on Marathon, with Corporations, and without having to use HRE/Zulu to kill Corp. maintentance/inflation.

Great work, Solver!

 

[Nikis-Knight]

* Blockade code rewritten so that blockading is now much faster, as per Gyathaar

Wow, that's a great one!

 

[kniteowl]

Any there any way to check whether or not the Patch is working?

Like they did with Better AI, if you down alt and hover over you're name the better AI name pops up.