Traits

[woodelf]

Time to think about leader traits and how they will interact with SE.

We also need to come up with concrete effects for each of the 10 variables, but that's for another thread.

And please correct me when I bugger something up since I don't have the game in front of me and I'm throwing in some new uncreated traits with the same terminology as will appear in SE. Names always subject to change.

Do we want to do negative traits or let SE handle that?

And we can let them have more than two if the need arises.

Yang
Police
Support

Deirdre
Planet
?????

Morgan
Economy
Probe?

Miriam
Support
Efficiency?

Zakharov
Research
??????

Santiago
Morale
Support
Police

Lal
Growth?
?????

These are all taken from the following choices:

Economy
Efficiency
Support
Morale
Police
Growth
Planet
Probe
Industry
Research

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

Faction Unique Power + Leader Traits ?

 

[deadliver]

Would it be easier for modders if the positive traits were kept seperate from the negative traits?

What I mean is, lets say we use Ingenuity (from ffh?) as a trait. Instead of adding to it's XML entry that it grants a happiness penalty (which is whatI am going to do) there is a seperate XML entry called Jaded (or whatever) that covers the negative aspects.

Would it be better to have all the bonuses listed seperately from the penalties?
I loved SMAC and XML seems easy enough to do so what the heck. I even started looking at the SDK files as is recommended in the forum. The lack of traits irks me and I decided I would try to fill in the blanks.

edit:apologies for the necromacny but why startup a new topic thread for same thing?

 

[deadliver]

Okay so I want to have the Morganites start out with 500 energy.

in the Infos xml files I added:

<iStartingGold>500</iStartingGold>

right under the iHappiness entry for convenience.

I then added iStartingGold to the schema xml file and loaded the game, I had no problems but of course there was no 500 gold for Morgans.

THEN I looked at the SDK files CVINFOS. In there I added

in the CVTraitInfo section:

m_iStartingGold(0), under m_iHappiness

then later:

int CVTraitInfo::getStartingGold() const
{
return m_iStartingGold;
}

then this in the xmlloadingutility section:

pXML->GetChildXmlValByName(&m_iStartingGold, "StartingGold"); (should that second Starting gold be iGold?)

Those are the changes I made in the CvInfo.cpp file. Then I made the following entries in the CVINFOs.h file:

DllExport int getStartingGold () const; // Exposed to Python this was entered under the Dllexport entry for getHappiness

....

then I entered:

int m_iStartingGold; in the protected member variables.


Now I am getting an XML loading error which says something about a call to load the TraitInfos.xml has failed?

Anyone here have any idea what I did wrong?


edit: I have found entries dealing with Traitinfo entries in some CY files too I am looking there.

 

[Maniac]

pXML->GetChildXmlValByName(&m_iStartingGold, "StartingGold");

StartingGold at the end should become iStartingGold, same as in the XML.


I'm interested in ideas for traits for factions. Have you already planned out what effects you're gonna give to each faction/leader?

What gameplay do you have in mind for the Morganites? Or are you just copying the SMAC effects? Thing is, in SMAC you could hurry stuff with those extra credits, but this isn't possible in Planetfall. So extra starting gold just means some faster research in the early game.

I was thinking the Morganites could be like the FfH Khazad: the more credits in the bank, the better. In that case extra starting gold would be useful of course. But in FfH the Khazad don't really perform well when played by the AI: the AI doesn't know it needs to harbour lots of gold. So unless someone has ideas how/where to write some AI code for that, I'm hesitant to give these effects to the Morganites.

 

[deadliver]

Thanks for your help Maniac, I will try it out later.

Personally I liked the setup in SMAC for the faction traits and they could probably be implemented in your mod. Or in terms of Civ4 for SMAC:

The Spartans:
1.) +25% Military Production,
2.) -25% non-Military Production.
3.) Half cost for upgrades, or free?

Gaia's Stepdaughters:
1.) +1 Food from Fungus (improved Fungus tiles?)
2.) -25% maintenance cost for distance and/or number of cities.
3.) Units require 1 extra XP for promotions.

University of Planet:
1.) Start with technology of choice.
2.) Cities come with free Network Node.
3.) +2 Unhappiness per city.

Human Hive:
1.) +10% Food.
2.) 10% discount on unit costs and buildings
3.) -1 Energy per City.

The Believers:
1.) Free Combat 1 for all units, including spies.
2.) -25% Research, perhaps also disallow research for X number of turns.
3.) 1 free Spy per City.

Finishing up the list I think this may be a little simplistic for what you want to do with your mod, and of course my interpretation of SMAC to Civ4 traits does not include the synergies for certain civics that the factions had in SMAC. I definitely think you should include the synergies from SMAC.

edit: I think the Morganites should want to explore and trade with the other factions ASAP, they should gain nice bonuses per trade route, either extra energy or food. I don't know if the Vault system would be appropriate for the Morganites, I think they should be like they wer ein SMAC, able to make an a**load of money at the cost of maintaining huge armies. When I played them I had small armies of super well equipped units, until I got clean reactors heh heh.

 

[deadliver]

no dice on the xml loading error, I am going to whine in the SDK thread. Thanks again for your help though as I did make at least that mistake. There must have been something else I forgot to post.

 

[UNpatriot]

The Believers:

3.) 1 free Spy per City.

That might be better for the Angels. Resistance against espionage would be better.

 

[deadliver]

Toying around with the idea of doing what I can in XML for these traits. I think I will try to work on the Hive, giving them a free perimeter defense (and I think 3 population when founding a base?). I do not have my copy of SMAC handy and cannot remember what else they had.

Also, to take a page from FFH2, I was thinking that you should have leaders not only have favorite civics but also their least favorite (like with entropy mana). This is straight from SMAC, that way you would have natural enemies.

 

[deadliver]

Alright so I went through the civ traits and building infos:

Noticed that the Hive already get a +25% to all cities (I had added perimeter defense as a free building in each city) and decided that in my version I am going to change the palace and put in free defenses per city like in SMAC. Having both gave them a formidable +75% to their base defense so I am going to axe the palace bonus simply because I cannot figure out graphically how to have the palace spawn a graphic only wall around each city.

Morganites I modded to have +2 Energy per trading route, I think this is close to what they had in SMAC. I am toying with the idea of trying to increase unit upkeep. I don't know if you want to limit their city size until they build a hab complex. What do you think? I have given up on the starting credits for now, I could not get it to work.

I like the Spartans as they are so far and will leave them alone.

The Believers received +25% to all their units, but the Spartans also receive something similar (I think?!?) so I am going to look through the promotions and see what would be an appropriate one.

I am going to toy with giving the University free Network nodes but they are going to be unhappier. They got "bonus" drones in the original. I do not know if I can XML the espionage penalties they received defending against other probe teams.

For the U.N. I have two ideas, either they should get some free specialists and/or a bonus to GP production. IMHO I would go with either 4 free specialists a city or 2 specialists and the GP bonus. I would also give them a health penalty but a happiness bonus.



edit: please be patient with me guys, I have not played Planetfall as much as I should have so I am still unfamiliar with a lot of the work you have already done with regards to the traits etc.