Unaltered Gameplay Mantra

[EmperorFool]

I see this as mainly useful for 1 v 1 units (ie scout v bear) and decisions on run away or hold and defend. It might also be useful in 1v1 attack situations (ie city defended by warrior with barb warrior at your gates - do you attack or defend?).

This is exactly the situation I was in (healing warrior vs. barb warrior) that prompted this idea. I don't see this applying to stacks.

 

[Arlborn]

I have requested a feature for PieceOfMind's Advanced Combat Odds mod that I want to run by you guys as to it's UGness. When you have a unit selected and hold-right-click on an enemy unit, it shows you the probabilities of the various outcomes. My idea is to allow you to hold down control or shift and see the stats as if the battle were in the other direction--the defender was attacking your selected unit. In fact, we would have it select the best attacker from the tile you hover over.

It doesn't show you any information you cannot get already (unit type, strength, promos, etc). But it does perform battle calculations that you'd have to do manually. Of course, ACO does this too, so I think we've already crossed that bridge.

I don't know if I have any real saying on it but I don't like that. Who actually calculate that, really?

 

[EmperorFool]

Who actually calculate that, really?

PieceOfMind did. Yes, he/she actually wrote a Java program to perform battle odds calculations while playing. Now it's a modcomp that does it for you while hovering over the units.

Brilliant! And check out those cool multi-color probability bars.

 

[EmperorFool]

smeagolheart has released a new modcomp that allows you to examine a city before deciding whether to keep or raze it. I'm sure most everyone will agree that this should have been possible with the original game, but the real question is this:

Should this be included in BULL?​

 

[ruff_hi]

I have no problem with a full examination providing you have enough EPs against the civ in question. If you don't, then I think we should go with a partial exam (showing buildings only) ... because you can see those from a close examination of the actual city pics.

Can we do this from python ... add an option (Ctrl-Alt-E for examine city) that either opens the city screen or displays a list of buildings? Do we really need BULL?

 

[Roland Johansen]

smeagolheart has released a new modcomp that allows you to examine a city before deciding whether to keep or raze it. I'm sure most everyone will agree that this should have been possible with the original game, but the real question is this:

Should this be included in BULL?​

As long as you can't see anything that's impossible to deduce by looking at the city from the outside, I wouldn't mind. For instance, you shouldn't see the exact culture amount from the previous owner (which I wouldn't expect that the modcomp shows you). But the buildings should be visible because they can be seen from close inspection of the city from the outside. Likewise exact terrain output is clear.

One point of attention I realise now: if it shows you more terrain than you can see from the outside or if it shows you the resulting terrain output from terrain that you cannot yet see. That could be spoiler information. You might not have total information about the BFC of the city before you capture it.

By the way, I always play with no city razing, so this is actually of no interest to me. Just warning about non-UG stuff.

 

[EmperorFool]

Maybe it's unclear what this modcomp does. We may want to skip it and eventually (2011) build a city-examination screen instead, but that's orthogonal to this question.

When you capture a city, you are presented with an immediate popup asking if you want to keep, raze, or (sometimes) return it to its previous owner. At this point in the code, the city has already been recreated attached to your player, and whatever buildings remain you'll get if you keep it. The modcomp adds a "Examine the city" button which opens the city screen for that city.

You will see the buildings that survived the conquest and the settled great people. These two are the pieces I consider unaltered. Plus you can see everything else: trade routes, food, production, commerce, maintenance, etc, but that's more an effect of the buildings, great people and population, and it won't be meaningful until the city gets out of revolt anyway--after you've already decided to keep it.

How is this unaltered?

1. It's hard to tell what buildings survive the conquest of the city given that the unit that took it is standing on the city itself. Sure, you can turn on Bare Map View before the unit takes the city, but I don't know if the graphics are updated or not (they probably are).

2. You can see the settled great people. Without EP points to be able to investigate the city, you can't see these normally.

Maybe this is a feature for BUG-FE.

 

[phungus420]

Well I personally really want to see this included. If it were easy to code, you could put some sort of Censored Bar over the nationality bar and Settled Great people spot, that way everyone would be happy. Really though, the AI can see all the information when it chooses to keep or raze a city, and I don't see why this can't just be applied to the human.

That said, unfortunately this is not 100% UG, and so given the the other things that've been rejected, I find it hard to believe this would be included. Remember though it's only for BULL, and those that are using a modified gamecore would be far more likely to accept this very minor deviation from total UG. The other info in the city screen is all nothing, since the city is in revolt when captured. The buildings and city map are all visible anyway, so the only non UG part of this is the ability to see settled great people, and the nationality bar, both of which I think are harmless to show, and would rather see included.

I don't know though, I'm no purist by any means. And I'll use this regardless, it'll just make it easier for me and/or glider to merge if this were just part of BULL anyway.

 

[Gorey]

whether examining the city before razing etc. is UG or not.. its something that should have been present from day 1.

 

[EmperorFool]

whether examining the city before razing etc. is UG or not.. its something that should have been present from day 1.

This part I do not disagree with. However, this is not the condition for UGness. There are plenty of players that use BUG because it is UG. Since we started BUG as UG, I won't throw it out.

However, we are planning some sort of semi-non-UG extension to BUG. The only thing missing, as usual, is time to build it. I'll worry about a non-UG BULL once I get BULL out in the first place.

 

[phungus420]

This part I do not disagree with. However, this is not the condition for UGness. There are plenty of players that use BUG because it is UG. Since we started BUG as UG, I won't throw it out.

However, we are planning some sort of semi-non-UG extension to BUG. The only thing missing, as usual, is time to build it. I'll worry about a non-UG BULL once I get BULL out in the first place.

My suggestion is, since BULL must be installed as a mod, and cannot be played in an entirely Unaltered save game format (without replacing the original gamecore), it's alright to let BULL be semi UG, within reason. The examine city feature is about as far as I think you should go with it (the ability to see the settled great people really isn't that far off of UG ). And that way BULL can be shaped to be the best interface for CIV without some completely arbitrary rules (which in most cases are just rushed implementations due to deadlines, and simple oversight).

 

[EmperorFool]

As I get close to a BULL release I am thinking more and more about the Unofficial Patch. It seems that the project itself has died as both of its maintainers--Solver and Dresden--are MIA. This means I no longer have someone willing to maintain the BUG + UP and BUG + BetterAI merges.

My plan is to incorporate as much of the UP into BULL. There are three types of changes in the UP:

• Those that definitely don't alter gameplay
• Those that slightly or arguably alter gameplay
• Those that definitely alter gameplay

Here are some examples:

Pure Bug Fix / Innocuous New Feature

• Shows the maximum collateral damage an attacking siege unit can score in its hover.
• Shows unique buildings that replace a default building.

Slight / Arguable Gameplay Alteration

• Fixes a bug where an AI capturing a city halves the number of defenders it leaves behind if the city doesn't have an active wonder or it is a holy city (changed to is not which is clearly more correct).
• Building or removing a fort will now force a plotgroup update to verify resource connections.
• Rivers running through deserts will result in floodplains when adding rivers to starting locations in map generation.
• Other map generation tweaks.

Definite Gameplay Alteration

Bug Fixes

• Some production modifiers were removed when calculating overflow gold.
• Fixed Spread Culture espionage mission which would multiply the stated effects by 100. Fix was to call changeCulture() instead of changeCultureTimes100().
• Some events that target units failed to fire.
• AI can now be bribed to switch non-favorite civics if running their favorite.
• AI will change civics/religion during GA.
• Fixed bug in AI player closeness when planning wars.
• No Barrage on non-Siege plus fixes to Collateral.

New Features

• AI AutoPlay
• AI logic on banning nukes tweaked to account for AI leader personality and the global situation.
• Obsolete bonuses now have some configurable trade value.

I'm going to include those in the first group in BULL for sure. These include mostly interface enhancements a la BULL itself. I'd like some feedback on the other types.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I like all the changes in the UP (and the BetterAI). Some player dislike certain individual changes. I thought you were planning to make some elements optional. Are you trying to find out if there is a common selection of changes that are agreed upon by everyone (and thus don't need to be optional)?

I don't know if there will be enough different posters reacting to this question to get a good idea of the preference of the entire community. Those who are reacting are the ones who are the most vocal, but not necessarily representing the community. But I guess that's always a problem that you'll face as a modmaker when you want the opinion of the community. Good luck.

 

[EmperorFool]

It's not so much consensus on which are acceptable that I'm seeking. I went through the whole set of changes this evening and found that far more were game-changing than I had originally thought. BULL is part of BUG and thus needs to adhere to the UG mantra.

The pure interface fixes will of course go into BULL. Some of the other fixes I listed I think are still pretty close to the spirit of UG. Take the two map-generation fixes: adding Flood Plains to Deserts when a river is added to enhance a starting location. This seems a) like a natural oversight of the developers and b) not so much a game rule change as a game setup change. That's splitting hairs, but I personally feel it's on the UG side of things.

For the rest, I could make each one optional. However, that takes a non-trivial amount of time, and I really want to get BULL out the door. RL is imposing more constraints on my time, so if I can avoid doing work that only 1% want done, I'll take that shortcut for now.

 

[phungus420]

So then you're planning on cutting obvious bug fixes, like the AI closeness calculation? That's an obvious oversight by the devs to make the AI think every civ is sitting on top of it's capital, and thus trigger it's paranoia code against everyone it isn't friendly with.

 

[JujuLautre]

The problem here I think is that it could well be an oversight from the programmers, but that it will change the game play perhaps a lot. For people who expect a mod not changing anything to game play, this could perhaps be too much.

I'd suggest releasing a version of BULL with the minor tweaks you talk about (either minor or interface), and perhaps later, releasing at least one dll including the unofficial patch, if not a second with betterAI.

On a note, I believe that starting positions tweaks are crossing the line. Not that I do not want them personally (I actually changed them ) but I still think it's crossing the line of UG because it changes gameplay; again, this could be seen as too much by some users.

 

[Roland Johansen]

For the rest, I could make each one optional. However, that takes a non-trivial amount of time, and I really want to get BULL out the door. RL is imposing more constraints on my time, so if I can avoid doing work that only 1% want done, I'll take that shortcut for now.

If BTS 3.17 is the standard for UG, then most of the UP is of course changed gameplay. Any bug fix will be. You're of course free to spend your time however you want to, so if it takes too much of your time to add options, then you shouldn't do it. You must somehow find the optimal balance between the time that you spend on this mod and the rewards that it gives you/the CIV community. I suspect that it would give you as a developer the most satisfaction to create a mod that pleases the majority of the present and future BUG users. You must somehow find out what the majority of the BUG users would want, what they consider UG so that the mod development follows their and your own expectations.

For me personally: I will probably use BUG + BetterAI and will only start using BULL when someone will merge it with BetterAI (as I sadly haven't developed the skills to do that myself). But BetterAI is clearly changed gameplay compared to BTS 3.17 as it significantly improves the AI which changes gameplay and thus is not in the spirit of BULL/BUG. It's not your responsibility to suit the needs of every single wished merger of mods.
On the other hand, because of the ease with which BUG could be merged with the UP and BetterAI in the past, there is a significant overlap between users of these mods. So I hope that a merging of BULL with these mods will somehow be realised.

 

[ruff_hi]

I thought you were planning to make some elements optional.

Roland - you keep saying that and everytime you do, I reply that the plan is to have 1 single option that will enable / disable the UP if we can do it. Not 1 option per individual UP item ... 1 global option that will turn ALL of the UP either on or off.

And all of this assumes that we can actually put in such a switch.

 

[ruff_hi]

My view re UP ...

if we have that 1 option to turn the lot on / off - then we can pile anything we like in there
map stuff and fort things - I don't find the too UG
the nukes thing would be big (see below)
most SGs play with BUG loaded under customassets (I think), so all of this DLL discussion is mute

RE the nukes, it would be bad if player A (in a SG) had BULL with UP and played the critical set that triggered a thermo nuclear war while if player B had played it, no war (because they didn't have the UP).

 

[EmperorFool]

Most SGs play with BUG loaded under customassets (I think), so all of this DLL discussion is mute.

They will be able to put BULL into their Program Files Assets folder to be used with BUG, just as they can now with the UP.

Yes, SGs will need to decide on the rules they will use ahead of time. Again, just like the UP and Better AI.