Unit Icons

[AgentTBC]

I've come back to Civ V after a long (planned) hiatus because it looks to me like most of the issues I had with the game are addressed by either the official patches or the Civ V UP and Vanilla Enhanced mod. So far so good. A question, though; when running Civ V UP&VE a bunch of units have icons which differ between the regular view and the strategic view which sometimes gets confusing. For example, the Infantry icon on the regular view (the WWII era looking helmet) is the icon used for Light Infantry on the strategic view, while Infantry use a completely different icon on Strategic view.

Is this on purpose, a bug, or did I install the mod improperly? If it is on purpose, is it easy for me to change myself? I would hugely prefer units to use the same icons on both views.

 

[Sneaks]

It is a bug that needs correcting.

 

[AgentTBC]

Thanks. In that case I guess I'll just poke around in the files and see if I can fix it until it gets done in the mod.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Moved to bug reports.

 

[Thalassicus]

Infantry use a completely different icon on Strategic view.

This part in particular is very puzzling. The infantry icon is not changed from vanilla, so infantry should show the same between vanilla and the mod. Have you tried the things on the Common Checklist? Each unit has its icon defined in a single location... there's not separate options for normal and strategic view, so even if we wanted to give the two views different icons, there are no tools capable of doing so. This sounds like a cache issue or conflict with another mod.

What icon does Infantry actually display in strategic view for you... could you give a screenshot?

 

[AgentTBC]

I don't have any current saved games in the right era since I just finished up a game and delete the saves afterwards to keep things tidy. I'll see if I can grab some next time.

But I don't see how infantry can be the same between the mod and vanilla since infantry are defined in the mod as using the French Foreign Legion icon, which is what they show up as on strategic view. Here is the relevant bit from VEA - Units.xml

Spoiler :

<Update>
<Where Class="UNITCLASS_INFANTRY" />
<Set GoodyHutUpgradeUnitClass="UNITCLASS_MECHANIZED_INFANTRY"
ObsoleteTech="TECH_RADAR"
UnitArtInfo="ART_DEF_UNIT_U_FRENCH_FOREIGNLEGION"/>
</Update>

Unless I'm missing something, that defines the infantry unit as using the art from the foreign legion. Why it still shows the original icon in the non-strategic view I have no idea. For comparison, the vanilla game sets class UNITCLASS_INFANTRY to

Spoiler :

<UnitArtInfo>ART_DEF_UNIT_INFANTRY</UnitArtInfo>

Which is what I believe it should be. I'll admit I also don't understand how, even with the above, the icons could be different between strategic and regular view because (as you say) there are not different settings for each.

It can't be a mod conflict because I am not running any mods except for UP+VE.

 

[Thalassicus]

UnitFlagAtlas and UnitFlagIconOffset define the unit flag icon. This is not changed from vanilla. The model, skin, and animations of the unit are defined by UnitArtInfo.

<UnitArtInfo>
  <Type>ART_DEF_UNIT_U_FRENCH_FOREIGNLEGION</Type>
  <Formation>UnFormed</Formation>
  <DamageStates>1</DamageStates>
  <UnitMemberArt>
    <MemberType>ART_DEF_UNIT_MEMBER_U_FRENCH_FOREIGNLEGION</MemberType>
    <MemberCount>12</MemberCount>
  </UnitMemberArt>
</UnitArtInfo>

<UnitMemberArtInfo>
  <Type>ART_DEF_UNIT_MEMBER_U_FRENCH_FOREIGNLEGION</Type>
  <fScale>0.14</fScale>
  <Granny>Assets/Units/U_French_ForeignLegion/U_French_ForeignLegion.fxsxml</Granny>
  <Combat>
    <Defaults>ART_DEF_TEMPLATE_SOLDIER</Defaults>
    <bReformBeforeCombat>1</bReformBeforeCombat>
    <bHasShortRangedAttack>1</bHasShortRangedAttack>
    <Weapon>
    <WeaponTypeTag>BULLET</WeaponTypeTag>
    <WeaponTypeSoundOverrideTag>BULLET</WeaponTypeSoundOverrideTag>
    </Weapon>
  </Combat>
  <MaterialTypeTag>CLOTH</MaterialTypeTag>
  <MaterialTypeSoundOverrideTag>FLESH</MaterialTypeSoundOverrideTag>
</UnitMemberArtInfo>

(fxsxml are animation/sound effect files)

In the files available to modders I cannot find a connection between icons and UnitArtInfo, and no mention of UnitArtInfo in the user interface. This means it is a bug in the game core only Firaxis has access to. I've reported it on the vanilla bug report forum and put it on the long-term todo list for when we get game core access. Thank you for bringing it up.

Strategic view breaks all mods that detect combat, so I'd just recommend avoiding strategic view when playing with mods.

 

[AgentTBC]

When you say that strategic view breaks all mods that detect combat, how exactly do you mean? It causes display bugs or it actually breaks the gameplay? I can live with display errors but I don't want to break the game itself.

 

[AgentTBC]

I googled and it looks like it actually breaks gameplay. As does QUICK COMBAT?!?! Jesus. So I have to watch all the horribly slow animations for the entire game if I want things to actually work?

 

[Thalassicus]

Mods rely on the EndCombatSim event to detect combat. Firaxis forgot to call this event in strategic view, so it's impossible to detect combat in strategic view.

VEM v108.1 beta disabled combat animations while avoiding these bugs. Version 108 also sped up unit movement, and an earlier version reduced the combat text delay to 0.2 seconds (from vanilla's 1 second). (Combat text is the wait between damage/experience numbers over units after combat.)

 

[AgentTBC]

I just realized I never came back and posted the screenshots we discussed! Here are two screenshots of a group of enemy Levy units. First is regular view and the unit icon is the, uh... I forget but it looks like a shield. In strategic view they are using the Roman Legion icon. Which got really confusing in the games where Rome is involved. I shrunk them down to save file size but the unit icons are quite clear.

Same thing happens, as I said, with Infantry and Light Infantry and some others. All of them seem to be infantry units of various flavors though.

 

[Seek]

I think there is a (core game) bug when modding in new units are involved: Gazebo has been having similar problems with the strategic view icons on new units (diplo units in his case) in CSD since the beginning.

Are normal units showing up correctly?

 

[AgentTBC]

Infantry have been showing up on strategic view with the French Foreign Legion icon while Light Infantry have been using the Infantry icon (the WWII era helmet). Again, on strat view.

I'll check if that appears the case in the current game when I upgrade my riflemen to infantry which should be in the morning, and will post screenshots if it is not correct.

 

[AgentTBC]

My working theory is that Firaxis botched the Strategic View in yet another way and that the flag icon is controlled by UnitFlagAtlas and UnitFlagIconOffset in regular view but pulls it from UnitArtInfo in strategic view, which means that you cannot have units with differing UnitFlagAtlas and UnitArtInfo values (in terms of unit type) if you want strategic view to work properly.

Should be easy enough to test, which I will do once I sleep.

 

[tlaurila]

Could this be fixed by making a copy of the unit artwork by another name? So that vanguard units would have artwork with a unique name, even though it's actually just a copy of another unit's model.

That said, it always looked a bit funny to me that light infantry was the one with helmets, and heavy infantry had hats, though I get the logic that foreign legion and heavy infantry have the same graphics.

 

[Thalassicus]

I get the logic that foreign legion and heavy infantry have the same graphics.

Yeah, this is why I set it up that way. Otherwise the French would have two such units. Ideally I'd get one of the world war 2 unit pack skins for light infantry, and other skins for the others... but have been focusing on gameplay changes for the time being. If someone can find some nice skins for levies, skirmishers, and light infantry I'll add them.

 

[AgentTBC]

Do we know if Firaxis is aware that combat cannot be detected except through the combat animation? I realize "aware of" and "fixing" are not the same thing, but this seems like a major problem.

 

[Thalassicus]

I reported it on the vanilla bug reports forum half a year ago, and to my knowledge they check that forum regularly. It's probably not a high priority since it only affects mods and can be worked-around to avoid the problem.