Unofficial BTS 3.13 patch

[glider1]

If a Master + Vassal declares war on you, and you completely eliminate the Master, does the Vassal automatically get peace with you? No. Therefore, there's no reason the Vassal should automatically get peace if the Master is "eliminated" by capitulating.
Bh

I see where you are coming from in terms of seeing the vassal behaviour as an overt "bug" Bhruic.

Could I just cement the main criteria for Bhruic continuing his excellent efforts on bug fixing BTS 3.13? That is Sid Meier's original adage "whatever you do to the game has to make it more fun." By fun we mean simple unadulterated "fun". Not academic correctness.

The adage applies to the fixing of "bugs" as well. So when I look through Bhruic's bug fixes INCLUDING the vassalage "bug", all of the changes pass the Sid Meier test.

However if Bhruic would have implemented the State Property "bug", that would not have passed the Sid Meier test because it only produces a neutral outcome at best (neither one way or the other).

So Bhruic, you're judgement as well as your talent have been first rate to this point. Cheers, enjoy and thanks.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

I'll present my reasoning here: If you have a Master/Vassal at war with you, and the Vassal decides to leave the Master, and then the Master makes peace with you, the Vassal doesn't get peace as well. Because the Vassal has split, the Vassal (or ex-Vassal now) has to make a separate deal with you. In the case where the Master capitulates, the Vassal is going to split from the Master in the exact same fashion above. Therefore the Vassal shouldn't get a "free" peace treaty out of it. I consider that a bug. The game should work the same way in both circumstances. Now if you'd prefer that I solve that by granting a Vassal "free" peace whenever it breaks from its Master, I can do that. But I don't believe that's the prefered solution.

Oh, and I just wanted to point out that I also fully agree with:


There's nothing stopping you from making peace with the ex-Vassal if that's what you want to do. But you shouldn't be forced to.

Bh

I agree with your arguments. But in my opinion it's something different if you fix a bug (like the tile-allocation thing) or add an enhancement (like the "glance"-sheet) or if you going to change the gameplay in a fashion, leading to really different game mechanics (like master-vassal behaviour). Even if Firaxis has done something bad here the communitiy has to live with it. Changing basic behaviour has to be done in special scenarios or mods, not in patches.

EDIT: One more point: The vassal has been thrown into this war against his will by the master. So why shouldn't it get instant peace for something it (perhaps) was forced too?

 

[Dogberry0]

Bhruic,

Just want to say thanks for the patch as well.

The world is a better place because of people like you and many others in this forum.

Cheers,

Eric.

 

[V. Soma]

If a Master + Vassal declares war on you, and you completely eliminate the Master, does the Vassal automatically get peace with you? No.
Bh

Um, but following Grimus's reasoning, the vassal perhaps SHOULD get peace,
in case this vassal became vassal of the eliminated enemy master
by capitulation (not by own will).

Hm, I think Grimus's thoughts worth discussion!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Quite simply if I was attacked by Master and Vassal, and got the Master to capitulate, the now free Vassal's options should be
a) capitulate to me 'the stronger master'
b) work out some peace deal with me giving up some gold
c) Try to win this war they got dragged into

assuming
I (the attacked party) just want to be left alone, I'll let the Vassal settle for (b).. and for a low cost too... possibly I'll make it (a) if they offer

The fact is you can offer make peace Instantly with the exVassal as soon as they are free.. you CAN'T declare war immediately if peace is auto-declared.

Having the Vassal stay at war with you until they sign their own Peace Treaty would be good as it preserves the most flexibility. (and it shouldn't confuse the AI as when to sue for peace is something that it is OK at)

 

[V. Soma]

Well, how about the following?

If any civ gets into action of war with you INDIRECTLY
as a once capitulated vassal (CV civ) to the civ you are directly invovlved with,
then:

Once the war with DIRECTLY invovlved enemy (master of CV civ) is over in ways of
capitulation of enemy to you or elimination of enemy, then

the CV civ should, in my mind,
INSTANTLY OFFER PEACE to you

this way you have options to follow the war without the 10 turn peace delay

 

[kuukkeli]

If a Master + Vassal declares war on you, and you completely eliminate the Master, does the Vassal automatically get peace with you? No. Therefore, there's no reason the Vassal should automatically get peace if the Master is "eliminated" by capitulating.

Your reasoning is kuukkeli approved

Well, how about the following?

Once the war with DIRECTLY invovlved enemy (master of CV civ) is over in ways of capitulation of enemy to you or elimination of enemy, then

the CV civ should, in my mind,
INSTANTLY OFFER PEACE to you

Why would they be forced to act in one way or the other after their master is eliminated? They are independent civilization and they should evaluate the ongoing war just like any other, regardless of how it originally begun. In addition to this being logically sound way to do it it also appears to be, based on Bhruic's reasonings, the way CivIV is supposed to work.

 

[KMadCandy]

Even if Firaxis has done something bad here the communitiy has to live with it.

i definitely disagree with you about this principle. it's a game, the point is to have fun playing. you said "something bad here" but i'm applying it more broadly: if firaxis hypothetically made a truly bad design decision anywhere, to the point that it makes 80% of the community bang their heads against the wall, that's not fun. if we have to live with it, i'm sure some folks would quit playing in that case, or go off and mod a change. i'm glad that so much of the game is customizable. even tho i don't know how to do anything but .xml changes myself i can mooch off the work of so many gracious people *giggle*.

Changing basic behaviour has to be done in special scenarios or mods, not in patches.

well how are you defining patch? to me a patch is by definition something that firaxis would have to produce. Bhruic calls this an "unofficial patch", so did Solver, and i think we all get the sense of what they mean. they modified the game to fix bugs, and perhaps in the process there are some game-altering changes too but we're discussing those, it's not done in a vacuum. probably i'm getting too focused on semantics and missing your point there.

anyway, the bottomline for me there is that i think it's really important that Bh is clear and upfront about all changes so that we know what we're getting into by using this. triply so for things like this, he better not go around sneaking stuff in behind our backs! but he's been very conscientious about that, yay!

i wonder which has been harder, the programming or the public relations? *giggle*

 

[V. Soma]

Why would they be forced to act in one way or the other after their master is eliminated? They are independent civilization and they should evaluate the ongoing war just like any other, regardless of how it originally begun.

But they were NOT INDEPENDENT in their joining to the master civ...
...only if we consider capitulation to the master an independent move...

well, hm... do we? (maybe, I am just thinking about it)

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

i definitely disagree with you about this principle. it's a game, the point is to have fun playing. you said "something bad here" but i'm applying it more broadly: if firaxis hypothetically made a truly bad design decision anywhere, to the point that it makes 80% of the community bang their heads against the wall, that's not fun. if we have to live with it, i'm sure some folks would quit playing in that case, or go off and mod a change. i'm glad that so much of the game is customizable. even tho i don't know how to do anything but .xml changes myself i can mooch off the work of so many gracious people *giggle*.



well how are you defining patch? to me a patch is by definition something that firaxis would have to produce. Bhruic calls this an "unofficial patch", so did Solver, and i think we all get the sense of what they mean. they modified the game to fix bugs, and perhaps in the process there are some game-altering changes too but we're discussing those, it's not done in a vacuum. probably i'm getting too focused on semantics and missing your point there.

anyway, the bottomline for me there is that i think it's really important that Bh is clear and upfront about all changes so that we know what we're getting into by using this. triply so for things like this, he better not go around sneaking stuff in behind our backs! but he's been very conscientious about that, yay!

i wonder which has been harder, the programming or the public relations? *giggle*

when looking at the discussion above, it seems there are really different views at this behaviour. But again, as long as there no consens in the community (which I think we have with real bugs) a behavioural change should only be done if we got a consens. I am still of the opinion that an unofficial patch

- fixes bugs
- may add enhancements (like the "glance" sheet)
- should not modify behaviour (even if at the first moment it looks like it has to be done)

 

[Bhruic]

i wonder which has been harder, the programming or the public relations? *giggle*

I'd answer that, but I don't want to get lynched like Alex did.

 

[Bhruic]

when looking at the discussion above, it seems there are really different views at this behaviour. But again, as long as there no consens in the community (which I think we have with real bugs) a behavioural change should only be done if we got a consens.

You're never going to have a complete agreement about anything. Heck, for all we know, removing the Culture/Espionage was a new "feature" designed to make us memorize buildings.

The Vassal issue was reported to me as a bug. After investigating it, I agreed that it was a bug. I would say that the majority opinion has agreed. As long as those things are all true, then I consider it a "valid" change to make.

- should not modify behaviour (even if at the first moment it looks like it has to be done)

If you look at the changelong from Solver's patch, you'll note numerous "behaviour modification" changes - so I think there's ample precident.

Bh

 

[V. Soma]

Bhruic, I can live with the vassal change as now in your patch

I just think about the issue here...

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

You're never going to have a complete agreement about anything. Heck, for all we know, removing the Culture/Espionage was a new "feature" designed to make us memorize buildings.

The Vassal issue was reported to me as a bug. After investigating it, I agreed that it was a bug. I would say that the majority opinion has agreed. As long as those things are all true, then I consider it a "valid" change to make.



If you look at the changelong from Solver's patch, you'll note numerous "behaviour modification" changes - so I think there's ample precident.

Bh

Well, it's your decision what you implement and what not. But i still cannot agree why a squeezed civ (the vassal) should be punished even more after the oppressor (the master) has gone. Give them a chance to breath again - give them peace

 

[CivAgamemnon]

I'd answer that, but I don't want to get lynched like Alex did.

So true! PR is always the hardest part of fixing things. They'll not lynch you! You've been so diplomatic and polite about everything.

 

[V. Soma]

PR - people in mass are a risky venture

 

[kuukkeli]

But they were NOT INDEPENDENT in their joining to the master civ...

But that is irrelevant. The "choice" of joining the war has already been made and now, as an independent civilization, they must decide whether to continue it or not, just like any other war they're in. Whether the war is beneficial to them isn't a matter of the past but of present and future. Same applies to player's civilization - it should be up to them whether they wish to continue the war against, now, an independent civilization or not.

P.S. Great job Bhruic

 

[jkp1187]

That's kind of silly, imo. If you think about it, Blake was just someone who was doing a "fan patch" before Firaxis decided to pick up his code. Not to take any credit away from what he's done, I think it's some pretty amazing improvements. But there's no reason to believe they other people can't do equally good things. Not accepting a change because of who did or didn't make it doesn't make any sense to me. All changes should be evaluated on their merits (alone).

Bh

Well, ultimately you're the one doing the heavy-lifting and it's your call about what to include/not include. And I'm certainly not saying that there isn't enough talent in the community sans Blake to make some good changes to the AI.

My question is: what do you want this project to be? I think we all agree that it's a fantastic idea to catch all the "low-hanging fruit" -- stuff that is obviously broken, rules not correctly implemented, etc. This also has the benefit of being (relatively) easy to QC. I even don't have a problem with making reasonable judgment calls (e.g., the vassal/capitulation issue discussed,) absent any under-the-table feedback from Alexman or other Firaxians (which, I'm sad to say, it appears we're not getting at all now, for reasons that we don't need to go into here.)

Making AI changes, though, is going to be a slightly harder task, not just in the implementation but in the QC'ing afterwards. There remains the possibility of unexpected and unintended consequences once you start playing around with it. Blake and Iustus were working on Better AI for months before Blake was tapped by Firaxis, and there was an unofficial team of us who were spending a lot of time playing, reporting bad/questionable AI behavior, stuff that was accidentally broken in the process of changing that AI behavior, etc. There were a few strong disagreements about the direction of the project, too.

My suggestion about including Blake was, in effect, to take pressure off of you (and anyone else who's assisting you in coding.) You see the controversy just minor interpretations of (objective) rules can have. Multiply that by severalfold and all of a sudden we have a 1,000 post flame war.... Adding Blake to the process at least gives any changes an air of quasi-legitimacy, and would also help the process just by adding his expertise. There are probably a lot more people using your patch than posting here, so that's something you might want to consider.

At the very least, if this project is to grow to encompass AI, I suggest that the AI changes wait until all of the low-hanging fruit has been picked, so to speak. That way, the people who want to play the game as-is from the factory (just with all of the broken stuff fixed) can keep and use the ultimate version of that patch, while those of us who are interested in seeing what sort of AI improvements the community can come up with (and I am one of them) can do so as well.

None of this is intended as a criticism, by the way. I think you're doing a fantastic job so far, and I'm glad you stepped up to the plate here.

 

[V. Soma]

But that is irrelevant. The "choice" of joining the war has already been made and now, as an independent civilization, they must decide whether to continue it or not, just like any other war they're in. Whether the war is beneficial to them isn't a matter of the past but of present and future. Same applies to player's civilization - it should be up to them whether they wish to continue the war against, now, an independent civilization or not.

OK, I can accept this.

My thought was not "much" different, only that the once vassal of the defeated master would come up with a suggestion of peace, since it was not the idea of the vassal to start the war.

But now it is left to the consideration of the civ to do such a suggestion - OK

 

[_alphaBeta_]

This looks pretty bad.

Do you all think we should go back to 3 corporate executives max? I'm not sure why the latest patch removed the limit. I thought it was better with it. After seeing this behavior, I definitely think so.