Unofficial Patch 0.21 Released

[Dresden]

What problems are you seeing with the scenarios and which scenarios are you trying? Also, did you install the standard version of the DLL or the 50-civ version?

 

[1CrazyCanadian]

ok i reinstalled the standard .21 and was able to play scenario's with 18 or fewer civs.

I'm not able to get a 18+ civ earth map to work. when i have the DLL as base the map crashes when i try to launch it or when i have the DLL in mod it only shows the first 18 civs

this is both not allowing the xml changes

 

[Dresden]

How many civs does the 18+ map contain?

 

[1CrazyCanadian]

19 civs on a earth map is what im trying for, but I would like to up to 24 for future plans. If you want the map i can put it up for download. I'm also trying to make a mod with this, if there anything i have to do different for that?

 

[carl corey]

From this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=301811

I tried to load this. Got Sid Meier as a leaderhead and about fourteen choices of the American civilisation as a civ. When I clicked OK, I got a CTD. Any thoughts?

The save was created using 3.17, Dresden's 0.21 - 50 civs DLL (installed directly in the game, not as a mod) and BUG Mod 3.5 (installed directly in the Custom Assets, not as a mod). We had no problems with 3.17+Solver's 0.19 and BUG Mod 3.5 opened by unpatched (I think) 3.17 games. I asked the question to see exactly what each of the users having problems has installed.

Here's the save file: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=196620&d=1228779266

 

[grumbler]

First, I used the installer linked in my sig to install the 50 civ version of the UP 0.21 to the core assets. The save you posted above loaded without any problems.

Next, I downloaded BUG 3.51 and installed that. The save loaded fine.

The only time I saw this behavior

I tried to load this. Got Sid Meier as a leaderhead and about fourteen choices of the American civilisation as a civ. When I clicked OK, I got a CTD. Any thoughts?

was when I tried to load the save with the 18 civ version of the UP. This leads me to suspect that you don't have the 50 civ version installed properly.

 

[carl corey]

The others probably don't have the 50 DLL version, or even the 0.21 Dresden's patch. I don't have a problem with it myself (I created the game, after all ). So 50 civs 0.21 patch saves and 18 civs 0.21 patch saves aren't compatible? I guess in that case I'll install the 18 civs version, I don't think I'll play with 18+ civs very soon.

 

[1CrazyCanadian]

you can play with 18+ civs if it's a custom game but not if it's a scenario from my tests

 

[carl corey]

you can play with 18+ civs if it's a custom game but not if it's a scenario from my tests

I guess. The save had the "normal" 7 civs on standard map, so I wasn't trying to get creative.

 

[methane]

I think that the no espionage version of the game should resemble the pre-BTS situation. That was a balanced situation. You can't say that Warlords was balanced because it was made by Firaxis and that BTS with the no espionage option (with espionage points replaced with culture points) is equally balanced because it was made by Firaxis. Both models of the game have a radically different balance, they can't be equally well balanced. Not everything touched by Firaxis is golden and everything else rotten.

I'm certainly not arguing Firaxis is perfect and always makes great decisions. But removing espionage (without replacing it with anything) does not make it equal to Warlords. Firaxis added wonders, techs, buildings, and other things between Warlords and BTS. Some of these involved espionage, and some didn't. I'd be foolish to argue its perfectly balanced, but it attempts to be. Removing only the espionage aspect of the game leaves the game less balanced. Their design choice in the 'no espionage' version seems to attempt to address this by giving some benefit to the parts of the game that otherwise would have less value.

Again, I'm certainly not saying they implemented this choice well; it was probably dictated above all by a lack of time to do it better. I do think they thought it was better than replacing espionage with nothing.

Sometimes Firaxis doesn't go for the best option just because it is financially non-attractive. Creating massive patches for an option that few people use for an expansion pack which was created for the fans and not the big public is one of those financially non-attractive actions. That doesn't mean that we, the fans shouldnt' go for the option that we as fans think would be the optimally patched situation. And we, the fans decide what the optimally patched situation is, not Firaxis.

I think the fans should play whatever version they most enjoy. If that means every fan has a different version of the game, that's wonderful. That's the power of firaxis' decision to make a heavily modable game.

What I am arguing is that this isn't a 'patch' you're proposing, it's a mod. Their design choices for the 'no espionage' appears to be 1)remove all espionage elements from the game and 2) replace those elements with other elements of value, chiefly culture. When you toss out 2), which is one of their main design points, you're not 'patching'.

Again, I say people should play it however they want, but if it's offered as part of an unofficial patch, I think it should be labeled as another option (Solver's no-espionage version). It should be offered alongside Firaxis' version, rather than replacing it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was more popular than the Firaxis version. I'm not arguing about popularity, only about what should be labeled a patch.

 

[Benford's Law]

Hi there Dresden:

I thought I'd let you know that the old "worst enemy" of a Civ that has never been met before is still showing up for some reason. Did I miss something in yours or Solver's changelogs or has this problem not been worked on yet? I am using v21 of your unofficial patch:

Screenie:

Here's the save:
View attachment Saladin's Strategy Timeout.CivBeyondSwordSave

~Benford's Law

 

[Roland Johansen]

I'm certainly not arguing Firaxis is perfect and always makes great decisions. But removing espionage (without replacing it with anything) does not make it equal to Warlords. Firaxis added wonders, techs, buildings, and other things between Warlords and BTS. Some of these involved espionage, and some didn't. I'd be foolish to argue its perfectly balanced, but it attempts to be. Removing only the espionage aspect of the game leaves the game less balanced. Their design choice in the 'no espionage' version seems to attempt to address this by giving some benefit to the parts of the game that otherwise would have less value.

Again, I'm certainly not saying they implemented this choice well; it was probably dictated above all by a lack of time to do it better. I do think they thought it was better than replacing espionage with nothing.

I disagree with the idea that the espionage points are needed to balance the relative value of the buildings that give these espionage points (except the new purely espionage related buildings which should just be removed completely in the no espionage version of the game). Let's use an example to make this discussion a bit less about semantics.

The courthouse.

In vanilla and Warlords it gave a 50% discount on city maintenance. The building was valued as crucial by many players, few buildings were considered as important as the courthouse when you wanted a large empire.

In BTS, corporations were added which increase city maintenance by a huge amount. Next to that colonial expenses were added to the game which are also subject to the halving effects of the courthouse.
So the value of the courthouse is increased by a large amount since it halves the cost factor of these 2 new game elements. So if it was crucial in Vanilla Civ4 and Warlords, then it is even more valuable in BTS.

Next to that the building produces 2 espionage points and allows you to employ 1 spy specialist. Now you're arguing that the building would be underpowered if these 2 elements were removed and not replaced by 2 culture points. I'd say that is nonsense. The building is still more powerful as it was in Vanilla Civ4 and Warlords and in those versions of the game it was by many considered crucial to city and empire development. There's no need to replace the 2 espionage points and the ability to use a spy specialist with something else.

I think the fans should play whatever version they most enjoy. If that means every fan has a different version of the game, that's wonderful. That's the power of firaxis' decision to make a heavily modable game.

What I am arguing is that this isn't a 'patch' you're proposing, it's a mod. Their design choices for the 'no espionage' appears to be 1)remove all espionage elements from the game and 2) replace those elements with other elements of value, chiefly culture. When you toss out 2), which is one of their main design points, you're not 'patching'.

Again, I say people should play it however they want, but if it's offered as part of an unofficial patch, I think it should be labeled as another option (Solver's no-espionage version). It should be offered alongside Firaxis' version, rather than replacing it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was more popular than the Firaxis version. I'm not arguing about popularity, only about what should be labeled a patch.

The unofficial patch will be an unofficial patch if it is regarded as such by the majority of the civfanatics community. The rest is just your or mine personal opinion. You can't officially declare a change to be a mod and another to be a patch, you don't have that authority (and me neither).

 

[Dresden]

@Benford: It had been mentioned to Solver back when the patch started but apparently no changes were ever made; I think there were some problems locating a save that actually displayed the behavior and so it fell through the cracks. Thanks for posting the save and we'll have another go at it this time.
EDIT: Unfortunately, that save was made with "Locked Modified Assets" checked which means I can't load it under a debug DLL and trace the code. It was also prompting for a player to choose which seemed kinda strange....


Regarding "No Espionage," Roland is correct that the whole mod vs patch designation is in the eye of the beholder. We call this an "unofficial patch" and we try to be conservative and limit our changes to things which we believe are bugs but frankly anything released by anyone other than Firaxis is a mod. And no matter what decisions we make, some players will complain we didn't go far enough and others will complain we went too far. I just do the best I can and if someone doesn't want to use it because they don't agree, well that's his/her choice. I do appreciate the feedback and the discussions regarding these choices, though.

That said, because of this intentionally conservative approach I am not intending on making major changes to the "No Espionage" option; EPs will still be turned to culture and the cultural victory thresholds probably won't change. The only "pure" espionage buildings in the game (and thus the only ones I'm considering disabling) are the Security Bureau and Intelligence Agency. Both of those buildings are made available by techs which not only open up useful civics choices but also open up strong wonders and so I don't see the loss of those buildings significantly reducing the value of those techs. I'd love to also remove the free great spy but since it can be used for a GA it might be best to leave it in so long as it can't infiltrate (and maybe settle.)

 

[Capellan]

I recently removed and reinstalled both Civ4 and BTS, then patched to 3.17, loaded the unofficial patch (0.21) and the latest Blue Marble, then installed BIG 3.5 as a mod.

When I started a game with BUG loaded, the interface (mini map, icons etc) all vanished.

Without BUG loaded, all is well.

Anyone else experiencing this problem?

 

[Dresden]

The 3.5 BUG release had some problems when loaded as a mod. Try version 3.5.1 which you can get from the BUG website.

 

[Woody1]

Methane makes good points. Removing espionage points and mucking with the GP points is far more of a mod than it is a patch. Just get rid of the espionage events, which are clearly a bug and not intentional.

Not changing anything is preferable to modding it the way that Roland proposes.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Methane makes good points. Removing espionage points and mucking with the GP points is far more of a mod than it is a patch. Just get rid of the espionage events, which are clearly a bug and not intentional.

Not changing anything is preferable to modding it the way that Roland proposes.

Did you not read several posts or are you just trying to annoy? Whether something is called a mod or an unofficial patch or whatever is not for you or me to decide, it's the community that will decide how the community will see this mod. In the end, it's just Dresden who decides what changes will enter his mod which has the special name 'Unofficial Patch'. The community decides whether they will accept it as an 'unofficial patch'. The rest is just semantics and doesn't contribute anything to a discussion.

If you wish to argue about something real, then argue why the courthouse example which I gave in my previous post would be better balanced when you replace the 2 espionage points with 2 culture points instead of with nothing.

By the way, the whole 'no espionage' setting is unimportant to me as I will likely never use it. For me, it was just a fundamental discussion about how a feature should work. I'm participating in this argument for those who dislike the BTS espionage system and who would like to use a good 'no espionage' setting.

 

[Capellan]

The 3.5 BUG release had some problems when loaded as a mod. Try version 3.5.1 which you can get from the BUG website.

Yep, that fixed it. Thanks.

 

[Woody1]

Did you not read several posts or are you just trying to annoy? Whether something is called a mod or an unofficial patch or whatever is not for you or me to decide, it's the community that will decide how the community will see this mod. In the end, it's just Dresden who decides what changes will enter his mod which has the special name 'Unofficial Patch'. The community decides whether they will accept it as an 'unofficial patch'. The rest is just semantics and doesn't contribute anything to a discussion.

There's already hundreds of mods on this board. We don't need another mod, we need a patch.

If you wish to argue about something real, then argue why the courthouse example which I gave in my previous post would be better balanced when you replace the 2 espionage points with 2 culture points instead of with nothing.

That's irrelevant. If you want to mod something, go ahead. There are lots of other balance changes I'd like to see, but I certainly don't expect the unofficial patch to change the way the game works. When I find something unbalanced, I mod it myself. I don't want to force my view on anybody else.

By the way, the whole 'no espionage' setting is unimportant to me as I will likely never use it.

Okay, then you're just being argumentative for no reason.

 

[Roland Johansen]

To Dresden: You can ignore all of this. I'm just trying to explain to Woody1 that he's not the one and only authority which can decide whether this project is a mod or a patch.

There's already hundreds of mods on this board. We don't need another mod, we need a patch.

For some reason, you just don't want to understand. You're talking about semantics. The words patch or mod don't mean anything in that sentence as you're not the one who will decide whether this project is a mod or a patch. It's the community who decides.

That's irrelevant. If you want to mod something, go ahead. There are lots of other balance changes I'd like to see, but I certainly don't expect the unofficial patch to change the way the game works. When I find something unbalanced, I mod it myself. I don't want to force my view on anybody else.

You're saying that it is irrelevant but don't support that opinion with arguments. My example was about an element of the espionage system. I presented several arguments why giving culture to the courthouse was not needed to balance the usefulness of the building as was argued by another poster. Next to that it is pretty clear that the abundance of culture in the Firaxis version of the no-espionage setting is pretty unbalancing. What's irrelevant about that?

Okay, then you're just being argumentative for no reason.

Note that there were 3 sentences, one which you quoted, the next two which you didn't. The third sentence presents an answer to your question. Your selective quoting misrepresents my previous post.

By the way, the whole 'no espionage' setting is unimportant to me as I will likely never use it. For me, it was just a fundamental discussion about how a feature should work. I'm participating in this argument for those who dislike the BTS espionage system and who would like to use a good 'no espionage' setting.

I guess that you're trying to disqualify my arguments without discussing them and just repeating your mantra: I don't want a mod, I want a patch.