Vanilla FF2 023c - Year gone - Am I missing anything?

[zup]

I did not find the Complete edition too costly. But if you already have vanilla, thats overkill.

 

[CockyWizard]

Well, if you do want to change the vanilla version, the file is located here.

C:\Program Files\Firaxis\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\Modded Fall from Heaven 2 023\Assets\xml\units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml

Also, I still have the file on me, so I could send it to you if you'd like.

 

[Micky Onimusha]

Well, if you do want to change the vanilla version, the file is located here.

C:\Program Files\Firaxis\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\Modded Fall from Heaven 2 023\Assets\xml\units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml

Also, I still have the file on me, so I could send it to you if you'd like.

Yeah, if you could send it to me I'd appreciate it. I'm not too sure with what I'm doing when it comes to modding things, so safer to get a finished version.

 

[Micky Onimusha]

Ugh, it's a bit off topic but I need some help. I keep getting attacked by a random error message. I press enter/spacebar to skip turn, the drum rolls and then suddenly the screen goes black and a message pops up.

I've gone to the auto-save and re-run it several times, it keeps recurring. I make slight variations on what I do (nothing drastic, just one unit moving to a different patch, etc) but it doesn't fix it either.

I recognise this message, because I remember I had a problem with it before, but it's so far back that I can't recall what causes or how to fix it.

Just as some background, since I figure I should be as detailed as possible:
- Vanilla FF2 23c (not the Blaze version). Only mod attached is "smarter_orcs_023c_016".
- Civilisation: Calabim, Alexis. Rival Civs: Khazad, Arturus Thorne / Sidar, Morgoth / Elohim, Einion Logos.
- Map: Duel, Oasis / Difficulty: Prince / Raging Barbs.
- Year 102 (not sure what turn that is, but I guess 102. It's still very early in the game).
- Entering world builder, the only "unusual" thing I see is the Sidar capital having its cultural boundaries right next to the Elohim's 2nd city.

So yeah, cry for help. Hopefully someone remembers how to deal with this, worried it's such an old issue that no one remembers what causes it.

 

[orangelex44]

IIRC, there used to be some issues with the old flames graphic - is someone in position to summon Hyborum?

If not, I have no idea.

 

[Micky Onimusha]

IIRC, there used to be some issues with the old flames graphic - is someone in position to summon Hyborum?

If not, I have no idea.

Nah, no one's in position to summon Hyborum. Could be Acheron is due to spawn that turn though. I'm not sure how early he spawns but I've already seen and disposed of Orthus, so Archeron is due at some point. If so, the flames thing makes sense.

 

[xanaqui42]

Ugh, it's a bit off topic but I need some help. I keep getting attacked by a random error message. I press enter/spacebar to skip turn, the drum rolls and then suddenly the screen goes black and a message pops up.

I've gone to the auto-save and re-run it several times, it keeps recurring. I make slight variations on what I do (nothing drastic, just one unit moving to a different patch, etc) but it doesn't fix it either.

I recognise this message, because I remember I had a problem with it before, but it's so far back that I can't recall what causes or how to fix it.

Just as some background, since I figure I should be as detailed as possible:
- Vanilla FF2 23c (not the Blaze version). Only mod attached is "smarter_orcs_023c_016".
- Civilisation: Calabim, Alexis. Rival Civs: Khazad, Arturus Thorne / Sidar, Morgoth / Elohim, Einion Logos.
- Map: Duel, Oasis / Difficulty: Prince / Raging Barbs.
- Year 102 (not sure what turn that is, but I guess 102. It's still very early in the game).
- Entering world builder, the only "unusual" thing I see is the Sidar capital having its cultural boundaries right next to the Elohim's 2nd city.

So yeah, cry for help. Hopefully someone remembers how to deal with this, worried it's such an old issue that no one remembers what causes it.

That message is just noting a crash in the C++ code.

I'd probably be the best person to diagnose this, since it's likely a Smarter Orcs defect (Smarter Orcs made more changes to the C++ code than Fall From Heaven II 0.23c), although I'm not certain that I want to spend the up to 4 days of time it would likely take me to diagnose this defect (assuming that you have a saved game); I'm really hoping to be ready to deliver a Wiser Orcs release soon.

So if you're really interested, feel free to post (or send me) the saved game, but I won't make any promises about how timely my response will be. Addressing it correctly will likely mean a Smarter Orcs release.

 

[CockyWizard]

Sorry for the delay in posting. I didn't realize I could attach files to a post, so I was waiting for you to tell me your email

Assuming you accepted defaults when installing, the file goes to the following location:

CIV4UnitInfos.xml - C:\Program Files\Firaxis\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\Modded Fall from Heaven 2 023\Assets\xml\units

 

[Micky Onimusha]

That message is just noting a crash in the C++ code.

I'd probably be the best person to diagnose this, since it's likely a Smarter Orcs defect (Smarter Orcs made more changes to the C++ code than Fall From Heaven II 0.23c), although I'm not certain that I want to spend the up to 4 days of time it would likely take me to diagnose this defect (assuming that you have a saved game); I'm really hoping to be ready to deliver a Wiser Orcs release soon.

So if you're really interested, feel free to post (or send me) the saved game, but I won't make any promises about how timely my response will be. Addressing it correctly will likely mean a Smarter Orcs release.

Thanks for the offer. I eventually moved on from the game and started a new one (as I said, I was quite early into the game, no big loss). I'm curious, in the later game, does smarter orcs lead to a longer delay in the turns passing by? I just noticed that happening quite a lot around mid-late game and wondered if maybe that was a result of smarter orcs (AI thinking more and stuff)?

Sorry for the delay in posting. I didn't realize I could attach files to a post, so I was waiting for you to tell me your email

Assuming you accepted defaults when installing, the file goes to the following location:

CIV4UnitInfos.xml - C:\Program Files\Firaxis\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\Modded Fall from Heaven 2 023\Assets\xml\units

Thanks. No problem about the delay, heh.

 

[Kael]

Thanks for the offer. I eventually moved on from the game and started a new one (as I said, I was quite early into the game, no big loss). I'm curious, in the later game, does smarter orcs lead to a longer delay in the turns passing by? I just noticed that happening quite a lot around mid-late game and wondered if maybe that was a result of smarter orcs (AI thinking more and stuff)?

Thanks. No problem about the delay, heh.

Im sure smarter orcs adds some overhead, but to be honest most of the delay is in FfH and in Civ4. I did a ton of work in the BtS beta trying to improve game performance with some decent results. Firaxis was good enough to include those enhancements in BtS (and I must say they implemented them a million times better than I did, Alex really is a genius).

So that gave us a faster base system when lots of units were in the game. And from what I learned form that I decided to rewrite the spell system from the ground up for BtS to be easier for the AI to handle and for performance.

So the short answer is that FfH2 0.23 is going to be slow on big maps with lots of units, it is a world different on BtS. Its something most of us forget about as we get used to the faster speeds (there was a time when it took almost 10 minutes to load FfH), but we did a ton of good work in this area.

 

[Micky Onimusha]

Im sure smarter orcs adds some overhead, but to be honest most of the delay is in FfH and in Civ4. I did a ton of work in the BtS beta trying to improve game performance with some decent results. Firaxis was good enough to include those enhancements in BtS (and I must say they implemented them a million times better than I did, Alex really is a genius).

So that gave us a faster base system when lots of units were in the game. And from what I learned form that I decided to rewrite the spell system from the ground up for BtS to be easier for the AI to handle and for performance.

So the short answer is that FfH2 0.23 is going to be slow on big maps with lots of units, it is a world different on BtS. Its something most of us forget about as we get used to the faster speeds (there was a time when it took almost 10 minutes to load FfH), but we did a ton of good work in this area.

Ah okay. Well, nice to know when I get a hold of BTS it'll be going quite quickly. I just noticed between smarter orcs ff2 and vanilla ff2 that turns took longer (in similar situaitons - map size/time in ame/etc), but as you said, probably be to be expected.

So far the cheapest BTS I've found was a tenner. Still looking for cheaper /cheapskate.

 

[xanaqui42]

Im sure smarter orcs adds some overhead, but to be honest most of the delay is in FfH and in Civ4. I did a ton of work in the BtS beta trying to improve game performance with some decent results. Firaxis was good enough to include those enhancements in BtS (and I must say they implemented them a million times better than I did, Alex really is a genius).

So that gave us a faster base system when lots of units were in the game. And from what I learned form that I decided to rewrite the spell system from the ground up for BtS to be easier for the AI to handle and for performance.

So the short answer is that FfH2 0.23 is going to be slow on big maps with lots of units, it is a world different on BtS. Its something most of us forget about as we get used to the faster speeds (there was a time when it took almost 10 minutes to load FfH), but we did a ton of good work in this area.

As much as I appreciate Kael's trying to take the blame, Smarter Orcs was significantly slower than FfH II 0.23c. The primary culprit was that each AI player was trying a lot more potential unit actions and paths for each move, which resulted in slower turns later in the game.

On the other hand, because of our severe lag issues (particuarly in some of the earlier versions), we did quite a bit of work speeding up sections of code (both C++ and Python), so there are a few things Smarter Orcs actually does faster than FfH II 0.23c - for example, each of those path checks is quite a bit cheaper than it was in FfH II 0.23c, there were a few algorithmic changes which resulted in calculating the value of multiple potential moves simultaneously, and (in relation to FfH II 0.23c) the military map shows up far faster.

Overall, though, my recollection is that it was significantly slower.