Version 1.7 feedback

[Deliverator]

@Deliverator

You're the only developer here who has a Steam Complete version, so we really need your help.
...
Though there isn't much discussion. It now just comes down to Deliverator and his registry.

I'm happy to help, but it won't be for 24 hours or so as I'm busy. I will test the LOR installer then and do whatever registry digging is required.

 

[phungus420]

No need to test the LoR installer, we know it fails. Please continue discussion on the topic in this thread (at the end of it there is a description of what needs to be done by Emperor Fool):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=340727

 

[davidlallen]

I have no interface at all and can't turn it on with Alt+I or Ctrl+I. ... Can smbd help me to fix my problem? (I have localized russian version of the game. Can it be the problem? Other mods are OK)

Download this. Extract it in the BUG folder of Dune Wars Python files, say yes when it asks you if you want to overwrite (if it doesn't, you're extracting it in the wrong place).

@ phungus420, thanks for the assistance. I think there is a step missing. I compared the file you sent to the original game file, and it has a bunch of debug print statements. So, when inpu uses this new file, the game still won't work. But the point of the new file is that it may print some debug messages which will help you to understand what is wrong. Please tell/remind us what file to look in to find the useful information.

@ inpu, once phungus420 says which output log file to look into, please upload the file so we can look. Hopefully something there will tell us what to fix in the game, so that you can play it.

 

[phungus420]

No, that file corrects a problem with BUG and non roman characters. Simply have it replace the original BugPath.py and the user will get his interface back.

 

[davidlallen]

Another problem, this time ingame so I think this is the appropriate place to post ... First of all, I found the file in question but it's in the Dune Wars folder, second why is it even looking at it in a folder named after an older version of the mod?

This is a strange problem. I agree the string "1.6.5.2" should not be appearing anywhere and I cannot find it anywhere in the release myself. After you install, you should have a directory like "...BTS\mods\Dune Wars" and it should contain Dune Wars.ini and Revolution.ini. Do you have this? Also, your My Documents\My Games\Beyond The Sword\CivilizationIV.ini file should have a line like, "Mod = mods\Dune Wars". If you have both of these, the game should find its initialization files fine.

 

[davidlallen]

No, that file corrects a problem with BUG and non roman characters. Simply have it replace the original BugPath.py and the user will get his interface back.

I don't agree. Or at least I don't understand how the changes in the file will make any difference. I diffed your file against the one in DW 1.7. The only difference is that many lines of exception handling in the original file which say "pass", have been replaced with a line like BugUtil.info("some debug information").

Is it possible that the non-Roman character fix you mention has already been incorporated into BUG and therefore into DW? Is it possible that just changing a "pass" to a print statement actually fixes some problem? Or did I overlook some diff?

 

[phungus420]

Ask EF as to how it works. All I know is that it does; at least that's the fix EF gave me for the reports of a loss of interface by some users who had non roman characters in their BtS path; and all users that responded said that fix worked.

 

[davidlallen]

Ask EF as to how it works. All I know is that it does

My mistake. I was reading the diffs backwards. In your file, the print statements are removed and replaced with "pass", so less information is logged. Something goes wrong with non-roman characters when the print statements are executed.

So, hopefully your file will fix this problem. I will put this file into the 1.7.1 release. Thank you for pointing it out.

 

[davidlallen]

Inquisitors seem not to be able to do anything except move around.

It sounds like something has gotten left out, or merged improperly, when bringing the new version of Revolutions Inquisitor modcomp into Dune Wars. I will check.

Yes, inquisitions got disabled during the merge. I will fix it for 1.7.1; you may locally fix it by editing My Documents/My Games/Beyond The Sword/Dune Wars/UserSettings/RevDCM.ini. Search for "INQUISITIONS_ENABLED = False" and change it to TRUE.

 

[VlaDeatHell]

Problem with the BUG solved, just uninstalled the mod and made a fresh new install, everything is ok now. Maybe there were some old registries or .ini 's pointing at that folder, no idea but it works well now.

 

[Deliverator]

Issues:

1) Chemical Trooper is not properly set up as a Ordos UU (I can fix this one)

2) The Fremen often go for a long time without adopting a religion. I really think we should give the Fremen a free Shai Hulud Mystic when Shai Hulud is founded, whether it is founded by them or anyone else (usually the Bene Gesserit). I guess this is quite a simple Python change, but I don't know how to do it.

3) We need to somehow make it impossible to have both House Shield Generator and Force Shield buildings in the same city simultaneously.

 

[Ahriman]

2) The Fremen often go for a long time without adopting a religion. I really think we should give the Fremen a free Shai Hulud Mystic when Shai Hulud is founded, whether it is founded by them or anyone else (usually the Bene Gesserit). I guess this is quite a simple Python change, but I don't know how to do it.

Agreed, I've made several suggestions about this before.
I'm not sure if a free Mystic at Faith is the best; that would lead to Fremen going Shai-Hulad every game. Whereas what I think we want is for them to go Shai-Hulad sometimes, and Mahdi other times.
Also, it detracts from the first-to-found advantage if Fremen are guaranteed it so early. One of the advantages is the water and culture bonus from the temple, that can be valuable early on.

My proposal would be:
a) Change one of the Fremen starting techs to Mysticism, so they race Bene Gesserit for Shai-Hulad. AND
b) Give Fremen a free Shai-Hulad mystic (by Event) when they research Jihad IF Mahdi has already been founded.
[Otherwise the Fremen founds Mahdi]

Event is certainly the best way I think to trigger this sort of thing (free units on a particular condition)

[On a semi-related note, the Shai-Hulad cathedral was intended to give +1 happy with Fremen Water Debt resource, but this doesn't seem to be happening (anymore)? Or is it on the base temple and I didn't notice?]

3) We need to somehow make it impossible to have both House Shield Generator and Force Shield buildings in the same city simultaneously.

Agreed. In Warhammer we have a bunch of building blocks like this, I think using Python. There are 4 chaos gods, and you can have a temple dedicated to one of the four, but that then blocks the other 3 temples.
You could ask Psychic_Llamas or Orlanth how they do it.

 

[davidlallen]

3) We need to somehow make it impossible to have both House Shield Generator and Force Shield buildings in the same city simultaneously.

This is only one or two lines in DuneWars.py, but why is it needed?

What you would need to do is set self.iBHShield and self.iBFShield variables in the Init function, and then in the onBuildingBuilt function, add a line which says (untested)

if iBldgType == self.iBHShield: pCity.setNumRealBuilding(self.iBFShield, 0)

If the reverse is possible, ie if you might build a house shield first and it should be removed when a force shield is built, then add a second matching line.

There are a number of xml, or simple python, changes which need some investigation, maybe discussion, implementation and then a simple WB test. Sometimes I feel like I spend a whole evening doing this type of change, and have no time to work on the bigger changes like colony founding locations. I will try to put together a "help wanted" post in the incremental patch thread to list out some of these.

 

[Deliverator]

The House Shield Generator is an early Force Shield which you can only build one of since it is a National Wonder. It is more likely that you build the HSG before the Force Shield. It was never intended for both to built in the same city (as in screenshot) so it is just a question of finding the right implementation to prevent this happening. Ideally, we would prevent the building of a Force Shield in a city with a HSG, rather than remove it once it is built.

On a semi-related note, the Shai-Hulad cathedral was intended to give +1 happy with Fremen Water Debt resource, but this doesn't seem to be happening (anymore)? Or is it on the base temple and I didn't notice?

That benefit is on the Temple of the Maker.

b) Give Fremen a free Shai-Hulad mystic (by Event) when they research Jihad IF Mahdi has already been founded.
[Otherwise the Fremen founds Mahdi]

Event is certainly the best way I think to trigger this sort of thing (free units on a particular condition)

Is it possible to make this happen just using Event XML?

 

[davidlallen]

OK, thanks. Then the two building ID's in the line of code I gave should be reversed, and only the one line is needed. This will remove the HSG if it exists, whenever a FS is built.

EDIT: HSG is obsolete with Ablative Shields tech, which is required for FS. So, doesn't HSG disappear automatically before FS can be built? Did you make the screenshot with WB, or have you seen this happen in game?

I notice FS does have some benefit over HSG, since FS gives +1 happiness to Charismatic leaders. Perhaps that is an error, anyway it is quite minor. To prevent the user from selecting FS in the city where HSG exists, this line would go into the cannotConstruct function:

if (iBuilding == self.iBFShield) and (pCity.getNumRealBuildings(self.iBHShield) > 0): return false

In either case, a help string should be added to the xml for the FS indicating it cannot be built in a city with the HSG.

 

[Deliverator]

OK, thanks. Then the two building ID's in the line of code I gave should be reversed, and only the one line is needed. This will remove the HSG if it exists, whenever a FS is built.

Is there a way to prevent the building of a Force Shield in a city that already has a HSG? It is a waste of hammers since the effects of the two buildings are identical. The human player might realise that building the Force Shield in this case is a waste, but the AI wouldn't.

 

[Ahriman]

That benefit is on the Temple of the Maker.

Ah! Thanks. My apologies then.

Is it possible to make this happen just using Event XML?

I don't know I'm sorry, I don't know how much is xml and how much is python. I don't know anythnig technical.
My guess would be that "create mystic if player is Fremen and discovered tech Jihad" would be easy, adding "if Mahdi already founded" would be more complex.

Orlanth is the event expert for Warhammer, and has been very effective at making large numbers of unit spawn events (our "advanced uprising" feature, as well as missionary events), I'm sure he'd be happy to give advice. I can ask separately.

There are also similar events in FFH IIRC - free missionaries spawn whenever a player researches a religion tech, even if it has already been founded.

This will remove the HSG if it exists, whenever a FS is built.

This is non-optimal. The AI will waste hammers on building the forceshield unnecessarily.
And if the national wonder is removed, does the AI get the opportunity to build it again elsewhere?

The optimal solution is to block construction of the FS if the HSG is present.

I will ask Warhammer team.

 

[davidlallen]

My proposal would be:
a) Change one of the Fremen starting techs to Mysticism, so they race Bene Gesserit for Shai-Hulad. AND
b) Give Fremen a free Shai-Hulad mystic (by Event) when they research Jihad IF Mahdi has already been founded.

For (a), Fremen start with Exploration and Desert Survival, which seem like a good match. Should we advance them on the Mysticism line instead? Instead of which?

For (b), an event cannot be limited to one civ in the xml. You can add python around the event to limit it. This is probably the best approach since an event creates a popup dialog for the recipient; otherwise the Fremen player might not even notice a mystic silently appearing.

 

[davidlallen]

The optimal solution is to block construction of the FS if the HSG is present.

I should avoid editing posts to avoid OOS problems. See my edit above.

 

[Ahriman]

EDIT: HSG is obsolete with Ablative Shields tech, which is required for FS.

I would make HSG not go obsolete, ideally. So, you build the HSG in one city, and then build FSs in other cities.

For (a), Fremen start with Exploration and Desert Survival, which seem like a good match. Should we advance them on the Mysticism line instead? Instead of which?

They are a good match, unfortunately, its a shame to lose either.
I'd probably drop exploration, having desert survival for dew collectors is probably more important.
This would probably also help by delaying a second scout, and so reduce the Fremen-get-every-goody-hut problem that sometimes happens. We were worried that the 2-move + wormrider scout was overpowered, here would be a good way to kill 2 birds.

I guess my worry then is; if BG don't get Shai-Hulad, are they too weak in the early game?
Probably not; then they might try to found one of the other religions. I'd like to sometimes see BG with Imperium for eg.

Also: BG have high religion flavor weights, Fremen do not. So I wouldn't be surprised if BG still ende up foudning SH most of the time (like how ghandi will very often found hinduism or budhism in vanilla).

For (b), an event cannot be limited to one civ in the xml. You can add python around the event to limit it. This is probably the best approach since an event creates a popup dialog for the recipient; otherwise the Fremen player might not even notice a mystic silently appearing.

Thanks. Also: I think events don't *have* to have a popup if you don't want them to. But I think we'd want a small event text anyway.