Version 2.4 feedback

zappara · Oct 21, 2008

Version 2.4 Feedback and bug reports

Please report bugs in this thread that you've seen when playing RoM v2.4.

Download patch v2.4->v2.41

About feedback:

For version 2.3 I added about 30 new events and I would appreciate some feedback about them. Some events are set to be occur multiple times, for example Mercenaries which can occur on each era multiple times (but might noth happen to the same civ) or volcanos, storms, ship sinking, plague etc. so any feedback about them that helps me balance those events more is appreciated. Are the gold amounts that are set to the new events too small or too huge? Does it seem that some events don't occur as often as they should? There might be still left some original BTS events that need adjustments to RoM settings - since some of the events don't occur in every game, it's lengthy process to notice events that do not currently have good settings for RoM games.

Version 2.4 makes terrain and improvement changes. These affect the overal game just about to every possible situation so please any feedback about them is appreciated. Also v2.4 adds BUG 3.5 mod functions to RoM and there might be still some glitches left so if you notice anything odd with interface (for example after changing BUG settings) please let me know.

Some other feedback things:

v2.3 introduced Corporation specific buildings - good/bad idea? How to improve?
RoM Concepts pedia - does it need more info about anything in this mod?
Units/Buildings/Wonders that seem to be underpowered or overpowered?
Ideas how to improve the mod?

Patch v2.41 release notes:

Spoiler :

Full list of v2.4 changes:

Spoiler :

About bug reporting:

If you find bug in the mod try to describe it in detail when you post about it. This helps me to locate it more accurately and faster.
About missing UI problem: Please post what Windows type and language version you are using. Also tell which one you are using, Beyond the Sword or complete Edition.
CTDs ie. Crashs To Desktop, try to provide as much information as possible what happened just before it occurred. Even better if you can upload save game file so I can take a look at it. If you are experiencing CTDs in late game, try reducing graphic settings, BtS is known to have crashes when saved games get big and when there's lots of stuff in late game - most common reason for CTD is that Civ 4 can't find enough free memory.
Some Civ4 Map scripts can not make maps for Giant or Gigantic map sizes.

BtS log files

To speed up finding possible causes for bugs, you can enable logging in BtS and attach zipped log files in this thread when you post about your findings.

To enable logging go to BtS folder and open Civ4Config. Check following options to these settings:

; Enable the logging system
LoggingEnabled = 1

; Overwrite old network and message logs
OverwriteLogs = 1

; Enable rand event logging
RandLog = 1

; Enable message logging
MessageLog = 1

Now when you start game, it logs everything to log files. When you exit the game, go to BtS folder, there should be Civ4logs, go there. Zip the log files in that folder and attach the zip file in your post so I can take a look at those files.

Known issues list:

CTD issue reported when clicking Start Game (reason unknown), possible reason that player has not updated BtS to version 3.17
Out of Synch error in multiplayer mode, happens when build Colonists or Pioneers, crashes game.
Missing unit action buttons - caused by unit animation file problems, please report what unit type and what nationality you had when this occurred so I can check those unit graphics.
MAFs in late game - this is caused by game engine and computer's memory amount. It's recommended to have 512MB graphics card and 3GB RAM for huge or larger map sizes. If you are experiencing Memory Allocation Faults, please try smaller map sizes (with fewer Civs) and try reducing your graphic settings.
Arcology can become really huge size if the city size goes over 40 and has certain combination of buildings visible. This is difficult issue to fix since cities do not show all buildings if there's not enough plots to display them so it's possible to have the combination in city but due to visibility functions, the bug doesn't occur always. Only solution (that I can think of) would be to disable all building graphics from late era buildings and to set the maximum size for a city.
FIXED IN V2.41: New terrain types (Marsh & Peat Bog) do not work with Battle Effects correctly in v2.4. Battle effects is enabled by default so I recommend disabling this mod component from ..\Rise of Mankind\Assets\GlobalDefinesAlt.xml. Set the value to 0 for battle effects.
FIXED IN V2.41: Russian Cossack and French Dragoon have not all upgrade paths set
Python issue with BUG mod component OnChangeWar section. Possible conflict with Revolution mod component? Doesn't seem to break anything and the game continues normally
FIXED IN V2.41: Python issue with BUG mod component Autolog, this component was supposed to be disabled by default yet it seems to be enabled and running during game and causes python exceptions (doesn't seem to break game)

Planned features for v2.5

Civics system revamped
Possibly more events (v2.3 got only about 1/3 of the events I had planned to add since the process to add them was slower than I had anticipated)
Add text to remaining strategy, pedia and quotes that are still empty
Add last button graphics to objects that don't have own button graphics yet
Some units/building/wonder additions/changes
Bug fixes

Here's the current list of changes in the next patch:

Spoiler :

andrew_yaweb · Oct 21, 2008

My new install of version 2.4 has no visual skin ( no flag, no top right buttons, none of that ). I know there's some magic alt or control key combo to toggle that, but I can't remember it, or it doesn't work.

Also, 'Options' menu doesn't come up, neither in game or at main menu. Deliberate?
(I found it's supposed to be alt-i, and that doesn't work.)

strategyonly · Oct 21, 2008

andrew_yaweb said:
My new install of version 2.4 has no visual skin ( no flag, no top right buttons, none of that ). I know there's some magic alt or control key combo to toggle that, but I can't remember it, or it doesn't work.

Also, 'Options' menu doesn't come up, neither in game or at main menu. Deliberate?
(I found it's supposed to be alt-i, and that doesn't work.)

If your running under VISTA then make sure you have it on Administrator.

lordrune · Oct 21, 2008

strategyonly said:
If your running under VISTA then make sure you have it on Administrator.

That's not enough - you need to actually disable UAC (User Access Control) - that applies for basically every patch you install to any game (and a fair few games themselves as well). Gotta have been the worst thought out feature Microsoft ever put into Windows.

Athelard · Oct 21, 2008

I go my first crash. It happens every time i go to the next turn.

Please tell me if you find a way to solve it

Thanks

Nemesys · Oct 21, 2008

hey Zap,
great news when I heard you finally released a CTD bug-free patch for RoM. Though having very little time to write again on the forum (and even less time to play civ4 at all :cry:

) I wanted to take a minute to say a huge thank you for you continuous efforts. Of course I will write here again to report my gaming experience (when I'll have one!)

Keep up the tremendous job :goodjob:

Cheers
Nem

andrew_yaweb · Oct 21, 2008

I'm on WIndows XP. Rolling back to the previous ROM works fine. When I rename that directory and unzip (with WinZip) to the default location and default directory name, that is what happens for me, no options menu and no interface.

Domino369 · Oct 21, 2008

YESSSSSSSSSS I'll try it out and report whatnot when I find it

DRJ · Oct 21, 2008

zappara said:
CTD issue reported when clicking Start Game (reason unknown), possible reason that player has not updated BtS to version 3.17

Can verify that one. Just installed RoM 2.4 and everytime I start a game now (custom scenario/random game/whatever) it stops to load after about 2/3 of the green bar are done -
and even worse: I cant use alt/tab to shift civ or even do alt/ctrl/del to open task manager to close the process. Hitting the reset key on my comp sucks.
Edit: as I just found out, sometimes (after the first attempt after a restart) alt/tab still works.

Note: I have patched to 3.17 (so I gurantee its not that) and all previous RoM versions worked fine (at least when trying to start a game - I usually had to abandon the games later on as CTD or MAF accured after some hours)

andrew_yaweb · Oct 21, 2008

Domino, you shouting? A response made suggestions for Vista and I was just clarifying my OS, not trying to whine.

lordrune · Oct 21, 2008

Just installed (renamed the old directory as per the suggestion) and started a game successfully. Will play a bit and see how I find it.

Nightguard · Oct 21, 2008

Thank you for turning down the bonuses provided by the cottage line of improvements. They were really starting to overbalance some of the other options. Granted, a lot of the bonuses they recieve are from civics choices, but with some of the choices you could take, it quickly became apparent that towns were your best option almost anywhere you could plant them.

Another comment about improvements: We have a number of techs that improve mines, but none that improve quarries. I really think the 'lesser mines' could use some improvement. First of all, modern explosives really accelerated the rate at which we are able to quarry stone for most forms of basic building material, so perhaps a +1 to production from Explosives? Secondly, modern manufacturing requires some very precisely cut stones for anchoring heavy machinery. Perhaps one of the Industrial or Modern age techs related to manufacturing should provide a +1 commerce bonus as well?

Only thoughts for now. Glad to see that you keep working to make this the most expansive, complex mod for Civ4. I have a hard time loading the game up any other way now.

Domino369 · Oct 21, 2008

Lol, nah. I was happy that 2.4 was out

Also, the toned down cottages have helped with worker AI (thank god because they were building cottages on sulfur as I try to build Cuirassers X.x)

Agent327 · Oct 22, 2008

Congrats on the new version. :goodjob:

Tried out the 18 civs Huge Earth map, resulting in these errors:
- "UNIT_ARTSTYLE_BARBARIAN in Info class was incorrect" (xml\Civilizations/CIV4Cibilizations.Infos, appeared twice)
-"cannot find BUGinit" (after map load)
- unit stack buttons appear to be missing (only active unit button is shown).

lordrune · Oct 22, 2008

No crashes yet (my game's in early medieval - playing with Barb civs, but not revolution - will turn that on for the next one).

One bug I've noticed (or it might be an undocumented feature?) - when I had barbarian axeman approach one of my cities, I had a war elephant next to them and I attacked the barb - the unit was on a grassland tile (I think there was jungle on it, but I'm not quite sure) - however instead of initiating combat, the terrain flipped to ICE/GRASSLAND - impassable. The war elephant got its move back, combat wasn't engaged.
The barb advanced to one of the neighbouring tiles, I had the same issue.

When I attacked the barb on the third tile (it was a plains hill IIRC) - the terrain type changed to fallout, however the engagement was succesful (as the terrain is passable) and the barbs were destroyed.

NOTE - the changes to ICE and FALLOUT were only temporary, they flipped back to normal after one turn, so it didn't screw my game, was just a bit unusual and annoying to deal with.

edmundb05 · Oct 22, 2008

Hi - I posted this in the original thread but that's probably not the right place!
In all the versions I have been playing of this (which I really, really enjoy!) I have never got the Wonder videos to work properly. They always come up as just a screen of pixels/colour which does not change (although the sound works properly). Could there be a simple explanation for this?

K1ckEM · Oct 22, 2008

lordrune said:
...When I attacked the barb on the third tile (it was a plains hill IIRC) - the terrain type changed to fallout, however the engagement was succesful (as the terrain is passable) and the barbs were destroyed....

Had the exact same problem with barbarian wardogs. I wasnt able to attack them, but the following turn they attacked me and lost -> Problem gone.

edmundb05 said:
Could there be a simple explanation for this?

Wonder VIdeos work fine with me... Maybe you need to update you video card driver, directx or something?

zappara · Oct 22, 2008

Nemesys said:
hey Zap,
great news when I heard you finally released a CTD bug-free patch for RoM. Though having very little time to write again on the forum (and even less time to play civ4 at all ) I wanted to take a minute to say a huge thank you for you continuous efforts. Of course I will write here again to report my gaming experience (when I'll have one!)

There might be left some other CTD bugs - just that the most annoying one got fixed in this patch doesn't rule out possibility of other bugs. But let's hope it's all good and working now

DRJ said:
[/list]

Can verify that one. Just installed RoM 2.4 and everytime I start a game now (custom scenario/random game/whatever) it stops to load after about 2/3 of the green bar are done -
and even worse: I cant use alt/tab to shift civ or even do alt/ctrl/del to open task manager to close the process. Hitting the reset key on my comp sucks.
Edit: as I just found out, sometimes (after the first attempt after a restart) alt/tab still works.

Note: I have patched to 3.17 (so I gurantee its not that) and all previous RoM versions worked fine (at least when trying to start a game - I usually had to abandon the games later on as CTD or MAF accured after some hours)

Could you post what kind of game settings you tried to use when started game? That might help me to find possible issues - last time this issue was mentioned was early this summer just by one player.

Nightguard said:
Thank you for turning down the bonuses provided by the cottage line of improvements. They were really starting to overbalance some of the other options. Granted, a lot of the bonuses they recieve are from civics choices, but with some of the choices you could take, it quickly became apparent that towns were your best option almost anywhere you could plant them.

Another comment about improvements: We have a number of techs that improve mines, but none that improve quarries. I really think the 'lesser mines' could use some improvement. First of all, modern explosives really accelerated the rate at which we are able to quarry stone for most forms of basic building material, so perhaps a +1 to production from Explosives? Secondly, modern manufacturing requires some very precisely cut stones for anchoring heavy machinery. Perhaps one of the Industrial or Modern age techs related to manufacturing should provide a +1 commerce bonus as well?

Only thoughts for now. Glad to see that you keep working to make this the most expansive, complex mod for Civ4. I have a hard time loading the game up any other way now.

Good thinking with quarry ideas - I'll make those changes to next version

There are still some improvements that have "space" for extra bonuses from techs - like sea improvements and yesterday I was looking them and techs to see where I could put some additional bonuses for them.

Domino369 said:
Lol, nah. I was happy that 2.4 was out
Also, the toned down cottages have helped with worker AI (thank god because they were building cottages on sulfur as I try to build Cuirassers X.x)

Adding Marsh terrain affects overal economy quite a lot too as Marsh can take about 20% of suitable land plots - that's lot less suitable cottage plots

JEELEN said:
Congrats on the new version.

Tried out the 18 civs Huge Earth map, resulting in these errors:
- "UNIT_ARTSTYLE_BARBARIAN in Info class was incorrect" (xml\Civilizations/CIV4Cibilizations.Infos, appeared twice)
-"cannot find BUGinit" (after map load)
- unit stack buttons appear to be missing (only active unit button is shown).

I guess I should have tested all previous maps made for 2.3 too...

lordrune said:
No crashes yet (my game's in early medieval - playing with Barb civs, but not revolution - will turn that on for the next one).

One bug I've noticed (or it might be an undocumented feature?) - when I had barbarian axeman approach one of my cities, I had a war elephant next to them and I attacked the barb - the unit was on a grassland tile (I think there was jungle on it, but I'm not quite sure) - however instead of initiating combat, the terrain flipped to ICE/GRASSLAND - impassable. The war elephant got its move back, combat wasn't engaged.
The barb advanced to one of the neighbouring tiles, I had the same issue.

When I attacked the barb on the third tile (it was a plains hill IIRC) - the terrain type changed to fallout, however the engagement was succesful (as the terrain is passable) and the barbs were destroyed.

NOTE - the changes to ICE and FALLOUT were only temporary, they flipped back to normal after one turn, so it didn't screw my game, was just a bit unusual and annoying to deal with.

Hmm, this might be related to Battle Effects mod component as it will change terrain types when battles happen but now that Marsh and Peat Bog was added, the code for battle effects acts oddly. Try turning off battle-effects from GlobalDefinesAlt.xml file (I hope I remembered file name correctly). I'll run some tests with them and make fixes for it if it doesn't require expert python/SDK skills...

edmundb05 said:
Hi - I posted this in the original thread but that's probably not the right place!
In all the versions I have been playing of this (which I really, really enjoy!) I have never got the Wonder videos to work properly. They always come up as just a screen of pixels/colour which does not change (although the sound works properly). Could there be a simple explanation for this?

You mean the new wonder movies? I think it might be some sort of codec related problem.

lordrune · Oct 22, 2008

In more general feedback - the changes to cottages are good, and the marsh terrain is awesome (haven't seen any complications with it so far).

Research costs are still too low past medieval age, as you end up teching at a massive rate from your trade income and multipliers. Zappara - do you think this is a concern? Or are you going to leave the curve where it is? I've got some thoughts about changing it (I might experiment with putting them in the game myself, although I have never modded Civ 4 before, I'm not shy of changing text files and even doing some scripting)

I think the production costs are about right - but if you can look at increasing tech costs in the late area, I think it will make the game experience better.

The other thing that would be good is if you can increase the inflation multiplier as you advance through the tech ages (as opposed to time).
This would mean that army maintenance costs, city maintenance costs, and the like remain significant even into the later parts of the game. It might require some scripting but I believe it would be worth the effort.

-edit: thinking about it more: It would be simple : just set up a few non-recurring events, that trigger in every game, when particular key techs are increased - that add increasing amounts to inflation... and then it's just a matter of getting the balance right. You don't have to make it burdensome, just enough that maintaining a large empire is actually a factor at high tech levels.

Other than that - trade income remains excessive compared to vanilla BTS due to exponential modifiers... if you can tweak the modifiers, it would do a lot to moderate things at the late game.

Like to know your thoughts - if you want a bit of help getting the numbers right, I'd be glad to put in some effort.

Nightguard · Oct 22, 2008

As far as the battle effects go, I think the issue is that the new terrain and terrain feature that you added has messed up the numbering that the mod uses to select the correct feature to overlay. I don't know how you would go about fixing it, but that's most likely the root of the problem. I'll be turning off battle effects for my next game. Shame, though, as I really liked where I was placed for the first run through with this new instance of the mod.

Version 2.4 feedback

Mod Designer

Chieftain

C2C Supreme Commander

Prince

Chieftain

Attachments

Chieftain

Chieftain

Warlord

Hedonist

Attachments

Chieftain

Prince

Warlord

Warlord

Observer

Prince

Chieftain

Chieftain

Mod Designer

Prince

Warlord

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