View Puppets

[Perkus]

View Puppets - mod for Civilization 5:

STATUS: Withdrawn from public use.

UPDATE (October 22, 2010):
Although it went completely undocumented in the patch notes (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89117), patch 1.0.0.62 has eliminated the primary reason for this mod's existence by adding a "View City" option to the popup dialogue whenever you click on a puppet city. This now allows you to view view city screens without requiring this mod! You can also enter puppet cities directly from the City List table in the upper left corner.

As a result of these events, I have withdrawn the mod from the Mod Browser (by marking it private), and deleted it from the "Downloads" moderation queue here. If you have been using it, you are also advised to disable / delete it from your game.

The only problem I've spotted so far with leaving this mod enabled under 1.0.0.62 is that you will not be able to sell buildings - left clicks on buildings are ignored. This, of course, is quite significant. If you happen to find any more, let me know.

When I get a chance to work on it more, I will carry over those fixes and enhancements that remain useful into a new, separate mod entity, probably to be called something like City Screen Enhancements. I would still like the ability to cycle through my puppet cities, for example, which 1.0.0.62 does not allow.

I am leaving the civ5mod package attached to this post for anyone who may wish to refer to it for testing or learning purposes.

Perkus

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Allows viewing of full city screens for player's puppet cities. Prevents any changes to production, worker assignments, specialists, city focus, and any purchases (unlike "Puppet City Visibility"). Does allow renaming. Doesn't mess with Happiness! Works via city banners or the city list. Supports cycling between cities. Annex is now via new button in city screen. Adds a couple of other minor fixes. Merges in a few benign UI improvements from other City View / City Banner mods.

NOTE: To skip puppet cities while cycling between cities, hold down SHIFT key!


Special Thanks: To Afforess, author of the mod "Puppet City Visibility", which was the original inspiration and code base for this. I'm merely building upon his foundation here.


Files Changed:
CityBannerManager.lua
CityBannerManager.xml
CityList.lua
CityView.lua
CityView.xml
CityView_small.xml

Known Mod Conflicts:
Puppet City Visibilty
Copasetic UI Tweaks
Combined Civilization's Mods and Tweaks (CCMAT)

Revision History:
Version 1 - October 19, 2010 - First public release

Known Issues:
None yet!


DETAILS:

• Strictly for "viewing puppets" - prevents any changes to production, worker assignments, specialists, city focus, and any purchases. Does still allow renaming.
  
• Doesn't mess with your Happiness! I found a better way to handle this cleanly which doesn't change your happiness while viewing puppets. Which is really nice because you don't need to remember the difference, even if you're well aware of this wrinkle. Also, if the difference changes your "happiness bracket", e.g. takes you below 0, it causes the city to redistribute its workers (temporarily, anyway) to de-emphasize growth. This is annoying if you want to see how the city is using its workforce, only to have it changed because you've temporarily taken off the puppet flag. I've avoided all this hassle.
  
• Supports cycling through all your puppet cities via the left/right arrows on the top banner in the city screen (or left/right arrow keys). The original only changes the one city at a time, letting you cycle and return to it. I let you cycle through all your puppet cities (as well as the regulars). Much nicer if you wish to look at several puppets at once (which is often), such as when planning to raze/annex some.
  (NOTE: To *skip* puppet cities while cycling in city view, hold down the SHIFT key!)
  
• You can now also view puppet cities via the city list panel (top left corner).
  
• The production is disabled in a different way - the button itself is disabled, instead of showing a list of things that you can't choose to build.

And 2 minor fixes of "Firaxis" bugs:

• Fixes specialist right-click to "pedia" links. This was linking to pedia links for the buildings, not specialists, and the wrong building at that (the last one right-clicked), or a blank entry if not used yet.
  
• The little city state icons are now always right below city name. They used to appear below the "WLTKD" or "Resource wanted" banners, which I found really annoying when I was quickly looking for the puppet indicator while scrolling through many cities.
  
• Fixes a bug in Puppet City Visibility (v 2) that prevents multiple Annexing in one session.

Also merges in a few changes I liked from other mods that alter City View or City View Manager. Thanks to the authors of these as well (copasetic & ma):

From "Copasetic UI Tweaks":

• Player-owned city banners now display a culture bar.
• When a city is starving, show number of turns until population falls on the city banner.
• Make growth meter red if city is starving.

From "QueueOn":

• Always starts with Citizen Allocation Focus panel open in order to show which plots are being worked.
• Show production needed = 0 while a city is being razed

 

[player1 fanatic]

Congratulations for finally publishing this mod!

I already use it for several days, and can't play anymore without it. It's just that much great.

 

[Perkus]

@player1 fanatic

Thank you, thank you very much! It was the first thing I felt needed modding when I started playing.

 

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

I am eager to try this.
I usually like mods that provide more info without altering gameplay. But this one, I take since not being able to look at a city you own is so so unrealistic.

 

[Perkus]

Hello everyone,

It looks like today's patch made several significant changes to the city screen functionality. I need to identify & merge all these changes into the View Puppets mod. Until I can get an update coded, tested & released, you may want to disable this mod. Otherwise some of these may not work for you (quoting from patch notes):

• Allow selection of other cities by hex from within the city screen
• Can now sell Buildings in a city (to help lower maintenance for obsolete buildings later in the game).
• City specialization and city focus improvements.
• Add a Puppet city strategy that turns off training buildings and emphasizes gold.

That is just my best rough guess as to what this mod most likely overrides if you leave it enabled with the new patch. More later...

 

[Perkus]

UPDATE:
Although it went completely undocumented in the patch notes (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89117), patch 1.0.0.62 has eliminated the primary reason for this mod's existence by adding a "View City" option to the popup dialogue whenever you click on a puppet city. This now allows you to view view city screens without requiring this mod! You can also enter puppet cities directly from the City List table in the upper left corner.

As a result of these events, I have withdrawn the mod from the Mod Browser (by marking it private), and deleted it from the "Downloads" moderation queue here. If you have been using it, you are also advised to disable / delete it from your game.

The only problem I've spotted so far with leaving this mod enabled under 1.0.0.62 is that you will not be able to sell buildings - left clicks on buildings are ignored. This, of course, is quite significant. If you happen to find any more, let me know.

When I get a chance to work on it more, I will carry over those fixes and enhancements that remain useful into a new, separate mod entity, probably to be called something like City Screen Enhancements. I would still like the ability to cycle through my puppet cities, for example, which 1.0.0.62 does not allow.

I will now update the original post in this thread as well...

 

[Bobisback]

I just want to be able to change city focus for puppet cities. Could you point me to what files would need to be changed for this?

Thanks,
Bob