Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD]

[vincentz]

Wow! Have anyone tried to merge your mod with C2C or RI in the past?

I'd say it would be difficult as they uses the same files. So what would stay as vip and what would be used from ri or c2c?

Wow Drak! A resource on every tile!?? What map script or map setting is that?

@Vincentz,

How are you holding up there dad? Taking care of your self along with the babies? Has Alexander wanted to hold sister yet?

My 2nd child, 1st son got to hold his newborn brother when he was 16 days short of his 4th Birthday. 3rd child (2nd son) was born at home and 1st son held his brother right after I had cut the cord. Birth has at home with next door neighbor, an EMT attending, because the midwife was late.

Sounds like you have a normal happy young family.

Best wishes for you all, Be Blessed.

JosEPh

Everything is good, though a lot more work Alexander really likes Vanessa, so atleast there is no jealous feelings. He even sat with her and stroking her head. He looks so big compared to his much younger littlesister

So I DL'd the latest version (oh man, all those python goodies from Platyping! New intro!), and I was wondering: what is the difference between the VIP1-2-3-4 mapscripts?

VIP1 is everything working, tested on all mapsizes and with features and terrains.
VIP2 is some working
VIP3 is less working or untested
VIP4 is untested.


Sorry for late reply everyone. merry christmas and happy new year

 

[vincentz]

600+ downloads in 3 month. Civ IV still lives!

I'm looking forward to hear the stories, suggestions and bug reports, so I can finally finalize the VIP mod.

I boosted industrial era by adding health to relevant techs, as well as giving +25% growth to supermarkets, and considering doing the same to hospitals and making a sewer system doing the same.
I also reduced the time civs were angry because of declaring on a friend.

 

[Daft73]

Happy New Year's Vincent!, hope you and your family had a nice holiday..Fantastic work on the new intro, and thanks for still supporting Civ4 modding

 

[vincentz]

Thanks. Happy new year to you too

I'm planning to at least stick around to the 10th year anniversary of Civ IV
Its still an amazing game imho.

 

[vincentz]

Well.... I did it... I finally won a game. iirc its the only game I've ever won since I started on the VIP mod. And it ended in Domi (changed to 75% land area) in 1942 AD with only 5 modern techs researched.
Best part was : not. one. single. crash. And while there was (and still is) some balancing needed, there wasnt any bugs either* Turn speed was very acceptable. In fact the later turns was much faster than the middle turns, as most civs were wiped off the map. (even the savegame was reduced in size, and never exceeded 1.5 mb.).

AI was nicely aggressive with "realistic" early wars, and good alliances along the way. They were pretty tough to fight, and especially the last war in industrial era, was long and hard fought. More than 500 units were lost on my behalf altogether, and thousands were killed.
I pretty much took every. single. unit. that wasnt reachable by enemy forces, and pushed to the frontier. Otherwise the wars would surely have ended in failure.
If one of the friend'lish "lesser, but capable" AI had taken their shot and declared war, while my focus was elsewhere, I would instead of celebrating, had been ragequitting

My biggest disappointment were when I reached gunpowder era, and every civ had the same type of riflemen, cavalry etc. Gotta put in some ethnically diverse unit graphics.
Civics need a bit of balancing as well. The AI were VERY happy with Serfdom and Vassalage.

*except for the map only generated 1 aluminum.

And finally, after the war that ended all wars, its time for a parade. This is basically 98% of all my units gathered on a single tile (except planes and workers):

Spoiler :

Gamestats : Large+ "Big and Small" map with 14 AI, Emperor difficulty, Normal Speed, Neolithic Start.

 

[vincentz]

Had a little fun with the Gamecore.dll

Added Fort Attack mod
- Makes Siege Weapons do an extra attack when in forts at the end of the turn.

Added Better Air interception mod
- Makes AA and Fighters better at intercepting if more present at tile.

Added Civic Specialist Yield & Commerce Changes mod
- Add gold/science/culture/commerce/food/production for Specialists at certain civics

Specialist Enhancements
- Adds health and happiness for certain Specialists.

Every time I add to the gamecore, I do shed a little tear, coz of my lack of brain for making my own dll modifications.



Edit : Well, I did do a couple of (not so impressing) things by myself

When RangeStrike it cost 5 movepoints now (used to be 1)
When Bombard (both ships and siege) it cost 5 movepoints now (used to be 1)
When Paradrop it cost 10 movepoints, BUT paratrooper can attack same round (if movepoints left) (used to be 0 and no attack)
When Siege that can Rangestrike is in cargo (of ship) it can no longer range strike (used to be able to attack from cargohold (insert crazy smiley here)...

 

[epicivfreak]

I just had to drop in and say thanks, vincentz. I've tried every version of Civ4 I could get my hands on, from the expansions to the mods, and I never could get into this iteration of the game - until I tried your v0.96 mod. I'm now playing the first game of Civ4 I've ever actually enjoyed, so yeah, thanks for that.

Notes on the game so far:
-Movies play terribly on fullscreen for me, completely frozen video on High, stuttering playback on Medium and Low. Sound works fine though. It's been so long since I've even looked "under the hood" of civ4, I don't recall, is there a way to change these back to the windowed movies on my end?

-I would suggest a variation out of Rhye's playbook: disallow the settling of cities on desert tiles, tundra tiles and ice tiles. I have this large desert on my border and it's filling up with large desert cities in the ancient era, which I find rather odd. Maybe some type of Modern Settler unit could do that in later eras, but in ancient times - weird.

-(edit)Oh, and More Civs! Playing with 32 is nice, but at the very least I'd like to play with the full 34 civs that Firaxis created. 40 or more would be better though.

 

[vincentz]

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it


Sorry to hear about movies. I'm playing from a rather old computer, though with 64 bit win 7, and when i play full screen movies look pretty nice, though I usually play in windowed mode, and the intro movie does have a bit refresh problem. Is it all videos (wondermovies) that have issues?

Its not a bad idea with the settlers, as most often those ai that start on tundra/desert gets a crappy game (was like that in vanilla too), though it prolly need a rewrite of mapscript generator, as otherwise those civs will become citystates instead of empires. I'll give it a try.

I looked at the game speeds the other day and thought about it too. The warmonger modes are normal unit and building production cost, while Emperor I added construction costs, so there will be less units, and therefore less focus on warfare (that was atleast the intention ) the T stands for turntimes with Time victory on.

Regarding the civs... I've tried to look for an existing mod with lots of new civs, but havnt found a good one yet, and im a bit reluctant to take individual civs from download database, and make my own package, coz it will take a lot of time, but at some point (and hopefully in 0.97) there will be an extra civ pack.
The civs that will be the firsts are indonesia, siam, brazil, poland, venice, canada, israel and prolly an african civ, but my aim is 50 playable civs, and the gamecore will ofcause be set to it

 

[vincentz]

-(edit)Oh, and More Civs! Playing with 32 is nice, but at the very least I'd like to play with the full 34 civs that Firaxis created. 40 or more would be better though.

Still some work to do, but the basics are in place
No animated leaderheads yet though. Maybe an addon pack for those, as they are going to take up more space than mod+new civs together...
Considering adding a Slavic ArtStyleType, for Russia and the new east-europe contries.

Spoiler :

edit : changed gamecore.dll to max 60 civs.

 

[vincentz]

200 turn AI AutoPlay with 50 civ on Colossal Map (Big&Small, low waterlevel)


Link to video.


edit: Changing/Adding Worldsize/civ#. Changed coredll to max 80 civ.

[B]Name		Size			#Civ			Aspect Ratio[/B]
Duel 		10x6 = 960 sq. 		2 civ	480 sq each	1.667
Tiny 		13x8 = 1664 sq 		3 civ	554 sq each	1.625
Small 		16x10 = 2560 sq		5 civ	512 sq each	1.6	
Standard	20x12 = 3840 sq		7 civ	548 sq each	1.667
Large		25x15 = 6000 sq	9 civ	666 sq each	1.667
Huge		32x20 = 10240 sq	12 civ	853 sq each	1.6
Giant		40x25 = 16000 sq	16 civ	1000 sq each	1.6
Colossal	50x30 = 24000 sq	20 civ	1200 sq each	1.667

Large	+	25x15 = 6000 sq	15 civ	400 sq each	1.667
Huge	+	32x20 = 10240 sq	20 civ	512 sq each	1.6
Giant	+	40x25 = 16000 sq	26 civ	615 sq each	1.6
Colossal +	50x30 = 24000 sq	34 civ	705 sq each	1.667

Duel 10x6 = 960 sq. 2 civ 480 sq each 1.667
Tiny 13x8 = 1664 sq 173% 3 civ 554 sq each 1.625
Small 16x10 = 2560 sq 153% 5 civ 512 sq each 1.6
Standard 20x12 = 3840 sq 150% 7 civ 548 sq each 1.667
Large 25x15 = 6000 sq 156% 10 civ 600 sq each 1.667
Huge 32x20 = 10240 sq 170% 15 civ 682 sq each 1.6
Giant 40x25 = 16000 sq 156% 20 civ 800 sq each 1.6
Colossal 50x30 = 24000 sq 150% 25 civ 960 sq each 1.667

Large + 25x15 = 6000 sq 15 civ 400 sq each 1.667
Huge + 32x20 = 10240 sq 20 civ 512 sq each 1.6
Giant + 40x25 = 16000 sq 26 civ 615 sq each 1.6
Colossal + 50x30 = 24000 sq 34 civ 705 sq each 1.667

 

[epicivfreak]

Sorry to hear about movies. I'm playing from a rather old computer, though with 64 bit win 7, and when i play full screen movies look pretty nice, though I usually play in windowed mode, and the intro movie does have a bit refresh problem. Is it all videos (wondermovies) that have issues?

It was the intro movie and all wonder movies, however, now that I've familiarized myself with the basics of the mod, I've started a new game on a higher difficulty with the video quality on Low and it's working fine now. . .

Also, glad to hear they'll be more civs eventually.

 

[vincentz]

well. the civs are a lot bigger project than I anticipated, Though I plan to release on friday hopefully
Also added a "Very Low Sealevel"-map option, for that extra space, when adding lots of civs, plus retracted the icecaps and tundra (80-90 degree ice and 70-80 degree tundra)

 

[JosEPh_II]

Hey young Master of the growing Vincentz Horde,

Is 0.96 Platy the current version? Or is there another hidden in the postings?

Hope you and yours Had a Great Holiday season.

JosEPh

 

[vincentz]

Hey young Master of the growing Vincentz Horde...

The Horde Leader sacked and pillaged, jumped in sofa and refused to go to bed, even after being ordered 1000 times. He even brought the young warrior princess into the rebellion, and only after a hard fought battle which seemed like a thousand unit stack of doom-attack, he surrendered. So Master is very tired now...

We did have a great xmas and newyears eve though. I hope you had as well

The 0.96 version is the latest version. Lots of stuff have been added since then, but I want to adjust the new civs before releasing 0.97, and with 20+ changes to each civ and leader with 40+ new civs and 70+ new leaders, its going to take awhile.
I did do some AI-test runs, and they all came out acceptable. Even with 50 units on a Colossal mapsize. So atleast no gamebreaking bugs
Might upload a 0.97 beta if I cant find time for change all the civs in time.


Edit :
changed gamecore so 1 pop = 2 unhealth -> need to change a lot of buildings back to get health from resources
changed gamecore so 1 pop = 2 unhappy -> need to change a lot of buildings back to get happiness from resources

 

[vincentz]

I can't remember for how long I wanted to do this....

Spoiler :

Airunits range is still yellow, and considering doing blue for ships.
Now I just need the AI rangebombardments fixed....

edit : and apparently the AI gets it as well. I hope for the best and fear the worst

Spoiler :

 

[Drakarska]

Nice .

Since your under the hood bro, were you planning on the GS tune up ?

 

[vincentz]

Nice .

Since your under the hood bro, were you planning on the GS tune up ?

Will do. Scientist also gives +1 now. (too lazy to make a separate Great Doctor ).

edit : Changed range for AI captures unit and not dispand from 4 to 20 from city (I think )

 

[epicivfreak]

Its not a bad idea with the settlers, as most often those ai that start on tundra/desert gets a crappy game (was like that in vanilla too), though it prolly need a rewrite of mapscript generator, as otherwise those civs will become citystates instead of empires. I'll give it a try.

Mind if I make a suggestion regarding the mapscript? I've never looked into how Civ4 does the placement of starting locations, but here's what I'd like to see happen:

Step 1 - Find river starts
Find the delta (where river meets coast) of every river in the world, put all those tiles on a list of "start locations." Then, find the source (where river starts) of every river in the world, putting those tiles on the same list.

Step 2 - Cull the list
Automatically cull any tile from the list that is on ice or tundra. You should still have way more start locations than you need (civ4 has tons of rivers), so then, reduce the list of start locations by ensuring you have decent spacing between all the civs.

Step 3 - Place and Boost
Place all civs in the locations found, ensuring that seafaring civs start at the delta, not the source of a river - and that the coastal tile is not a lake, but has a clear path to the ocean tiles. Then boost the civ's starting location by ensuring there are at least two different Food Resources, two different Strategic Resources and two different Luxury Resources within 3 tiles of the start location tile - changing tiletypes if necessary to ensure those resources.
*********************************************
This should ensure that all civs start on a river, which is historically where city-building civilizations began anyway (them thar river-valley civilizations). The resource boost should also aid in balancing start locations a bit, especially for the civilizations starting on floodplains and would have otherwise been totally surrounded by desert (leaving them city-states, as you said previously).
*********************************************
PS: Note that if you could somehow ensure that civs start locations occur on the longest rivers first and then work your way down to the shortest rivers during the above process, that would be extra-super-duper-awesome.

 

[vincentz]

I agree with you, and most of your suggestions are actually already in the engine, though not optimal. F.ex with the start river. The tiles behind the river which not counts as river is unfortunately many times used as a start pos.
Game also tries to boost bad starting pos. Best example

Spoiler :

In .97 I did reduce both tundra, ice and swamp, but what really matters the most is the individual mapscripts.
I might look at them later, but there are some that have a "Balanced" option, which iirc is part of what you are looking for.


EDIT :
Progress is being made. I've been bugged with this for almost 10 years!!!!
The list that shows which units are on a tile would often go off the screen if more than 15 units
example (left side of screen, mouseover, going off the screen in top, resulting in that the info of the unit that was going to be attacked was not visible.)

Spoiler :

Now reduced to 5 units before "grouping": (changed to 10)

//	static const uint iMaxNumUnits = 15; Vincentz
	static const uint iMaxNumUnits = 5;

Spoiler :

EDIT EDIT :
Im considering removing info about strength, movementpoints and promotions for non-player units.
Pros and cons?

 

[Noyyau]

Awesome! The fact that the unit list went outside the screen always bugged me as well!

Where can I find that line to tinker with the numer of units displayed before grouping? Depending on screen size, you could have more or less displayed, and I'd like to tinker and find the ideal number for my resolution.