Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD]

[Noyyau]

So far I noticed I really miss 3 things from AND:
1) The ability to sell buildings (especially unneeded ones that cost maintenance)
2) The possibility to sort the city list (F1) according to base production and commerce, not just the final total (which already includes all the bonuses and multipliers)
3) The "fixed borders" module, which (with the correct civics) allows military units to claim a neutral or enemy tile. Thus allowing to obtain a resource somewhere in a horrible terrain area (or simply that one extra border pop away) without having to found an otherwise useless city. And it really shines with sea resources: just park a ship and get a workboat there.

 

[vincentz]

So far I noticed I really miss 3 things from AND:
1) The ability to sell buildings (especially unneeded ones that cost maintenance)
2) The possibility to sort the city list (F1) according to base production and commerce, not just the final total (which already includes all the bonuses and multipliers)
3) The "fixed borders" module, which (with the correct civics) allows military units to claim a neutral or enemy tile. Thus allowing to obtain a resource somewhere in a horrible terrain area (or simply that one extra border pop away) without having to found an otherwise useless city. And it really shines with sea resources: just park a ship and get a workboat there.

1) does the AI know how to do, and take advantage of it?
I have been reluctant to add a custom CvGameCoreDLL.dll, which would allow lots of fancy new features. Reasons : Stability, stability, stability, speed and AI.
While I did make a custom dll a few versions back, I removed it again.
Personally I much rather play without some nice features, and be sure I can play without gamebreaking bugs (AND had quite a few).

Here's the list I did succesfully put in it, and another component that worked quite good was building upgrade : example : Harbour -> Port -> Commercial Port.

Spoiler :

Rebase rangelimit for aircraft (x2 of range)

Recon mission has chance of being intercepted

XP to Air units for bombard, bomb improvements, attacking cities and killing units

Air units can completely destroy ground units

Defending units with Withdraw% has chance of retreating combat

Get gold from dispanding units in own culture

Multiple Productions in 1 turn

Specialists can give health and happiness

But this (if I do) will be the last thing I put in, when everything else is 100% finished
Also, if any, they have to be 100% compatible with the AI. Everything else is, and I hate stuff that can be used by player but not AI (its cheating imho)

2) Its part of BUG, which, while I think its an amazing mod, uses quite a lot of resources. When I started the mod, I wanted it to be playable throughout the eras (I couldnt with ROM or AND which I modmodded earlier), which again means that I spend every chance I could get at optimizing size/memory consumption. I did some calculations when I started :

The impact is fairly easy to measure (1st turn on medium size continents map. # is mb memory used)

BTS 215
VIP 215 (not much added as of yet. )
BUG 374
RevDCM 395 *
FFH2 296 **
ROM AND 621 (just for comparison)

VIP latest version : 299

3) See 1 and 2

 

[JosEPh_II]

just an update before I forget :

Fixed No Palace Penalty - to No Government Center
Fixed "Blind" Ram captures cities - Gave it ability to do 10% damage
Fixed Glassblowers Guild - Now requires Glassware resource to build (was Glassworks building before)
Fixed Drapers Guild - Now requires Fashion resource to build (was Drapery building before)
Added +50% Great general points to Imperial Cult civic
Reduced maintenance for Guilds
Fixed City Walls - Now visible
<snip>

Are these yet to be added to .87b?

JosEPh

 

[j_mie6]

how do you find out the memory usage then?

 

[vincentz]

nope, its changes made after I uploaded .87b.

I'm currently in 1350 AD researching chemistry with Arqs and bombards starting to appear, and those changes could be the last changes for ancient, classical and medieval eras, which imho runs perfectly (albeit a bit too slow calender wise, where I would put the current development around 1450, but if it was small mapsize and less AIs it might have been opposite.)

I'll upload a 0.88 tonight with the new changes, as some of them are just silly old bugs (the Ram).

edit : lol - I only got 1 Guild. The rest have been taken. Several just before I was about to finish them. I think the difficulty level is back on track, as I can hardly stay in the middle of the scoreboard and the wars are very hard fought with a small price/few cities gained before enemy recuperates.

 

[vincentz]

how do you find out the memory usage then?

well, I have to admit its not a very scientific measurement.
I just took the Task Manager immediately after mapsetup was finished.

I also measured after a couple of AI autoruns, but there were too many factors involved to make it comparable.

 

[Noyyau]

Fair enough, I'm pretty sure the AI never even knew it could sell buildings!
Or use the fixed borders either...

I suppose they're acceptable sacrifices to play smoothly up to the modern era anyway (where in AND I actually had a book to read between turns, am I crazy for doing that?)

But, may I also add:

4) Advanced settlers! Colonist with Navigation and Pioneer with Steam Power, these upgrades for the basic Settler found cities with 2 (colonist) and 3 or 4 (cant remember) (pioneer) starting pop instead of 1, and assorted "free" basic buildings (granary, forge, etc), making it worth to found cities after the middle ages.
I'm around the renessaince now, and it's quite pointless now to found any new city that'll just be a drain on the economy for a long while.
When I'll get to the civic that allows paying for rushbuilding, depending on costs, I might actually colonize a few extra spots, though

 

[vincentz]

4) Advanced settlers! Colonist with Navigation and Pioneer with Steam Power, these upgrades for the basic Settler found cities with 2 (colonist) and 3 or 4 (cant remember) (pioneer) starting pop instead of 1, and assorted "free" basic buildings (granary, forge, etc), making it worth to found cities after the middle ages.
I'm around the renessaince now, and it's quite pointless now to found any new city that'll just be a drain on the economy for a long while.
When I'll get to the civic that allows paying for rushbuilding, depending on costs, I might actually colonize a few extra spots, though

The "reading a book or watch TV" was standard procedure when playing ROM and ROM AND Donno why the turns took sooooo long time?!?

I'm around renaissance too now, and while it does require some setup, its not impossible to get fast big cities. My advice is use "Spread Culture" to get the bigX then make farms, farms and farms (the "old" big cities should have removed their farms for better improvements by now.) Forget about the production to start out with.
Have 3 or 4 farms/food resources on a newly started city, and it will boom quite fast. After that there should be some heavy production (mines, quarries or workshops) to build the food storages. And before u know it, the city is size 10 and doing fine

I have thought about the "advanced" settlers though. Afaik its Python programmed, and therefore "easy" to implement.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@vincentz,
Happy Father's day!

JosEPh

 

[vincentz]

thanks

It was actually also my wifes birthday, so I guess it was FatherMothers day

Though the night was in civ's sign :

Spoiler :

short'ish story : Saladin declared war on me, and I got Joao II. to join me against him. Then Saladin got Sury into the fight, but Sury was the unpopular kid and a bunch of my friends started to hack and slash at him. While I did get a couple of cities from Saladin, I was forced to retreat when Sury's SoD arrived at my borders and Saladin had recovered and upgraded his forces with a boomstick (and Joao II. had signed a peace deal with Saladin.) I then signed for peace with Saladin.
As there was a small (but rather long) line of no mans land in between Saladins lands, I pushed my army north to grap some of Sury's cities, which were beaten by Joao, Zara and Hammurabi.

Grabbing 4 of Surys cities went easily enough, then Sury vasaled to Jingu, my old nemesis.
Suddenly, after a couple of turns, Jingu recaptures one of Sury's cities with a stack of 60+ units, that had traveled secretly in Saladins lands.

Now there are stacks of Zara, Joao, Sury, Jingu and myself battling chaotic in the north.

This is by far the best civ game I've ever played Great exploration, fleets, islands/ocean, wars, diplomacy and building of the empire, with constant fear of being overrun at all times. Playing at the best of my skills and still struggling to keep it on the top of the scoreboard.

 

[Noyyau]

A few turns later, I'm realizing that the new little colonies are growing quite fast anyway, must be the grocers guild and all those food resources I'm having...being near seafood also helps, I guess.

If it's not too much spamming, I'd like to list what I'm liking about VIP:

1) The early -to- conversions (barter and trade), which pretty much save me from bankruptcy and allowed me to keep researching, and ultimately getting on top of the scoreboard.

2)Building any type of improvement without the resources. This is a brilliant idea, and workshops being able to "generate" weapons and commodities is also a nice touch. Though forest camp-spamming in the ancient era caused a deer population explosion...

3) The smart AI and its love for maritime invasions. It pulled off some pretty daring expeditions in the classical era, when all it had were galleys and the occasional trireme.

3a)The Cog, it fills the void between galleys and galleons very nicely. Also, now it's such a juicy target for my privateers...

4) Reduced visibility. Scary the first time, but quite appropriate in the ancient era, gives me that sensation of the unknown expanses of wilderness beyond my little campfire of civilization...

5) The changed values for and city growth, they seem to be working fine.

But since I'm a born complainer...

A) Extra manteinance % for many buildings. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but until I got rich on international trade routes, maintenance was a heavy drain on my finances.
What would I have to modify to tinker with %s, and see what works for me?

B) & . Not a complaint per se, just that while I had very little money early on, my people have always been healthy and cheerful!

C) Religious shrines giving culture instead of money: I agree that it makes sense, but it used to be my main income up to the middle ages...
Still, state churches always had money to go around, so maybe civics like Organized Religion or Theocracy could give, say, +1 per that religion's temple? That'd be just an extra line in the civic's file, or something more complex?

D) Where did Combat promotions for ships go?

 

[vincentz]

2)Building any type of improvement without the resources. This is a brilliant idea, and workshops being able to "generate" weapons and commodities is also a nice touch. Though forest camp-spamming in the ancient era caused a deer population explosion...

Yeah, the deers and fur usually pops from the forests. Unfortunately there isnt a way for stopping it on certain latitudes. But, as an example, we still have a couple of forests in Denmark reserved for deers. It was sort of "Royal Hunting Forests".
When the deers pop, its usually in the beginning, and close to Capital, so I always thought of it as wild forest parks.

3) The smart AI and its love for maritime invasions. It pulled off some pretty daring expeditions in the classical era, when all it had were galleys and the occasional trireme.
3a)The Cog, it fills the void between galleys and galleons very nicely. Also, now it's such a juicy target for my privateers...

I have always been very happy with maritime operations in VIP. Its been so long since I played vanilla civ, so I cant remember how well it does with naval invasions and armadas, but in VIP it makes some nice settling, naval battles and organized invasions. In my current game, the japs went past a well guarded area, to grab a city that was less defended. And Saladin sent a medium size taskforce of Caravels to interrupt my Galleon transports.

A) Extra manteinance % for many buildings. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but until I got rich on international trade routes, maintenance was a heavy drain on my finances.
What would I have to modify to tinker with %s, and see what works for me?

The extra maintenance was to balance big/small empires, and reduce the "I got 20 cities, so now I can steamroll everyone on map" effect. It does change regarding mapsize and gamespeed. Yesterday I caught a maintenance error in Gigantic mapsize regarding the % of corporations (should have been 20 and was 35). There might be other tweaks needed to be done, but its not uncommon to have a couple of cities "Trading" to keep the fiscal balance on track


B) & . Not a complaint per se, just that while I had very little money early on, my people have always been healthy and cheerful!

It really depends on playing style and difficulty level. If you beeline to an advanced tech (bronze working f.ex.) and avoids the happiness/health giving techs, and dont have resources, then it will look quite different Later on, with the fact that resources doesnt give +2 as in vanilla (+1 for resource and another +1 for building), it becomes harder to avoid problems, and with a lot of buildings with unhealthiness its difficult to have clean cities at middleage and impossible at industrialism

C) Religious shrines giving culture instead of money: I agree that it makes sense, but it used to be my main income up to the middle ages...
Still, state churches always had money to go around, so maybe civics like Organized Religion or Theocracy could give, say, +1 per that religion's temple? That'd be just an extra line in the civic's file, or something more complex?

It was too overpowered to have +1 gold from each city early on, hence why I removed it (u said it yourself : "main income" )
I did a lot of changes on religions : no autospread, reduced missionaries, changes to monasteries etc.
I like religions in civ, just never liked the way it was implemented. Early religions means everything, and the two biggest religions today irl (christianity and islam) is never to be seen in a vanilla civ game. I try to tweak them so early religions will be harder to spread widely, so the last religions get a place in the game too.


D) Where did Combat promotions for ships go?
yeah, good question. I wanted to make a separate line of promotions for ships (as planes have), but never got around it. It will come in later versions though. (Firepower, Range, Armor, etc) I did put in a few new ones though (Transport line).

Thanks for all the input. I really appreciate it.
If you dont mind posting what your mapsize, maptype, gamespeed, difficulty level and # of AI, so I can look at maintenance adjustments.

 

[vincentz]

uploaded 0.88 here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12751

It is compatible with 0.87b savegames.

 

[Noyyau]

Yeah, the deers and fur usually pops from the forests. Unfortunately there isnt a way for stopping it on certain latitudes. But, as an example, we still have a couple of forests in Denmark reserved for deers. It was sort of "Royal Hunting Forests".
When the deers pop, its usually in the beginning, and close to Capital, so I always thought of it as wild forest parks.

2 deers right next to my first city, exactly! Hmm, I *did* have monarchy for quite a while, so why not, royal hunting grounds! Nice one
Reminds of Richmond Park not far from London, with all the deer just living there, now that I think of it.

The extra maintenance was to balance big/small empires, and reduce the "I got 20 cities, so now I can steamroll everyone on map" effect. It does change regarding mapsize and gamespeed. Yesterday I caught a maintenance error in Gigantic mapsize regarding the % of corporations (should have been 20 and was 35). There might be other tweaks needed to be done, but its not uncommon to have a couple of cities "Trading" to keep the fiscal balance on track

I assumed it was to avoid over-expanding too quickly, it's just that in AND I was used to a bigger cashflow and this, plus (minus?) no money from my shrine put me in an unusual situation - but hey, it's been more interesting this way!

It was too overpowered to have +1 gold from each city early on, hence why I removed it (u said it yourself : "main income" )
I did a lot of changes on religions : no autospread, reduced missionaries, changes to monasteries etc.
I like religions in civ, just never liked the way it was implemented. Early religions means everything, and the two biggest religions today irl (christianity and islam) is never to be seen in a vanilla civ game. I try to tweak them so early religions will be harder to spread widely, so the last religions get a place in the game too.

Oh, so that's why even though I founded buddhism, I had to get missionaries to each and every city.
Funnily enough, later on I founded both Christianity and Islam, but they didn't get out of my borders...
I remember an option in AND about forcing only one founded religion per civ, was that a BUG feature or is it just a xml doable thing? This way even the slower (tech-wise) civs will get their own religion, given time, and the first civ won't just hobble them all (especially the late ones, as it often happens to me).

I wanted to make a separate line of promotions for ships (as planes have), but never got around it. It will come in later versions though. (Firepower, Range, Armor, etc) I did put in a few new ones though (Transport line).

Yeah, Transport promos are quite useful! I was worried you just didn't intend for ships to get Combat at all...

If you dont mind posting what your mapsize, maptype, gamespeed, difficulty level and # of AI, so I can look at maintenance adjustments.

Here you go:
Apart from me, there were, at the start... 16 other civs? 17? Unthinkable crowding and mapsize if I were to play it in AND!

Map is a bunch of continents, with 2-3 civs on each.
I'd show it, but I've no idea how to take a screenshot of the whole map (not just the minimap). And the super-zoom out (you know, the planet-with-clouds visual) is just to blurry to understand anything, and it wraps around anyway.

Usually I play on Monarch, decided to skip down one to try this new (for me) mod. Will go back up for the next one.

Almost forgot to ask: 3/4x CT means buildings and units are built *faster*, right?

Still VIP .86 btw, .87b gave me some kinda compression error at save loading, and I wanted to go on with this.

 

[vincentz]

1) I remember an option in AND about forcing only one founded religion per civ, was that a BUG feature or is it just a xml doable thing? This way even the slower (tech-wise) civs will get their own religion, given time, and the first civ won't just hobble them all (especially the late ones, as it often happens to me).

2) Almost forgot to ask: 3/4x CT means buildings and units are built *faster*, right?

3) Still VIP .86 btw, .87b gave me some kinda compression error at save loading, and I wanted to go on with this.

1) Yeah, I have to find that modcomponent. I even think it comes in a Python version.

2) yep. I could have written x0.75 CT instead.

3) you're missing out of a lot of good stuff/balancing. 0.86 was uploaded 9. october 2011.
Quite a few changes since then.


BTW. Do you (or anyone else reading this) use the VIP Loader program I made?

 

[Noyyau]

Is there a way to make savegames compatible between versions?

And yes, I do use the loader. Very nice to change civ color scheme on the fly.

 

[j_mie6]

that one religion per civ option is pretty easy just use cannotFoundReligion callback an test if the civ has any holy cities.

 

[vincentz]

that one religion per civ option is pretty easy just use cannotFoundReligion callback an test if the civ has any holy cities.

Cool Though I heard bad things about python callbacks (?)
Any mod already implemented it, or is there a mod component in database?

Is there a way to make savegames compatible between versions?

Nah, there has been too many changes.

 

[j_mie6]

nothing wrong with the callbacks

I don't know if there is any code like this already but it should be pretty easy to code yourself (or myself if the need comes to it )

 

[vincentz]

I just heard that callbacks slowed down everything. thats why they were disabled in BtS (3.19)

I found a modcomp, and implemented it. If anyone wants to try it out, here it is.

Just overwrite the files. I tested it shortly, and it looked fine.