ViSa Suggestions/Requests

TAfirehawk

WoC Team Manager
Joined
Aug 25, 2006
Messages
2,326
Location
Florida
Please post all of your suggestions and requests here.
ViSa Modpack Team List
National Security Agency National Wonder to reduce Tech Leak
Roads and Lands
Replaced by Unit Mod by TheLopez
Look at code for Barb Great Generals​


Player Request List
My Multiplayer Military Mod
MAD System fixed - may switch to version by TheLopez instead of Dale
Secret Tech Mod
Revolution Mod
Variable Wonder Cost formula
Limited Era Modpack by Jeckel
Aero Engineer unit to create Airfields like in Civ3
Animated Leaders: Charlemagne (by C.Roland), Vitorrio (By C.Roland), Adolf Hitler v2.0 (by Hadrean, Kodzi & Elhoim) Hirohito (by WYZ sub10) & Saddam (by Iloveplayciv)
True Prophets Mod by Kidinnu
abbamouse Realistic Religions mod by abbamouse
SD Religion by Stone-D
Stack Aid Mod from Total Realism Mod
Missile transport on Battleship and/or Cruiser
Great Engineer Machine Shop/Motor Pool
Ice Breaker - modern sea unit to terraform ice to water
Reveal map from Satellites every 5 turns instead of once when tech is discovered
Visapedia update: Under Game Concepts; Victory
Visapedia update: Under Great People; Statesman and Doctors
Pirates Mod by TheLopez
Fix tactical nukes being made without Manhattan Project
Trade Routes Mod by Chinese_American
Rework Civics by 1shmael

Items with a * are anticipated to be in V3.1​
 
Items in V3.0

ViSa Modpack Team List
* Genetic Era for Warlords
* Additional Civic Category
* Inquisition Mod
* New Netherlands Mod
* Multi-Building Unit Requirement Mod
* Building Heal Rate Mod
* Building Civic Prereqs Mod
* Resource Tech Research Modifier Mod
* Upgradeable Buildings Mod
* Enhanced Warlord Unit
* Update to New Air Forces Mod to v0.2w
* Update Specialist Stacker Mod to v0.8.1w - part of Great Statesman and Great Doctor Mods
* Sid's Tips for units, buildings, tech
* Military Bases Mod by TheLopez
* Fix PLE Unit display reset on city view exit​


Player Request List
* Unit Balancing
* SmartMap update/fix
* Furious attitude of some leaders with no negative points
* Manhattan Project to national wonder
* Plant Forest worker ability - included in G Era
* Mastery Victory - included in G Era
* Armenia Civ
* Blake's new AI by Blake
* Domestic Advisor Screen fixed
* Tweak Musket Manufacture
* Tweak TNT Factory
* Isaac Newton typo
* Phoenician Sub typo
* Jungle Rocket Launcher typo
* Kashir Archer oversized
* Endeavourer typo
* Great Statesman and Great Doctor Splash screen pink
* KGB Wonder missing BIK
* Tiger Tank crash on build
* Balance Ship of the Line
*MAF FIX!!!!!!!
* Diplomatic Victory Movie by Rufus T. Firefly

Items with a * are anticipated to be in V3.0​
 
About the genetic era, i like the ideas to have an another part of the humain history, but being able to construct city in the water seem a bit to much for me... Will it will be possible to make the option of contructing city in the water on off in a custom game?
 
i tried out TotalRealism and to be honist it sucked. not in the same league as visa. and the thing they do where barbarians spawn out your citys was totaly anoying. the only thing i would like see in VISA is a few modern units for the brits.
like challangerII and tornado.
 
A very strong element of Total Realism, in my opinion, was the stack aid mod. Different troops within the same stack would offer additional bonuses to the rest of the stack. This emulates a real army supporting each other as opposed to a bunch of individual units just happening to be in the same area. Not sure how difficult something like this is to add - it does entail more promotions for one - but it added even more depth to stack formation and to warfare in general.
 
Regarding the option to play with 24 civs: You said that it's supposed to be implemented in the course of the GE merge, but thought about turning it off because of the MAF issue.

I suggest leaving it in, as nobody's forcing players to use that many civs. If we do, we do so at our own risk, like when we're trying to play on huge maps. And you're not deactivating huge maps either, are you? :)

While it's important to inform players of the MAF problem, I think it should be up to the players which risks they want to take, and what they want to turn off. For example, if a player likes ViSa, and wants to play on a huge map with 24 civs, and can do so without MAFs if he deactivates some of the memory-intensive additions (e.g. unit statistics), then why shouldn't he be able to do so?
 
I agree - my pc can handle anything this game can throw at it! Give me 24 civs on a huge map please! :D

As long as it's easy to do and it's entirely optional - possibly even with a warning in the readme, then I would be very happy to have this option.
 
Suggestion for a mod: the Revolution mod by jdog5000. It'd make a great mod even better.
 
@Psyringe and Spearthrower. I also play huge maps. i usually run high graphics until about the modern era and then save game change to low graphics, exit the game. Then i reload the save game on the low end graphics and keep rockin. I have had some save games as large as 1.3 k.b. So id also like to see 24 civs also.
 
I agree - my pc can handle anything this game can throw at it! Give me 24 civs on a huge map please! :D

As long as it's easy to do and it's entirely optional - possibly even with a warning in the readme, then I would be very happy to have this option.

The MAF has nothing to do with your system specs....just bad coding in the Civ EXE.


Regarding the option to play with 24 civs: You said that it's supposed to be implemented in the course of the GE merge, but thought about turning it off because of the MAF issue.

I suggest leaving it in, as nobody's forcing players to use that many civs. If we do, we do so at our own risk, like when we're trying to play on huge maps. And you're not deactivating huge maps either, are you? :)

While it's important to inform players of the MAF problem, I think it should be up to the players which risks they want to take, and what they want to turn off. For example, if a player likes ViSa, and wants to play on a huge map with 24 civs, and can do so without MAFs if he deactivates some of the memory-intensive additions (e.g. unit statistics), then why shouldn't he be able to do so?

Good point....

The bad part is hearing all the complaining about their ViSa game crashing....we already lived through more whine than there is cheese in Wisconsin to go with it :crazyeye:


About the genetic era, i like the ideas to have an another part of the humain history, but being able to construct city in the water seem a bit to much for me... Will it will be possible to make the option of contructing city in the water on off in a custom game?

Doubtful....mrgenie is the coding guru on the team and he is quite busy so we will have to be patient on the extra bells and whistles.

If you read the G Era stuff, they have limited the sea cities alot now so we may not need to tweak it....but I will say nobody on the Team wanted a map full of sea cities either :)
 
Perhaps it's not the best place to add these feature requests, but thus far VISA is my favorite mod pack, so I would really love to see the following added at some point:
1. CIV 4 in general seems to be lacking specialist units. When I played CTP2 I remember dealing with many specialist units like lawyers, corporate brances, etc. Yes there are spies and missionaries, but it does not seem enough, so, these are my propositions:
a) Migrant - transfers population from city a to city b. If city a builds it, then it gets population -1, and the city in which migrant is disbanded gets population +1.
b) Revolutionary - cause a revolt in enemy city
c) Terrorist - unhappiness, damage units, something else?
d) Government Opposition Agent (perhaps a better anme needed) - cause unhappiness in enemy city x unhappoy faces for y turns
e) Infector - infects the city, so that health drops by x for y turns, also perhaps population should be reduced - may be something like 1 pop in 2 turns for 6 turns to simulate pandemic
f) Slaver - if attached to an army can inslave defeated foe, and turn it into a slave citizen in of the victor's cities. Many different implementations are possible. I like tyhe military one, but civil ones are also possible where you would attempt to perform an inslaving act in an enemy city. Salves wou;ld be freed should you adopt any other civiv other than slavery.
g) Urban planner - settler on steroids - initial city size =3.
h) Spy - should be able to steal techs; should be able to see what buildings are built in the city
i) Assasin - stealth unit that can without decalartion of war kill great people, missionaries, other assasins. Of course if he's caught, relatyions will be worsened. Success depnds on skills, as well as size of acompanying garrison
j) Saboteur - can destroy buildings in an enemy city. ith respect to wonders - it's up to a debate whether destroyed wondrs can be rebuilt. The cost of such a mission depends on city size and building's cost of production, the success rate deends on garrison and skills of saboteur
Of corse some of these should have chances for success, and possibly promotions, that will improve their chances. ANd of course such missions shoiuld cost money.
I really miss such specialized units!
2. Diseases via trade routes. And in general diseas should be implemented. Perhaps some should be linked to reaseching a particular tech or achieving certyain size of an empire or behavong in certain way like having too many units in the jungle, or whatever.
3. I think it is not realistic at least till modern times that just by being next to enemy city you see all units stationed there. I think this infor should be hidden, unless city is successfully infiltrated with spy. Only when you dsicover flight and can train adfvanced air units should you be able to see the entire garrison.
 
Good point....

The bad part is hearing all the complaining about their ViSa game crashing....we already lived through more whine than there is cheese in Wisconsin to go with it :crazyeye:

I can imagine that ... especially because I know that not every user can be bothered to read any documentation.

Could you put a warning on the "Custom Game" screen? Something like:

"WARNING: Currently, Civ4 has a savegame corruption bug that can lead to unrecoverable errors with large savegames. We strongly suggest to use no map size larger than 'large', and not more than 18 civilizations, until Firaxis can fix the problem. Exceed these values at your own risk."

I think right under the victory conditions is enough space for such a warning.
 
Perhaps it's not the best place to add these feature requests, but thus far VISA is my favorite mod pack, so I would really love to see the following added at some point:
1. CIV 4 in general seems to be lacking specialist units. When I played CTP2 I remember dealing with many specialist units like lawyers, corporate brances, etc. Yes there are spies and missionaries, but it does not seem enough, so, these are my propositions:
a) Migrant - transfers population from city a to city b. If city a builds it, then it gets population -1, and the city in which migrant is disbanded gets population +1.
b) Revolutionary - cause a revolt in enemy city
c) Terrorist - unhappiness, damage units, something else?
d) Government Opposition Agent (perhaps a better anme needed) - cause unhappiness in enemy city x unhappoy faces for y turns
e) Infector - infects the city, so that health drops by x for y turns, also perhaps population should be reduced - may be something like 1 pop in 2 turns for 6 turns to simulate pandemic
f) Slaver - if attached to an army can inslave defeated foe, and turn it into a slave citizen in of the victor's cities. Many different implementations are possible. I like tyhe military one, but civil ones are also possible where you would attempt to perform an inslaving act in an enemy city. Salves wou;ld be freed should you adopt any other civiv other than slavery.
g) Urban planner - settler on steroids - initial city size =3.
h) Spy - should be able to steal techs; should be able to see what buildings are built in the city
i) Assasin - stealth unit that can without decalartion of war kill great people, missionaries, other assasins. Of course if he's caught, relatyions will be worsened. Success depnds on skills, as well as size of acompanying garrison
j) Saboteur - can destroy buildings in an enemy city. ith respect to wonders - it's up to a debate whether destroyed wondrs can be rebuilt. The cost of such a mission depends on city size and building's cost of production, the success rate deends on garrison and skills of saboteur
Of corse some of these should have chances for success, and possibly promotions, that will improve their chances. ANd of course such missions shoiuld cost money.
I really miss such specialized units!
2. Diseases via trade routes. And in general diseas should be implemented. Perhaps some should be linked to reaseching a particular tech or achieving certyain size of an empire or behavong in certain way like having too many units in the jungle, or whatever.
3. I think it is not realistic at least till modern times that just by being next to enemy city you see all units stationed there. I think this infor should be hidden, unless city is successfully infiltrated with spy. Only when you dsicover flight and can train adfvanced air units should you be able to see the entire garrison.

If you look at the G Era Mod, then you will find a number of these units for which we have already merged in v3.0 (still not to beta testing yet tho).

In general we don't create much NEW, just merge everybody's work into ViSa :scan:


I can imagine that ... especially because I know that not every user can be bothered to read any documentation.

Could you put a warning on the "Custom Game" screen? Something like:

"WARNING: Currently, Civ4 has a savegame corruption bug that can lead to unrecoverable errors with large savegames. We strongly suggest to use no map size larger than 'large', and not more than 18 civilizations, until Firaxis can fix the problem. Exceed these values at your own risk."

I think right under the victory conditions is enough space for such a warning.

That is a very good idea....I can edit the XML enough to get that I think.
 
The MAF has nothing to do with your system specs....just bad coding in the Civ EXE.

In more than a year of playing this game - 95% of the time on huge maps with maxed (or more than maxed) numbers of civs, I've never had a crash! Seems like it must be a bit more than just bad coding to me! :)
 
MAF has one reason (bad coding) and three contributors: size of the savegame, low system specs and too long intervals between complete game restarts.

The reason behind this seems to be that some kind of weird RAM memory leak is also involved, additionally to the memory allocation coding f*** up.

So yes, it is possible to decrease the likeliness of a MAF by a) getting a better system and more importantly b) restarting the game (or even the computer, you have to try yourself) often.

Though when it comes down to it, any saving process that exceeds 1 or 2 MB is prone to MAF.

Take a look at Genghis Kais giant earth map thread, and you'll see this tendency: even those that play only for short times (thus avoiding most of the memory leak problems) get a MAF nearly guaranteed at save game size 2 MB plus.

Map size drives up save game size (huge map can easily reach between 0.5 and 1 MB). As do additional civs. And the ViSa mod does so as well.

I don't know how technically possible this is, but maybe the ViSa team could try to "log" some of the additional info (unit stats frex) instead of saving it in the save game? Might be a way to keep sav games small (or might lead to even faster MAF due to the logging process).

Maybe we could also in a team effort try to find the "MAF limits". Like making a list, say: giant map with 24 civs reaches MAF around 1000 AD using the giant map mod, so when does it do so with ViSa? Huge map with 24 civs MAFs at year ???

So after collecting several MAF reports the suggested warning could be more accurate like stating a maximally suggested number of civs per map size. And yes, I know that this means less civs on larger maps. ^^
 
Back
Top Bottom