Warchiefs and Scoundrels - Barbarians Enhanced. Need coders and help.

[Nutty]

because the UI is showing the minor civ name not the city name - you'll need to rename the minor civs that you assign as barbs as part of the mod

What's the best way of accomplishing that? It seems I have to revise AssignStartingPlots and/or GameSetup to do everything I want.

I don't want to add these minors to the MinorCivilizations table, so that they aren't be handed out automatically by AssignStartingPlots. Although PreGame.SetPlayerColor() works in the mod's init lua, it appears to be too late for PreGame.SetCivilizationDescription() to do anything. I'm going to need a custom GameSetup anyway if I want to force users to assign a minimum number of minors so that I don't have to steal any of the active city states, or that I have any city states to work with at all (rather than--shudder--requiring them to follow instructions). Is there another way that I've overlooked? [Plus, none of that really helps me entirely because I want to be able to change the name again when the barbarian is destroyed and re-spawns...]

EDIT: It's easy enough to prevent the player from getting peace from the barbs by disabling the button, but how do I prevent the AI from getting peace?

remember to get rid of the city borders, as it's supposed to be virtually the same as a camp.

I can set all the other tiles to unowned, but trying to set a city tile as unowned results in a crash, so we're stuck with a border around the camp.

Anyway, I have finished another model, the tribeman

Very nice!

 

[Wodhann]

Borders on the camp itself is ok I guess (not sure how visually distracting that is, but what can one do - unless there is a way to disable it visually but that is something to worry about later)

Anyway, next units will probably take a little while longer to make. I just "rushed" these ones in so we have some visuals. Not much point in worrying about graphics when there is so much to be done in coding.

 

[whoward69]

What's the best way of accomplishing that?

...

[Plus, none of that really helps me entirely because I want to be able to change the name again when the barbarian is destroyed and re-spawns...]

Ah! That confuses the issue significantly! Without that I was going to say add them to the table and make sure the game doesn't hand them out.


Ummm

 

[Wodhann]

Out of curiosity, if you were coding this, how would you approach it, whoward? I don't know any code so I don't know if or how it would be possible to have it any other way than what Nutty is doing, but alternative views and out-of-the-box thinking are welcomed.

 

[whoward69]

Out of curiosity, if you were coding this, how would you approach it, whoward?

Same way I did the Morindim civ - lots of DLL modding

 

[Wodhann]

Same way I did the Morindim civ - lots of DLL modding

I thought Nutty was doing DLL? I know almost nothing of code so I don't really know the difference.

 

[Nutty]

I thought Nutty was doing DLL?

No, I was specifically going for "light touch," i.e., trying to ensure compatibility with as many other mods as possible.
DLL modding would make my job much easier, not having to find hacky workarounds, at the risk of being incompatible with any other mod with a custom DLL. On the other hand, though I know some C++, I haven't yet dived into the DLL code yet, and that will be a learning curve figuring out where everything is.

EDIT: Note I can base my changes on a common DLL such as Various Mod Comps/Civ4 Diplomacy/CSD, to ensure that some custom DLL mods will be compatible.

 

[Wodhann]

No, I was specifically going for "light touch," i.e., trying to ensure compatibility with as many other mods as possible.
DLL modding would make my job much easier, not having to find hacky workarounds, at the risk of being incompatible with any other mod with a custom DLL. On the other hand, though I know some C++, I haven't yet dived into the DLL code yet, and that will be a learning curve figuring out where everything is.

I see, well let's try going as far as we can with compatibility, then if we find DLL necessary we go for it.

 

[Nutty]

We're getting close to that point, since from here I think I have to start replacing files from the base game [modularly; I don't mean the users have to manually copy files] to do what we want, which can also result in mod incompatibilities.

 

[whoward69]

We're getting close to that point, since from here I think I have to start replacing files from the base game [modularly; I don't mean the users have to manually copy files] to do what we want, which can also result in mod incompatibilities.

You're probably going to have to do both. Even if you change the DLL to be able to set the CS name, the UI goes direct to the database for the CS name in several locations, so you'll need to edit those core UI lua files to go via the DLL and not direct

 

[Nutty]

You're probably going to have to do both.

Indeed...

I've come up against another problem with reusing city states: warmonger penalties, since city states will be upset with you for destroying their barbarian brethren...

 

[Wodhann]

Well if we're going to use DLL anyway then just do it for everything you think will make your job easier and as you said, avoids having you do hacky workarounds. Plus we'll probably get a much cleaner result. Compatibility is good but I'm worrying more about this becoming reality.

 

[killmeplease]

what if barbs had not all-unique units but different UUs for different tribes?

 

[Wodhann]

what if barbs had not all-unique units but different UUs for different tribes?

That's an interesting idea, but I don't want to be bound to a specific number of existing tribes (not to mention it would take a lot of work, imagine if we have 10 tribe names, that would be 20 UUs, and I'm pretty sure we will have more than 10), nor do I want them to be "special" in any way or the other, which would not only be hard to do but confusing for the player. Thanks for the creative idea though.

 

[killmeplease]

That's an interesting idea, but I don't want to be bound to a specific number of existing tribes (not to mention it would take a lot of work, imagine if we have 10 tribe names, that would be 20 UUs, and I'm pretty sure we will have more than 10), nor do I want them to be "special" in any way or the other, which would not only be hard to do but confusing for the player. Thanks for the creative idea though.

uus can be randomized just like for the militaristic city states
benefit of having uus is that they can be made stronger than ordinary units..

ps: one of unique abilities may be conversion of the player's military units (like in the fall of rome scenario)

 

[Wodhann]

uus can be randomized just like for the militaristic city states
benefit of having uus is that they can be made stronger than ordinary units..

I just preffer to have them all be unique across the board than only a few random ones.

ps: one of unique abilities may be conversion of the player's military units (like in the fall of rome scenario)

I never thought of that idea. May be too powerful, but it's something to think about.

 

[Wodhann]

Any update, Nutty? You migrating to full DLL or sticking with you original plan?

By the way, additional coders are still welcome.

 

[Nutty]

I'm exploring the DLL, but I'm out of my depth and it's slow going [plus it's all spaghetti code].

 

[whoward69]

I'm exploring the DLL

This tutorial may help. Also the associated ones (see post #2 in that thread) get progressively more complex.

 

[Nutty]

Thanks, whoward69, your tutorials have been invaluable.

I'm finding--not entirely surprisingly--that creating a civilization that's not quite minor and not quite barbarian is quite involved.