[We the People] Development "diary"

[raystuttgart]

All except RAR Americas Gigantic and RAR Americas Gigantic - random have rivers added.

Exactly and those 2 will also get their "Large Rivers" at the weekend.

 

[CurtnoAnna]

So the Faireweather maps have large rivers too?

 

[XSamatan]

No, only existing map scenarios have large rivers.

Adding large rivers to map scripts is on the to-do of the team, however that is a huge undertaking balance wise.

 

[Nightinggale]

So the Faireweather maps have large rivers too?

Planned and looked into. However it's such a complex task that there is a severe risk that it won't be done before the next release.

 

[raystuttgart]

No, only existing map scenarios have large rivers.

Correct.

Adding large rivers to map scripts is on the to-do of the team, ...

Yes, but we were always hoping for a talented "Map Script Creator" which we do not have.

... however that is a huge undertaking balance wise.

The balancing is not the problem and writing logic to create some Plots is also not the problem.
But to make it look good in terms of matching the map terrains and features is another thing ...

See, possible bad scenarios:

• The river flow looks like a drunken pig running in circles.
• The river flow looks like a marching soldier walking in straight unntatural lines
• The river flow totally cuts like a cissor through terrains without caring about other Rivers, Mountains ...
• ...

The only team members we have that can write Python (needed for Map Scripts) are mainly programmers and we lack any talent for making things look natural and aesthetic.
(Our Graphics, Maps, Mapscripts, ... look like they have been created by an artifical intelligence of the early 2000s.)

 

[Nightinggale]

I updated the cache for how many units can view plots. I also added some error checking code (asserts) and it passed the automated test as well as my manual test. We might finally be rid of the bug where some plots are left viewable even though the unit moved away.

When weather is moving, it updates the view of all units within a certain range. The vanilla code made a guess at the range at startup and guessed units can view 9 plots. I changed the code to make it assume the longest viewing unit is the unit with the longest viewing distance, which has ever been in the game. This mean it starts at 1 and increase as units gain promotions, but will always be far below 9. Not only will this update a far smaller area, it will always be big enough for the units in the game. Unlike vanilla there shouldn't be a way to break this in xml.

This turned into a much bigger fix than planned and I have been working on and off on this for a week.

 

[raystuttgart]

Unlike vanilla there shouldn't be a way to break this in xml.

Sounds like a pretty complex but very well thought design.
Must have been quite difficult to get this performant.

This turned into a much bigger fix than planned and I have been working on and off on this for a week.

Thanks for putting so much effort into this.
One bug less on the list.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ray's first steps to becoming a Civ4Col 2D graphical modder ...
So ok, I guess now that I learned GIMP again, I will be able to create a lot more 2D graphics on my own ...

Here are the first results - two button I created myself using original images from the internet as inspiration.
Buttons for Terrain Feature "Fog", and Terrain Feature "Sandstorm"

Fog:

Sandstorm:

This are the original images I used as inspiration:

Spoiler :

@Zeta Nexus
In the future I will not have to annoy you for such small 2D stuff anymore.
(I am now able to do it myself and it is also fun.)

 

[Nightinggale]

I don't have much interesting to write here for the time being. I'm mostly in bugfixing mode right now. While it's good that I fix a lot of bugs, it's not that interesting for the diary. For instance the last bug was fixing a way for the natives to remove more goods than they have stored, meaning a native settlement could end up storing negative furs (or whatever). Since people didn't know that could happen, reading about it is less interesting than some new shining feature with graphics and screenshots.

I do have a todo list for new features, but I will deal with bugs first. Also I plan on looking into improving EnumMaps and InfoArrays (my custom classes for data storage) as new features would benefit from having those working better. Better as in using less memory, is faster and/or less prone to bugs.

 

[<Nexus>]

@Zeta Nexus
In the future I will not have to annoy you for such small 2D stuff anymore.
(I am now able to do it and it is also fun.)

Cool.
You can still contact me if you get stuck.

 

[Nightinggale]

Now that WTP 3.0 is released, I have moved on to what I have been planning to do for a while now: work on internals. More specifically InfoArray and EnumMap. Those two are data containers, or more specifically lists. EnumMap contains the full list and is optimized for the game asking for specific indexes (like is unit allowed to enter terrain X). InfoArray only contains the data, which is different from default (usually 0, none or false). This is optimized for looping through the list and do something for non-default values (like free promotions given by a founding father. It's usually around 1% of all promotions meaning checking all would be way slower).

You can already see the first real gameplay impact of this in WTP 3.0. The AI is way better at picking buildings to build, hence develops a better late game economy. This change is relies entirely on InfoArray and without it, this AI improvement would be way more time consuming to write, likely slower, with more bugs and also less fun for us to create.

Since EnumMaps and InfoArrays will likely be used way more in the future, I have decided to take a break from working on anything the players can see and instead fix/improve those two classes. While it might take a while, it will be worth it in the long run as it makes feature creation faster later. Also optimization in something, which will be used all the time will naturally have an impact too and I plan for more/better autodetection of bugs. I'm also going to into one major flaw, which is converting data between EnumMaps and InfoArrays is severely lacking despite it being a really useful ability.

I decided prior to the release that this is what I should do post release. I get annoyed every time I need to use one of the planned features and then I'm not making it because I have to finish the next release first.

 

[<Nexus>]

Sounds very cool... although I didn't understand like... anything.
But I do understand that it is something very good.
Is it something that can be merged into BtS mods too? Or is it Col specific? Or it can be but takes a lot of work to so so?

 

[raystuttgart]

Well guys, we are making good and steady progress.
Each week some more pieces of the puzzle are finished and added to the mod.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, we had some nice progress again this week.
The amount of open todo is still huge though and especially the really difficult stuff takes time.

Since it is almost Christmas though, since will probably slow down a bit.
Thus I hope that community still has a a bit of patience with us.
We do what we can to improve the mod and we still have lots of ideas.
But it simply takes time to work on a gigantic monster mod as big as WTP.

 

[raystuttgart]

Answering some posts and private messages about "release date" & "getting to play new content":

All the stuff you guys already see is in "internal development", not yet published.
"Plains" has lots of experimental stuff and is still an "alpha" - not ready to be published.

Please continue to be patient until we finally finished all open todos and publish a new release.
We rather publish a great release in quality than throwing a release into community that is still not finished, bugged and not properly tested.

----

Quality development of a video game - and such a big mod is nothing else - simply takes time.

We know that waiting is hard, but be assured that the upcoming release is the biggest and best we ever had.
(It can truly be considered a 4.0, this is not a "minor release" anymore.)

We only post about new stuff just so community knows that we are still working on the mod.
(In fact internally in our internal teams area even more is happening.)

----

Summary:

• We want to release the biggest & best release we ever had. It will definitely blow the minds of our fans.
  
• But we want to release only in great quality, fully finished, fully tested and as bug-free as possible.

Thus, please continue to stay patient.

 

[Schmiddie]

Sounds great! Maybe I'll find the time to play it...

 

[raystuttgart]

We were recently asked:
When will you guys publish the "final release" of WTP?
(aka. "When is this mod done?" / "When will you guys stop adding stuff?")

Honest answer:
We do not know. We will mod as long as it is fun.
(Talking about "done" for a mod is kind of strange anyways.)

-----

Currently we have several branches in work that need to be finished:

• "Plains", the biggest branch in our history, also including bugfixing ... (complete team)
  
• branches for performance, stability, better data types, ... (@Nightinggale)
• branches for pathfinding, AI, merges from Civ4BTS mods, ... (@devolution)
• "Yields", a prototype branch for "economy expansion anno-style" (@raystuttgart)

After that we may start work on those here:
(In no specific order, priority is not set, names may change or will be shortened, content may change)

• branch "Religions & Society" (Civic System, Social Progress aka. Tech System, Religions)
• branch "Loyalty & Law" (Royal Interventions, Crime and Law, Ethnicities, Loyalty to the King)
• branch "Trade & Taxes" (Actual Triangle Trade, Road Connection System, Taxation and Upkeep System)
  
• branch "Glory & War" (Overhauls of: XP System, Promotion System and Combat System)
• branch "Pirates & Traders" (Pirate Civ, Trader Civ, Travel System Overhaul)

And even once those are done, there is still more to come.
Long Term Plans / Vision for WTP

-----

We still believe in the potential of this game and this mod.
We still dream about playing our own perfect game one day.
We are motivated and skilled and can make it come true.

-----

It is still a long road to go and a lot of effort to take.
We hope that our community will stay with us that long.

Best regards
WTP modding team

 

[uplink]

I know the "game is ready when it`s ready" but any chance of getting some sort of a beta out with the new features?
It surely needs a lot of testing for balance and bugs!?

 

[CurtnoAnna]

You can play the current development version. I just installed it yesterday.

https://github.com/We-the-People-civ4col-mod/Mod/wiki/How-to-play-the-development-version

 

[raystuttgart]

... any chance of getting some sort of a beta out with the new features?

A release would require the following:

1. Somebody taking responsibility to coordinate and track necessary activities
2. Proper communication that allows to coordinate and keep track of activities

-----

At the moment proper comunication and coordination does simply not exist enough.
We have broken apart from a "coordinated modding team" to a "losely cooperating community".

To put it in other words it is more or less lack of leadership and lack of communication.
Working towards common goals - asuming these exist at all - is really hard without that in my experience.

Currently it seems that nobody is able or wants to take responsibility for coordinating a release.
(There may be plenty of reasons due to private life so it is not about blaming anybody.)

-----

There is however still good work going on in the branches.
Bugs are being fixed, improvements are being implemented, ...

-----

Summary:

Once a team member takes responsibility to coordinate activities again, I am sure we will have a release again at some point.
But as long as this does not happen everybody will continue to work on his private branches without really caring what the others do.