[WTP] Quick questions

[PPanda0421]

Well, there is very little about the game that we do not know.
Long time community members and players also know a lot.

We also care, but yes we sometimes are really busy - especially in times like this when we have a brand new development branch in internal testing phase which we try to get ready for release.


We try to.


Programming experience a good base to get started.
It still takes a lot of time and motivation though to become an experienced modder.

If you really have enough time and motivation, just contact us.

Summary:

Simply have a little patience.
Team and community will answer your questions but it might take a bit sometimes.

I know all about the software development phases as I am a software engineer myself. I get it. What I am complaining about is some people posted questions after mine and got replies right away.
So why ignore my questions if there is little to the game you do not know? But I digress (since my questions were answered)...

Oh I have tons of software development experience, just need the time. However, if you can point to me some Civ4Col modding resources I could read up on them when I get a chance.

BTW, thanks to lethial who answered my questions.

PS - About patience, I painstakenly raised 400000 before starting revolution so imagine my surprise when I couldn't use that much of that money when it started. Ended up having close to 500000 when I killed all
of the king's forces yet still didn't end the revolution. Money is/was king in classic Colonization but apparently is near useless in this mod if you choose 'Elections' instead of 'Monarchy.'

No more hard feelings...all good now .

 

[lethiel]

What I am complaining about is some people posted questions after mine and got replies right away.

I think it's just that you had several questions and some of them were a bit 'intangible' to answer. It's a bit hard for us to know with little information if 2) and 3) are really bugs or you overlook something or whatever. Maybe people needed a bit of time.

BTW, thanks to lethial who answered my questions.

You welcome mate. If you want to discuss other stuff you can come to my Twitch channel. I answer instantly (when live)

PS - About patience, I painstakenly raised 400000 before starting revolution so imagine my surprise when I couldn't use that much of that money when it started. Ended up having close to 500000 when I killed all
of the king's forces yet still didn't end the revolution. Money is/was king in classic Colonization but apparently is near useless in this mod if you choose 'Elections' instead of 'Monarchy.'

There is very little incentive to go Monarchy if you can just hurry. Elections would be far superior. But by the way as far as I remember you can hurry if you have all the required lumber in the city for the project. The problem might really be the required lumber to hurry you cant buy from Europe rather than the gold cost of speeding it up.

I used to pile up a million gold too. But strategically I believe one should just invest it as soon as possible in his colonies. The earlier you spend money the more dividend.I also stack up on units from Europe right before independence.

 

[PPanda0421]

I think it's just that you had several questions and some of them were a bit 'intangible' to answer. It's a bit hard for us to know with little information if 2) and 3) are really bugs or you overlook something or whatever. Maybe people needed a bit of time.




You welcome mate. If you want to discuss other stuff you can come to my Twitch channel. I answer instantly (when live)



There is very little incentive to go Monarchy if you can just hurry. Elections would be far superior. But by the way as far as I remember you can hurry if you have all the required lumber in the city for the project. The problem might really be the required lumber to hurry you cant buy from Europe rather than the gold cost of speeding it up.

I used to pile up a million gold too. But strategically I believe one should just invest it as soon as possible in his colonies. The earlier you spend money the more dividend.I also stack up on units from Europe right before independence.

Well when a developer doesn't understand the issue a customer brings up they usually ask for more information. Actually there can be many tiers of 'support' before it goes to the development team, depends on the company size. Anyways, if you don't know then you ask for more information and/or how to reproduce it. You don't just ignore them. Ok, here is the 'normal' way that a developer approaches:
1. Are you using the most current version? The issue might have been fixed already if you update to the latest patch/version.
2. Know the solution and present it to customer.
3. Your description for the issue is vague. Can you give us more details and/or on how to reproduce?
4. We got your issue report but we're very busy atm. We'll look at it when we get a chance. If it's a game-stopping bug then it will immediately be looked at.
5. Combination of all the above. If you know the answer right away, then just reply to that number and leave the other numbers for later or for someone else.

I'm assuming that some of you are professional developers and are familiar with some of these ideas.

Ignoring questions or cries for help especially when the question comes from a newcomer will leave a bad first impression.

Please take a look at CDDA project development. Well they have a lot more users/developers but the process should be the same.

I'll definitely check out your twitch channel. Pretty sure I'll learn some valuable tips .

Lumber stock requirement? I'll check that, thanks! You see this is the type of thing newbies will not know about when going to this mod. Most of us will be familiar with classic Colonization where gold is king. You will get questions from newbies if they've not already been answered.
I forget the benefits of 'elections' but choosing it seems more like a RPing decision since my colonies will truly become independent.

How did you stack up on units from Europe without triggering the king to increase his REF?

 

[raystuttgart]

Well when a developer doesn't understand the issue a customer brings up ...
... depends on the company size ..
I'm assuming that some of you are professional developers and are familiar with some of these ideas.

@PPanda0421 :

Please slow down a little bit.

You are not our "customer" - we are not a "company" - nobody in the team is a paid "developer" (for this mod).
(I am a modder and I have my private life and job as well.)

This is not a professional project - we do this in our spare time for free.
Nobody is paying us anyhting to develop this mod and publish it to community.

And yes, I have been a professional software developer myself many years ago.
(Some of the other team members are software developers or have been software developers as well.)

But modding is something totally different - there are no obligations because we modders do it just for fun.

Ignoring questions or cries for help ...

I am not delibarately ignoring new people and their questions.
And I never ignore cries for help if normal community members can not help because they simply could not know.

Sometimes I see a post and know that others can answer it (e.g. community members) and thus want to let them answer.
(But this community is still small because it is a realy old game.)

Sometimes questions are also too long to answer shortly. Posting many questions at once increases chances of not being answered directly.
(I am currently really busy trying to get the current release ready to be published.)

I sometimes also just do not see posts immediately or am distracted (e.g. by more urgent posts).
(This is not the only site where we discuss things - we e.g. also have an internal team and supporter chat.)

I am currently the only active modder on this project and thus I need to set priorities for what I spend my time.
(Most other team members are sick or busy in private life - which is also related to Covid 19.)

Edit:

Nightinggale has returned (from being sick) and is currently looking into the "desynchs in Multiplayer".
But that is really challenging and takes almost all of his time for modding.
Thus at the moment he can not take properly care of community either.

-----------

Summary:

It is simply a matter of time ...

It is related to small team and small community size.
It is also related to the current situation - which is not "normal status".

 

[PPanda0421]

@PPanda0421 :

Please slow down a little bit.

You are not our "customer" - we are not a "company" - nobody in the team is a paid "developer" (for this mod).
(I am a modder and I have my private life and job as well.)

This is not a professional project - we do this in our spare time for free.
Nobody is paying us anyhting to develop this mod and publish it to community.

And yes, I have been a professional software developer myself many years ago.
(Some of the other team members are software developers or have been software developers as well.)

But modding is something totally different - there are no obligations because we modders do it just for fun.


I am not delibarately ignoring new people and their questions.
And I never ignore cries for help if normal community members can not help because they simply could not know.

Sometimes I see a post and know that others can answer it (e.g. community members) and thus want to let them answer.
(But this community is still small because it is a realy old game.)

Sometimes questions are also too long to answer shortly. Posting many questions at once increases chances of not being answered directly.
(I am currently really busy trying to get the current release ready to be published.)

I sometimes also just do not see posts immediately or am distracted (e.g. by more urgent posts).
(This is not the only site where we discuss things - we e.g. also have an internal team and supporter chat.)

I am currently the only active modder on this project and thus I need to set priorities for what I spend my time.
(Most other team members are sick or busy in private life - which is also related to Covid 19.)

Edit:

Nightinggale has returned (from being sick) and is currently looking into the "desynchs in Multiplayer".
But that is really challenging and takes almost all of his time for modding.
Thus at the moment he can not take properly care of community either.

-----------

Summary:

It is simply a matter of time ...

It is related to small team and small community size.
It is also related to the current situation - which is not "normal status".

Ok I admit I may have overreacted a little . Yes I understand that y'all do this in your spare time and are not being paid for any of this work.
So in short you're not obligated to do anything, including replying to questions.

That being said you're updating the mod whenever you can right? Well I'm sure you want feedback to fix any issues we find.
I asked questions about gameplay, some of which could be bugs. One could be a major bug possibly introduced by recent changes. I already
said I installed 2.7.2 beta and I've only started the revolution in this version.

Think about it from my point of view. What's the main point of Civ4Col? To gain independence from the King. In one of my questions, I killed the last
land unit and still haven't won. Don't you think that should have at least raised some type of concern on your part? Especially when I wrote that
I even killed the last naval unit? It took days to hear a reply for a possibly broken ENDGAME feature.

No matter what new features you're adding (or testing you) should've at least thought about why a player cannot achieve victory for
main OBJECTIVE of the game.

Anyway lesson learned, if you ask one or more questions just wait a few days for a reply here .

 

[raystuttgart]

One could be a major bug possibly introduced by recent changes. I already said I installed 2.7.2 beta ...

2.7.2 beta is not recent for me.
(That was the last release before I rejoined the team.)

I consider it to be quite outdated already (about 4 months).
(There were already 3 full new development branches in the mean time.)

EDIT:
We just published 2.8 - the new release.

Anyway lesson learned, if you ask one or more questions just wait a few days for a reply here .

Exactly, the more questions you post at once, the more time it would take to answer.
Thus it might take longer until somebody is going to react.

I killed the last land unit and still haven't won.

That has been reported about 15 times over the years.
(Already in TAC and RaR.)

Every time we checked (e.g. with Cheat Mode - to take over the "King-Player") we still found some land Unit walking around ...
(Naval Units should not matter. But it is not only fighting Units. All Land Units matter)

You could e.g. start Worlbuilder and thoroughly search the map for a remaining land Unit of the King.

Don't you think that should have at least raised some type of concern on your part?

No it did not raise concerns that the mod itself is broken because I know that several players achieved to win WOI in WTP.
If I would go crazy every time a player believes something is broken because the mod does not react like he thinks it should, I would stop modding.

 

[PPanda0421]

2.7.2 beta is not recent for me.
(That was the last release before I rejoined the team.)

I consider it to be quite outdated already (about 4 months).
(There were already 3 full new development branches in the mean time.)

EDIT:
We just published 2.8 - the new release.


Exactly, the more questions you post at once, the more time it would take to answer.
Thus it might take longer until somebody is going to react.


That has been reported about 15 times over the years.
(Already in TAC and RaR.)

Every time we checked (e.g. with Cheat Mode - to take over the "King-Player") we still found some land Unit walking around ...
(Naval Units should not matter. But it is not only fighting Units. All Land Units matter)

You could e.g. start Worlbuilder and thoroughly search the map for a remaining land Unit of the King.


No it did not raise concerns that the mod itself is broken because I know that several players achieved to win WOI in WTP.

If I would go crazy every time a player believes something is broken because the mod does not react like he thinks it should,
I would have stopped modding years ago.

I'll shutup now. Onward to 2.8!

PS - That's why I asked the question(s)...for clarification if it's broken or not. I didn't know that several players have already won WOI in WTP 2.7.2 beta. I'm only going off on what I'm seeing, so any timely replies would have been helpful. Anyways, I'll be more patient from now on considering
this is a very small community. Also, thanks for all the work you guys have done. RAR and WTP have been very enjoyable thus far!

 

[raystuttgart]

Hello!
thank you very much for the update, great job.
I have a small problem, I can't open the We.The.People.2.8.rar file, the error message "unknown or corrupted file format". I just downloaded it from the new link.
thank you so much.

@Boby

What are you using to unpack the .rar?
Do you have WinRar or 7Zip installed?
Or are you using something else?

Edit:

I just checked and the .rar downloads and unpacks perfectly.
So it is not a matter of the .rar in our download.

Either your download was broken or your tool to unpack is completely outdated.
(Simply get newest version of WinRar - it is for free. You can simply google it and should find a download site.)

 

[Boby]

Thanks @raystuttgart, I use WinRar to unzip. Very strange, I downloaded it again and on another PC and it gives the same result.
You may be right, my WinRar is out of date, I was able to open it with a WinZip Universal app. from Microsoft Store.
I'm going to check my Winrar.
Thanks !
You are doing a very good job of modding

 

[Renera]

Some time ago I installed 7Zip, but I couldn't open my * .zip and * .rar files automatically (right click). When opening 7zip and manually selecting the corresponding file, it worked. I suspected a user error on my part when installing 7zip. Others may make the same mistake. In this way I was able to unpack WTP 2.8 without any problems. I am assuming that the download of 2.8 is completely correct. Choosing manual is worth a try. By the way: Many thanks to everyone who worked on this great mod. The result is wonderful. Thank you very much.

 

[Swarbs]

That has been reported about 15 times over the years.
(Already in TAC and RaR.)

I believe it also occurs in vanilla, although much less frequently as the game is generally smaller in terms of numbers of colonists. As the King AI is set to a maximum war footing, it will create new military units with any resources it can find.

So I believe you can deal with this issue, to a certain extent, by moving all military resources - blades, guns, horses etc out of a colony that is about to be captured. That way the king can't create a scout or dragoon and send them halfway across the map where they are difficult to find.

Does seem like a bit of a bug with Civ4Col in general. I remember in the original Col you only had to kill the REF, any other units hanging around didn't count once the main land forces went down.

 

[raystuttgart]

Does seem like a bit of a bug with Civ4Col in general.

It is not a bug.
And yes, it was already like that in Civ4Col - it is not mod related.

Not everything new players do not expect or understand is necessarily wrong.
It is simply something new they need to learn and get used to ...

Some things players might not like and might indeed be changed to improve gameplay.
But these things are not bugs either, they are simply "improvement requests" ...

 

[Swarbs]

It is not a bug.

I suppose that depends on your viewpoint. One man's bug is another man's feature

I meant with reference to the original 1994 Colonization - in that game I remember you only had to kill the REF forces and recapture your colonies. If the King made a scout or soldier, or even moved a colonist out of a colony like it frequently did, those units didn't have to be killed to win the WoI.

That system made the final win a lot less frustrating as you wouldn't need to hunt down a couple of units that made no difference to the overall outcome, hence I'd class the need to do that in the new game as being a bit of a bug.

 

[lethiel]

I suppose that depends on your viewpoint. One man's bug is another man's feature

This statement is wrong. It's not a matter of viewpoint.

From Wikipedia:
A software bug is an error, flaw or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways.

A feature you don't like or understand cannot and should not be called a bug.

 

[Swarbs]

This statement is wrong. It's not a matter of viewpoint.

From Wikipedia:
A software bug is an error, flaw or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways.

A feature you don't like or understand cannot and should not be called a bug.

It is definitely a matter of viewpoint. Unexpected can only be defined with reference to expectations, which are inherently subjective based on the viewpoint of the individual forming the expectations. If my expectations are different to yours, then something you expect to be normal may not be something I expect to be normal.

'Bug' is recognised by pretty much everyone in the industry as a subjective term at this point. German researchers even did a study of over 500 reported bugs in code and found that, from their point of view, 1/3 of them weren't even bugs, thus proving the subjective nature of expectations around coding.

But enough off topic for a WTP thread

 

[Nightinggale]

What I am complaining about is some people posted questions after mine and got replies right away.

I'm sorry, but I completely missed your questions
What most likely happened is that I read your question and thought "too much to answer right now", perhaps while heading for bed and then I forgot because it cleared the notification. Also I haven't been very active on the forum lately, partly due to illness and partly due to focusing on getting the release done. Mistakes can happen and I'm sorry for unintentionally ignoring you. I can't answer why nobody else responded though as that is a bit unusual.

Did you get the answers you wanted or is there still something I should look at?

 

[PPanda0421]

I'm sorry, but I completely missed your questions
What most likely happened is that I read your question and thought "too much to answer right now", perhaps while heading for bed and then I forgot because it cleared the notification. Also I haven't been very active on the forum lately, partly due to illness and partly due to focusing on getting the release done. Mistakes can happen and I'm sorry for unintentionally ignoring you. I can't answer why nobody else responded though as that is a bit unusual.

Did you get the answers you wanted or is there still something I should look at?

No problem. Most of my questions were answered. I'm a newbie to this forum and this is my takeaway thus far from replies to my questions and what I've seen so far from replies to other peeps questions:

1. Replies to questions can take a few days to answer. This is fine because the community is very small and everyone has things to do.
2. People here can't handle more than 1 question at a time . So post 1 question. Wait a few days for an answer, then post your 2nd question instead of grouping them up .
3. If you think something is a bug you are completely wrong! You know nothing about this mod! It is working as intended because others haven't experienced the issues you're facing!

Those are my sort of tongue-in-cheek answers to your question. Don't take them too seriously

PS - I notice that replies are more quick now since the new release is out.

 

[Vorpal+5]

It's true that despite the stickies in this forum, the link to find the latest version of the mod is absolutely not obvious to find.

 

[Schmiddie]

I agree, there should be a thread with just one post saying "Download of the currently published" version.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

Schmiddie, why make a separate topic, if you can write a link to the current release in the first message of the topic "[We the People] Mod overview"? you can highlight this text in bold red.