Reply With QuoteWill the AI be able to undersstand this?
Hi,
I'm trying to start to understand civ4 modding. The first thing I'd like to do, is to add a technology ("harvesting") with the pre-requisites "agriculture" and "mining", which gives a new unit, a "harvester" that can be used to harvest resources, just like crawlers in smac work.
This is a small mod, but I think I'll need a little bit of everything to make it work, and thus serves as a good learning experience. I'll need graphics, xml editing and python scripting.
So far, graphics seem the most difficult part, so I have started with re-using existing graphics (the indian worker seems a nice candidate).
OK, so, what follows is a basic description of what I've done and associated problems/questions/remarks. I hope others who want to start modding can get usefull info from this.
[edit]I had to change all xml tags to use {} instead of < and >, because this forum tried to interpret them as html, and I didn't find the option to turn that off.[/edit]
=> First, I created a directory in the "mods" directory: "Harvester"
=> I noticed all current mods have a .ini file. I have searched for, but nowhere found, a list of options to set here. So, for now, I've just copied the .ini from the Dessert War mod. The 5 options here are pretty self-explanatory.
=> Next, let's add the technology. I'll use the indian fast worker button graphics as the tech icon.
--> Created a folder "Harvester\Assets\XML\Technologies\"
--> Copied the file "CIV4TechInfos.xml" (from the default assets folder)
--> Look in the file "CIV4TechInfos_schema.xml", to know the structure of a {TechInfo} element. (Not really necessary, as you can guess the same info very reasonable from the other techs in the xml file).
--> Most elements are again self-explained, but some of them aren't. Here a short list I'd like more info about:
Most of these I've guessed, and so came up with this {TechInfo} element for the new tech:Code:iAIWeight (0-?) iAITradeModifier (0 or 10) iPower (0-10) iAsset (1-6)*8 CommerceFlexible sub-elements
--> While the schema tells me I can add a new {TechInfos} section, with my own {TechInfo} elements, this turned out not to work. When I added my {TechInfo} to the existing {TechInfos} list of {TechInfo} elements, the tech showed up in the civilopedia, the tech tree and so forth...PHP Code:<TechInfo>
<Type>TECH_HARVESTING</Type>
<Description>Harvesting</Description>
<Civilopedia>Enables you to produce harvester units</Civilopedia>
<Help />
<Strategy>This is an important tech! It makes small cities powerfull</Strategy>
<Advisor>ADVISOR_GROWTH</Advisor>
<iAIWeight>0</iAIWeight>
<iAITradeModifier>10</iAITradeModifier>
<iCost>180</iCost>
<Era>ERA_ANCIENT</Era>
<FirstFreeUnitClass>NONE</FirstFreeUnitClass>
<iWorkerSpeedModifier>0</iWorkerSpeedModifier>
<iTradeRoutes>0</iTradeRoutes>
<iHealth>0</iHealth>
<iHappiness>0</iHappiness>
<iFirstFreeTechs>0</iFirstFreeTechs>
<iAsset>24</iAsset>
<iPower>3</iPower>
<bRepeat>0</bRepeat>
<bTrade>1</bTrade>
<bDisable>0</bDisable>
<bGoodyTech>1</bGoodyTech>
<bExtraWaterSeeFrom>0</bExtraWaterSeeFrom>
<bMapCentering>0</bMapCentering>
<bMapVisible>0</bMapVisible>
<bMapTrading>0</bMapTrading>
<bTechTrading>0</bTechTrading>
<bGoldTrading>0</bGoldTrading>
<bOpenBordersTrading>0</bOpenBordersTrading>
<bDefensivePactTrading>0</bDefensivePactTrading>
<bPermanentAllianceTrading>0</bPermanentAllianceTrading>
<bBridgeBuilding>0</bBridgeBuilding>
<bIrrigation>0</bIrrigation>
<bIgnoreIrrigation>0</bIgnoreIrrigation>
<bWaterWork>0</bWaterWork>
<iGridX>2</iGridX>
<iGridY>15</iGridY>
<DomainExtraMoves/>
<CommerceFlexible/>
<TerrainTrades/>
<Flavors>
<Flavor>
<FlavorType>FLAVOR_PRODUCTION</FlavorType>
<iFlavor>5</iFlavor>
</Flavor>
<Flavor>
<FlavorType>FLAVOR_GROWTH</FlavorType>
<iFlavor>3</iFlavor>
</Flavor>
<Flavor>
<FlavorType>FLAVOR_GOLD</FlavorType>
<iFlavor>2</iFlavor>
</Flavor>
<Flavor>
<FlavorType>FLAVOR_SCIENCE</FlavorType>
<iFlavor>2</iFlavor>
</Flavor>
</Flavors>
<OrPreReqs/>
<AndPreReqs>
<PrereqTech>TECH_MINING</PrereqTech>
<PrereqTech>TECH_AGRICULTURE</PrereqTech>
</AndPreReqs>
<Quote>some random text about crawlers in SMAC</Quote>
<Sound />
<SoundMP />
<Button>Art/Interface/Buttons/Units/Fastworker.dds</Button>
</TechInfo>
=> But, something is still wrong here. The tech doesn't have any pre-requisites. I can research it immediately, the prerequisites are not listed in the civilopedia, this tech is not listed as a "leads to" tech for agriculture and mining, it doesn't have any obligatory icons in the tech tree (nor any connectin lines) ... I have not yet solved this problem, but hopefully I will soon.
next up:
=> make the prerequisites for this tech work
=> copy all indian fast worker graphics and xml and rename to "harvester"
=> make the harvester available with this tech
=> modify the xml so it isn't a worker anymore
=> write python code that runs each turn and adds food/production/gold to the home city of each harvester.
Last edited by PJayTycy; November 6, 2005 at 18:58.
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Will the AI be able to undersstand this?
"Build Ports when possible. A port gives you extra resources, as well as an extra tile for a unit to stand on." - Infogrames
Probably not, but it's not really my intention to build a real mod to be used by a lot of players (as I get the impression most civ-players hated the crawlers in smac). It just seemed an interesting small mod to learn a little bit of everything related to modding civ4.Originally posted by Akaoz
Will the AI be able to undersstand this?
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While debugging this, I did something wrong and got a few XML errors. Well, after hitting OK on about 150 xml-error popups, I'm wondering if I can't set some option to not popup xml errors, but put them only in a log file or something...
these weren't XML errors at all though, I just had to clear my cache.
so, what did I change?
I copied an existing tech with 2 prerequiste techs exactly and put it below my tech (I used the flight tech). I just changed the tech_tag. Trying to see if this worked.
Now, what happens : the flight2 tech gets the pre-requisites for my harvesting tech....
Did any mod succesfully add a tech to the tech tree ??
I'll probably have to add a "dummy" tech above my harvesting tech with the right prerequisites. This is kind of stupid. I could also try what happens if I put my tech on the top of the list, but I fear some game code might rely on the exact tech order or the prerequisites for all other techs might get messed up...
Last edited by PJayTycy; November 8, 2005 at 10:43.
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Ok, tried with putting my tech in the front... what a mess this got me:
You can see all prerequisites are wrong (like I kind of expected).
Also, it's stupid to have the "give this screenshot a name" dialog on-screen in a screenshot.
Now, I can add a dummy tech, and try to remember to put the pre-requisites in the tech above the one I need, but if a patch solves this problem, I'll have to re-change it again.
BTW: is this officially a bug to be patched now ?
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So, I seem to have solved the problem anyway:
I removed all comments and changed all empty tags from
{blah /} to {blah/} (ie: removed the space before /)
I'll now try with adding comments again... It's probably all due to the extra space I'm used to type before the />
[edit]Nope, I was wrong, the comments are the problem, not the space before /> . So, general rule for xml-editing : don't add comments...[/edit]
I'm glad I finally got this to work, so I can now move on to the harvesting unit, and hopefully some python code soon.
Last edited by PJayTycy; November 8, 2005 at 11:19.
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CommerceFlexible:--> Most elements are again self-explained, but some of them aren't. Here a short list I'd like more info about:
Code:iAIWeight (0-?) iAITradeModifier (0 or 10) iPower (0-10) iAsset (1-6)*8 CommerceFlexible sub-elements
This is the only one of these I'm confident about.
Going by what I know about previous Civs, the two AI ones probably control how the AI deals with researching or trading the techs...
iAITradeModifier - I'd guess that this tech controls how aggressively AI civs will trade for these techs.
iAIWeight - I'd guess that this controls how likely the AI's are to research a specific tech, prior to any flavor estimates.
iPower & iAsset:
The actual technical purpose of these I can't guess. I did notice, however, that iAsset coincides directly with the tech era and iPower is higher for techs that grant larger offensive weapons (Fission & Artillery, for example). Probably more AI decisions, but I don't know.
Last edited by Gelondil; November 10, 2005 at 02:53.
I've got all the xml working now (tech + unit), except for the few xml-tags above that I'm still unsure of. I noticed the ai didn't really want to research my new tech, but once I got it, they all came asking for it and offered a tech of theirs + gold. So I should probably tune down the iAITradeModifier a bit :-)
Anyway, I'm now moving on to the python side of things. At the end of each player's turn, I have to search for all harvester units "supported" by each base and then add a certain amount of hammers / gold / food to that city.
In Locutus' "initial Python reference" here, I see a lot of possibile events that could trigger my code. I don't really know which one to use:
onBeginGameTurn
'Called at the beginning of the end of each turn'
arguments: iGameTurn
onEndGameTurn
'Called at the end of the end of each turn'
arguments: iGameTurn
onBeginPlayerTurn
'Called at the beginning of a players turn'
arguments: iGameTurn, iPlayer
onEndPlayerTurn
'Called at the end of a players turn'
arguments: iGameTurn, iPlayer
onEndTurnReady
-
arguments: iGameTurn
onCityDoTurn
'City Production'
arguments: pCity, iPlayer
I tried to add this code to each of these events:
to see when each event was triggered, but I don't see any popup at all.Code:iGameTurn = argsList popup = Popup.PyPopup() popup.setHeaderString( "onBeginGameTurn" ) popup.setBodyString( 'iGameTurn = %d' , iGameTurn ) popup.launch()
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Well, some code was wrong in my eventManager...
=> By enabling the logging in the .ini file, I was able to find the causes fast (wrong number of arguments + typo).
Now the popups showed, but the game was kind of "locked" after I closed them (interface works, direct map and unit interaction doesn't work)
The game doesn't "halt" when a popup is shown. It just continues. Because I had a popup in each of these events, I spawned a lot of popups, apparently too much for the game to handle.
=> Don't spawn more than 10 (or 11) popups or the game will go in this "halted" state.
Ofcourse I have now also deducted the order in which the events fire (starting when the player hits "end turn") :
onBeginPlayerTurn (player = 0)
onCityDoTurn(player = 0, city = ...)
onCityDoTurn(player = 0, city = ...)
onCityDoTurn(player = 0, city = ...)
onEndPlayerTurn (player = 0)
onBeginPlayerTurn (player = 1)
onCityDoTurn(player = 1, city = ...)
onCityDoTurn(player = 1, city = ...)
onCityDoTurn(player = 1, city = ...)
onEndPlayerTurn (player = 1)
onBeginPlayerTurn (player = 2)
onCityDoTurn(player = 2, city = ...)
onCityDoTurn(player = 2, city = ...)
onCityDoTurn(player = 2, city = ...)
onEndPlayerTurn (player = 2)
...
onBeginPlayerTurn(player = 18)
onEndPlayerTurn(player = 18)
onBeginGameTurn()
onEndGameTurn()
So, I think I'll use the onCityDoTurn() events to modify the hammers / food / gold. I didn't see any onEndTurnReady() events, and as there is no description about it in Locutus' reference, I'll assume this event never fires.
An other problem here I realised after playing a few civ4 games : units don't have the notion of a "home city" anymore. I'll have to check into this to see how I can link each crawler/harvester to 1 city.
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I was wondering if removing the comments would help get rid of a little bug in my mod...Originally posted by PJayTycy
So, I seem to have solved the problem anyway:
I removed all comments and changed all empty tags from
{blah /} to {blah/} (ie: removed the space before /)
I'll now try with adding comments again... It's probably all due to the extra space I'm used to type before the />
[edit]Nope, I was wrong, the comments are the problem, not the space before /> . So, general rule for xml-editing : don't add comments...[/edit]
I'm glad I finally got this to work, so I can now move on to the harvesting unit, and hopefully some python code soon.
I'll try that, thanks! Also, never played SMAC but I'll have to check out this unit when you're done
I was wondering if removing the comments would help get rid of a little bug in my mod...Originally posted by PJayTycy
So, I seem to have solved the problem anyway:
I removed all comments and changed all empty tags from
{blah /} to {blah/} (ie: removed the space before /)
I'll now try with adding comments again... It's probably all due to the extra space I'm used to type before the />
[edit]Nope, I was wrong, the comments are the problem, not the space before /> . So, general rule for xml-editing : don't add comments...[/edit]
I'm glad I finally got this to work, so I can now move on to the harvesting unit, and hopefully some python code soon.
I'll try that, thanks! Also, never played SMAC but I'll have to check out this unit when you're done
P.S. It worked! Thanks!
Originally posted by kallussed
I was wondering if removing the comments would help get rid of a little bug in my mod...
P.S. It worked! Thanks!
You're welcome !
It's good to see I'm not the only one to stumble upon this and ofcourse it's also good to see somebody had some use of this monologue-like thread.
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I'm still thinking about how to do this in python (didn't write code yet). My current idea is to create a new class to store all necessary info about the harvesters in a vector :
=> a reference to the unit
=> home city
=> state (ie: not harvesting / food / production / gold)
I started to think about what I should do when a harvester is "detached" from its home city. This happens when a city flips, is conquered, is razed, ... It also happens when the unit is captured / gifted / ... to an other player. I've decided for now to automaticly assign it to the nearest city of this player.
So, with all this in mind, I looked through the python API to find the functions I'll probably need. This is what I've found:
CyCity.changeFood ( +x )
CyCity.changeProduction ( +x )
CyPlayer.changeGold ( +x )
Notice here that gold is a global resource, while food and production are city-specific.
CyUnit.getX()
CyUnit.getY()
CyMap.findCity(x, y, owner, ...)
I'll have to test this last one, but I think this finds the city closest to the given x, y co-ordinates, owned by a certain player. If so, this is exactly what I'll need
Next, I check which events I'll need to use and what I'll need to do:
onGameStart() initialize all my data structures
onSaveGame() write important data to the save file (?)
onLoadGame() load saved data from the save file (?)
onBeginPlayerTurn(iPlayer) add food/production/gold to cities / global treasure.
onUnitBuilt(city, unit) if harvester type : add city, unit pair to my vector
onUnitLost(unit) ?
I'm not really sure when the onUnitLost will trigger. Will this trigger when a unit is captured by or given to another player ? Because I couldn't find any specific events for those. Will it trigger when a unit is killed ? Because there IS a specific event for killing a unit.
An other thing I'm unsure of, is the onSaveGame and onLoadGame events. I should be able to somehow store and retrieve my data without corrupting the save file.
Well, apart from these 2 issues (capturing / donating units and saving / loading games), I think I can have this working this evening. I think however, there will be a small difference in respect to crawlers in smac : if I use the changeProduction() function to add 5 hammers, these 5 hammers won't be affected by production bonusses in the city.
When I have a first version working, I'll upload it here. There's also a graphics artist from the C4:AC mod who created a 3D model of the smac crawler, we still need to transform it into a civ model though. Once all this is finished, this will be a small, but very varied mod (xml, python, graphics).
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Ok, a small follow up:
I've got almost everything working now, except for the "hard" parts:
DONE AND WORKING:
xml : adding technology
xml : adding unit "crawler"
python : dynamicly finding crawler class ID on game init (ie: no fixed "crawler = unit 78" stuff)
python : storing home city for each crawler
python : adding food/hammers/gold to the city each turn when unit is crawling
CURRENT PROBLEMS (done and not working):
=> Giving the command to start crawling.
I added a new BuildInfo object and added it as (the only) item to the {builds} list for my crawler. However, it doesn't show up where the worker buttons normally show up. Just for testing, I tried adding the build order to the normal worker too, but it doesn't show up either. In python I can get to the BuildInfo object without problems, but the button is not painted on the screen.
I looked in the CvMainScreen.py file, to find where these buttons are painted. I didn't find it. They use "getActionInfo", which is listed in the Python API to use the "XML\Units\Civ4ActionInfos.xml" file, but that file doesn't exist. There are other files I could try however. Besides the BuildInfo, also the MissionInfo.xml file looks promissing, but the comment at the top : "{!--Changes must be reflected in CvEnums.h--}" doensn't look very promissing untill the SDK comes out.
Ofcourse, I could just copy the CvMainInterface.py file, and add in the buttons myself, but I don't think I want to do that yet (it's 2800+ lines). So, has anybody had any succes in getting an extra button to show on the main interface?
I have tried keyboad commands, but didn't have much luck with those either (there just aren't that many combinations free anymore).
Next thing I'll try is to just allow the "build farm", "build mine", "build cottage" commands for the crawler, and then try to catch them in python so no farm/mine/cottage/... is actually built.
=> Getting a button to show on the interface is one thing. Capturing when it's clicked is another...
NOT INVESTIGATED YET
=> How to store / load extra info in the save game file? Is there any mod doing this already? Anybody who can give me a clue?
=> Trying to catch all cases where a city-worker pair might be destroyed : units gifted away, killed, self-destructed, captured, ... and cities gifted, taken, razed, ...
=> Instead of changing the actual food/hammer/gold reserve, making the extra input visible on the production/food bars and the commerce counter.
Basicly, I get the feeling of wanting to push too much in python, while I should be better of waiting for the SDK. However, I will continue to try to get this to work (at least basicly) in Python and Xml alone.
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wow, great work!
i wanted to do a similar thing and was looking for some good code in a mod and luckily i found this thread
the only thing i want to say is that you have at least one big fan
I'm wondering if there might be a better way to do it, both gameplay and from a technical perspective. Like when you start crawling, the crawler "deploys" into another unit type, which is imobile (this deploying could be done as an upgrade methinks). That new unit type would then have a couple of options:
1) Set home city.
2) Undeploy. (returns to mobile crawler)
Now, the only custom information would be the deployed crawlers home city (lets call a deployed crawler an extractor). Each turn you'd iterate over every extractor and add the resources to the home city.
If you want to be ultra sneaky you could force-name the crawler/extractor to the city it's crawling too, as a bonus the information is then readily available to the player and you wouldn't have to store ANY custom data at all!
So this is how I think it could work:
A new crawler is built. Player sends it to a tile.
Player deploys crawler once it reaches tile, if there is already an extractor there, the deployment is cancelled.
Dialog pops up asking which city you want to crawl to, the default (first position) is the nearest city.
The crawler is renamed to that city.
During the appropriate event, use the extractors names to locate the city and add the resources, at some point perform sanity check like player ownership.
Edit the rename unit event function to prevent people renaming crawlers.
Something to think about, anyway.
is it possible to allow the harvester unit only to harvest titles which are not used by cities (and if a harvester is using a certain title cities are not allowed to use this titel)?
I don't think this would be easier to program. The problem is giving custom commands to units. In this case I would still need to catch the player commands to transfer a crawler to an extractor (deploy) and back (undeploy). This only changes the problem from catching "crawl food" / "crawl hammers" / "crawl gold" commands to catching "deploy" and "undeploy" commands. Once one of them works, it's pretty straightforward to do the others.Originally posted by Blake
I'm wondering if there might be a better way to do it, both gameplay and from a technical perspective. Like when you start crawling, the crawler "deploys" into another unit type, which is imobile (this deploying could be done as an upgrade methinks). That new unit type would then have a couple of options:
1) Set home city.
2) Undeploy. (returns to mobile crawler)
Renaming the units might be a good idea to store the data in save games for now.
As far as the gameplay changes you propose, I'm develloping this mainly for c4:ac, so I'm trying to stay as close to smac crawlers as possible. Without the "home city" notion, there is no way to use crawlers to transfer resources from one city to another.
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When you rename crawlers to a "home"city, in the gold version a check must be included for namechanges of cities. Imagine a player just for the heck renaming his cities while they depend on a bunch of crawlers, but suddenly those crawlers harvest for a non-existant city.
geomodder, I would rename them just before saving the game (in the onSaveGame event) and load the info again when loading the game. City names shouldn't change between these actions. In-game, I'll use the same method I do it now.
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Good read... Keep it up ... "We're watching you!"
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
Just for future reference, you can use the angular brackets by using HTML entity codes. < for < and > for >
Code:<this works>
(\__/) 07/07/1937 - Never forget
(='.'=) "Claims demand evidence; extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
(")_(") "Starting the fire from within."
edited.... maybe not... ;(
Just use "reply with quote" on my post
(\__/) 07/07/1937 - Never forget
(='.'=) "Claims demand evidence; extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
(")_(") "Starting the fire from within."
I've stumbled upon this topic by coincidence, and this is what I have to say:
Keep up the good work
EDIT: I've just thought of two ideas that might help you, PJayTycy, in the solution of your problems. I'm not really acquainted enough with Civ's Python API to determine whether they'll work, but I hope the following will help somewhat, at least.
OK, so the two possible solutions for implementing the crawler might be:
1. If the API allows for free manipulation of a city's worked tiles list, the harvester could deploy as follows:
a) plop down necessary terrain improvements. They would be three new terrain improvements needed, adding -6 to resources that are not harvested.
b) add the harvested square to the worked tiles list of the city.
THE PROBLEM: this seems as a bit of an ad hoc solution, so it might never work, or work after additional extensive modifications.
2. Use super-specialists to add the relevant resource for the city. This would have the advantage that the resource info for the harvesters would be visible in the city screen.
a) calculate the amount of resource generated.
b) spawn a corresponding super-specialist in the city.
THE PROBLEM: there would have to exist a specialist type for each kind and possible amount of resource. If dynamic specialist type creation is not allowed (and that's probably the case), the mod would have to contain some 18 pre-defined super-specialist types.
Last edited by LoD; January 13, 2006 at 06:07.
I love the tick of the Geiger counter in the morning. It's the sound of... victory! :D
LoD - Owner/Webmaster of civ.org.pl
civ.org.pl's Discussion Forums and Multiplayer System for SMAC and Civs 2-4
Here are a few screenshots from the civilization 4 - alpha centauri forum about progress on this unit:
First, I had to add a "home city" concept, so I added it for ALL civ4 units.
The rehome command is available when a unit is in a different city.
Crawler units can be used to hurry production (but a lot less hammers than great people).
And finally, here, a screenshot that shows most of the features:
=> Home city is listed in the unit info box
=> Crawling amount is listed in the unit info box
So, here we see a city working city plot + 1 other plot, for a total of 1 hammer. One crawler is working a forested hill (outside culture borders) for +3 hammers. The correct info is shown for the unit (home city, +3 hammers) and the city (total turn production = +4 hammers).
I'll probably upload a polished version here today. Oh, the crawlers are enabled with iron working and cost 90 hammers.
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Release Candidate 1 ready:
Fixes / Changes:
=> Interface is updated immediately (ie: after rehoming a unit, the rehome command disapears immediately)
=> Enable crawl-actions for a unit if he is the one currently crawling a tile.
=> Changed all references to "crawl" to either "convoy" or "supply".
=> Replaced the fixed "Home city:", "Independant" and "Crawling:" texts with TXT-tags to be loaded from xml.
=> Solved save/load issues
=> Rehoming only works in bases of your own team (previously it was possible to rehome in every city you could enter (ie: open borders)).
Left issues:
=> Start crawling without moves left.
Currently I show the icon, but the action isn't started. There are 2 options:
a) Remove icons from the interface when no moves left.
b) Try to remember you ordered the crawl command the previous turn.
=> Some text needs rewording and translation.
Screenshots:
xml-loaded texts for rehome command
xml-loaded texts for the convoy missions (notice this unit is currently convoying hammers and I moused-over the "convoy commerce" mission.
xml-loaded text and strategy when the "what to build next" popup appears.
I don't have a screenshot of the civilopedia, but it should be OK too.
Mod:
http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=63544_C4AC.zip
SDK Source:
http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?...4AC_source.zip
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