Dale/Snoopy PatchMod (Bug-fixes and more)

[BillyBlimey]

Just a quick note - long time reader of Apolyton, just registered to post ...

I'm really encouraged by all the work done to address CIV4:Colonization playability issues, including REF and other tweaks. I'm having fun with the game but it definitely needs the "last mile" completed. Keep up the great work guys - can't wait for this to be polished up, then you can email it to Sid I'm surprised they let this one out of the door as it is, seems like lots of uncharacteristic gaps. Anyway, thanks again!

[ParticleHustler]

Quick and general question about mods...

Do I have to apply the mod patch each and every time I start the game, or should it automatically apply after I've applied it, at least until I unload it? I seem to have to apply it every time I start the game, but I've really never used mods before this, so I'm unsure whether that's right or I did something wrong somewhere. Thanks.

[snoopy369]

If you start the game with the mod="\patchmod" flag in the shortcut, you don't have to apply it every time (see Dale's post about installing the patchmod).

[goddy]

thanks snoopy (and dale, seems he's not around currently, lol).

one more question, how can i load Age of Discovery II and this patch together?

[snoopy369]

Dale lives in Australia. It's like 3am there.

He'll (eventually) combine the two, you can't at the moment combine them unfortunately (without going into the source code and such).

[Dale]

It was 3:26am at the time you posted that.

[goddy]

i'm in Shanghai, almost as same as u, dale, GMT +8

[Grandpa Troll]

Just curious, i just installed this game on my PC, due to the level of respect I have for both Dale and Snoopy369, I deferred installing until after this patch/mod had been done.


My question is this:

Can I install now or are you folks still doing a good bit of tweaking still?

thanks

Gramps

[Dale]

Please install now and try it.

We need valuable feedback on balance changes such as REF and Education.

[Guynemer]

Great work so far; if anything, I'd turn down the education ramping even more. In a marathon game, it is still taking 30-40 turns with a university after a few trainees...

[snoopy369]

Hmmm, wonder if that's a marathon problem (the number increasing dramatically more because marathon's numbers are so high) ... for normal it's reasonable. When you say 'a few trainees' how many are you talking?

[Dale]

Originally posted by Guynemer
Great work so far; if anything, I'd turn down the education ramping even more. In a marathon game, it is still taking 30-40 turns with a university after a few trainees...

How's the REF shaping up on marathon? I haven't done a marathon test game yet to see it.

[Dale]

v1.04 posted, please see first post for details.

It may seem like a small one, but some of the AI changes took time, and my time was a bit more limited this week.

Next week I hope to get a bigger update out.

[rasmus40]

Your fix regarding treasure and galleons doesn't seem to be working quite as intended. It's possible to load your galleon with five goods or men and then load the treasure afterwards in the last spot. If you load the treasure first things work as intended, and you can't add anything extra.

[Dale]

Originally posted by rasmus40
Your fix regarding treasure and galleons doesn't seem to be working quite as intended. It's possible to load your galleon with five goods or men and then load the treasure afterwards in the last spot. If you load the treasure first things work as intended, and you can't add anything extra.

Did you try with 1.04? Cuz that was reported for 1.03 and as far as I know the fix in 1.04 is working.

[Becephalus73]

Just some feedback, played a small/normal 3 ai colonies game with France and 1.03. Just won in 1783 with no gaminess (got a bunch of FF, didn't manage Bells too much. Very enjoyable experience and the AI and natives seemed a lot better.

Keep up the good work.

Things I wouldn't mind you considering:

The hills and ranger promotions which double movement in hills and forests? I find it highly annoying/implausible that people would move quicker through hills than fields...it also just makes for very goofy tactics/gameplay.

Any chance having this also moved it up to 2 through fields as well for this promotion (basically fields and terrain x are as roads promotion), or perhaps take it away completely (the movement bonus not the combat bonus) Those promotions are really already very strong.

A little concerned the REF is favoring rough terrain a la CIV4 AI when it actually is at a huge disadvantage there. Anyone confirm or deny this behavior?

Would love it if the whole city combat thing worked better , the incentive to repeatedly take, lose and retake a city is incredibly large, even if you are not even trying to set this situation up (which I wasn't, but each turn each side can retake it easily)...

How about removing cannon city attack and giving it to infantry to the same extent they have city defense. Then you have cannons to break the walls with bombardment and provide manpower free firepower (which is still an important role) and city def becomes about roughly fair infantry battles where no walls are involved.

This would still encourage the historical fabian tactics of the rebels as the colonies can generally not afford fair fights.

Plus it would make infantry a bit more valuable compared to dragoons, which I think are used in very unrealistically large numbers. A lot of games the REF is 60/40 dragoons/inf and may forces are like 2:1 inf/dragoons (which is still too much).

Just MO

I am sure others may have better ideas, but it just doesn't quite seem right right now.

[Becephalus73]

Sorry to double post but another AI problem for you to look at.

If your colony is spread over 2 islands the REF will NOT (in my experience) reload and come to the main island if they landed some troops to take the smaller one (in my case I had 8 cities and 80% of my troops on one, and 2 cities and 20% of my troops on the other).

The REF landed about 30% of its force on my small island (maybe 40/50 troops).

I had a hell of a time getting over there before the time limit with 35 MoW sailing about blowing my frigates out of the water.

[goddy]

sorry, top guns, may i ask one rookie question? what is REF for?

[Nikolai]

Royal Expi-something Force, in other words the royal army that are just waiting to kick your sorry butt when you declare indepence.

[Refar]

Could you please fix up the Stock Scenario Maps (With respect to the changes you made to distance of Europe/High Seas from shore) ?
Or maybe provide instructions how to fix it myself.

[crantor]

"NEW * Can't declare war against another European Civ for the first 20 turns."

Curse you Dale, Curse you!

(thank you)

[Dale]

Originally posted by crantor
"NEW * Can't declare war against another European Civ for the first 20 turns."

Curse you Dale, Curse you!

(thank you)

Yeah, curse me but I'm giving everyone a HUGE present for the next version:

The ability to send a ship from Europe to the east or west coasts (if revealed). So you no longer have to sail across the map (once you already know the west edge). Sail to Europe then to the other coast.

[Guynemer]

The REF was quite managable, although that may be because I gamed the system considerably--I had four colonies humming along at 10+ pop making tons of cash before hiring my first Elder Statesmen and putting him in the education city. If I recall correctly, there were about 25 each of regulars and dragoons, and 10 artillery.


I'd still like to see REF decoupled from LBs to open up the FF dynamic more, and see LBs affect garrisoned units so I don't have to throw citizens into useless jobs, but overall this is some considerable improvement.

[Dale]

Originally posted by Guynemer
I'd still like to see REF decoupled from LBs to open up the FF dynamic more, and see LBs affect garrisoned units so I don't have to throw citizens into useless jobs, but overall this is some considerable improvement.

I really like the idea of REF tied to LB production, but a balance needs to be found between unmanageable REF's and perfect.

I too would like statesmen to be able to affect garrisoned units, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that should be in a bug fix patch. That's more a modification, or change to the way something works. It works fine right now.

Snoopy and I want to keep this a pure patch, rather than a modification.

[snoopy369]

One possibility, and I say this without having looked at the code yet, is to adjust how LBs work in terms of adding them up. Dale, correct me where this is wrong, but I think they add until 100% for the current city, and then if you reduce the population, they probably expire until the city is back to 100%. If you adjust how that works, you can make it possible for the garrisoned units to still have Rebel Sentiment, effectively, as long as they spent SOME time in the city; which I think is a reasonable balance both realistically and gameplay wise.

[rasmus40]

Originally posted by Dale


Did you try with 1.04? Cuz that was reported for 1.03 and as far as I know the fix in 1.04 is working.

Sorry it was with 1.03. It works as intended in 1.04.

[Becephalus73]

Originally posted by Dale


I really like the idea of REF tied to LB production, but a balance needs to be found between unmanageable REF's and perfect.

I too would like statesmen to be able to affect garrisoned units, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that should be in a bug fix patch. That's more a modification, or change to the way something works. It works fine right now.

Snoopy and I want to keep this a pure patch, rather than a modification.

Well the fact that right now soldiers aren't considered as loyal as your civilian population seems like a bug to me. First the way it currently works is all your soldiers are considered 100% loyalist...which is odd to say the least.

The only nice feature of it I can see is that if you convert half your population to soldiers you will lose your revolutionary bonus, which is a nice (if inadequate) method of discouraging people from having an unrealistically large an army.

The clear solution seems to me to be to keep a flag for all the units, and have adding or subtracting a unit from a city NOT change the independence variable by default. Having it only change it if that units Independence variable is different form the cities. Obviously this would involve some coding, but makes sense and would make this feature more intuitive.

Another thing to look at would be the decay of liberty bells. Part of the reason the current tie between REF and LB is so frustrating to people is that bells decay over time, so a bell made on turn 5 is a lot more worthless than one made on turn 200. This really hampers any strategy that involves early bells as long as this is what the ref is tied to.

just MO. You probably see some of these suggestions as feature changes, but I think having the game so unintuitive by default is by itself a bug.

[Dale]

In the next version, depending on whether you have discovered the east and west Europe sea zones, you'll be able to send you ship east or west from Europe.

No more sailing across the map from east to west when you buy a new ship.

[crantor]

I noticed something the other night, not sure if it's patchmod or vanilla error (i'm thinking vanilla ). Anyway, I had a caravel back in Europe as I revolted, and noticed afterwards that nothing happened to it. I reloaded and let the REF take over all colonies. No loss, since my caravel was alive. I sailed it back to the new world, and the MoWs were gone. I could roam the seas, and start a NEW New Spain at an island where the AI could not touch me, since all troops were at the mainland and did not seem to board the ships for another invasion. I disbanded it and lost the game.

Ships in Europe should auto-sail to the new world or auto-destruct (my vote), as the King confiscate your ship upon hearing your declaration of independence.

[Dale]

Here's one for the traditionalist.