A few questions about the unofficial 3.17 BTS patch

[snafuc4]

My apologies for not keeping up with the forum, but assorted problems plagued me, including getting a job

Anyway

How/where is the unofficial patch meant to be applied? Overwrite the %username%/mydocs/mygames area or the original %programfiles%/firaxis/etc.. locations?

Is there an indication anywhere that the patch has been applied? ISTR Blake's AI mod had an indicator

Speaking of Blake's AI mod, has that carried through fully to the official patch 3.17? If not, could someone kindly provide me with a link to his latest & greatest?

Going back to the (unofficial) patch install, I do take it that this is meant to overwrite existing files, yes?

Oh, & has anything been done yet about those damn forests at start?

Cheers all

[Willem]

Originally posted by snafuc4
How/where is the unofficial patch meant to be applied? Overwrite the %username%/mydocs/mygames area or the original %programfiles%/firaxis/etc.. locations?

There's two ways to apply it. Either install it as a mod and play it that way or overwrite the game's original DLL. The Python and XML files can go in your Custom Assets folder, or you can overwrite the original.

Speaking of Blake's AI mod, has that carried through fully to the official patch 3.17? If not, could someone kindly provide me with a link to his latest & greatest?

Sure, go buy BtS if you haven't already. Blake's AI mod became the official AI for the game with that expansion.

Oh, & has anything been done yet about those damn forests at start?

The unofficial patch helps somewhat but it still doesn't eliminate them all. But at least you'll get some starts that have at least some decent food resources, instead of just a single Cow on a Plains tile. It seems no one has been able to fix that one completely, even after two unofficial patches. Solver was promising to work on it in his latest but he seems to have dropped the project altogether.

[joncnunn]

The forest is actually quite nice; I use it to reduce my need for workers. (Flat-grassland forests tiles are quite nice as is). Or you can build more workers than I do and chop it for wonders. Bronze Working is an early tech that you need anyway to know where Copper is.

[snafuc4]

Cheers both

Re: 'go buy BtS if you haven't already' - umm, why would I be installing a BTS patch if I hadn't bought the addon?

Anyway, you didn't fully answer my questions: is there an indicator that the patch has been installed; & I know that BTS has applied Blake's AI /at the time of publishing/, but ISTR there was a fair bit of work that went on afterward - has that been applied in the official or unofficial 3.17 patch? If not, could someone point me to the relevant d/l please?

Jon - I appreciate the forest's availability for chopping, but I'd prefer to have a few more readily accessible tiles just in the interests of a) moving starting position if I want & b) aesthetics

On a slightly related note, ISTR that Blake's patch fixed the 'blue circles' for settlers' recommended positions a great deal (not sure about workers). Does that still hold true? It may have been one of the later developments I mentioned above..

Cheers

[joncnunn]

Almost all of Blake's earlier unoffical patches had been included in the offical 3.17.

The main thing realted to setups fixed in unoffical 3.17 is "water starts". It's actually the smalest of the differences between the offical & unoffical BTS versions. (Most important in my opinion is the unoffical one removed the Barage Promotions to tanks that the offical one had left in and yet was useless in combat. The human could simply stop using the promotion but no one had told the AI either.)

[snafuc4]

Cheers Jon

[Willem]

Originally posted by snafuc4
Re: 'go buy BtS if you haven't already' - umm, why would I be installing a BTS patch if I hadn't bought the addon?

Right, of course.

is there an indicator that the patch has been installed;

Not that I've seen.

but ISTR there was a fair bit of work that went on afterward - has that been applied in the official or unofficial 3.17 patch? If not, could someone point me to the relevant d/l please?

Blake's AI has become the official AI as of BtS. Any changes that he's made to it since it's release have been incorporated through Firaxis only. There's been no additions outside the official patches.

On a slightly related note, ISTR that Blake's patch fixed the 'blue circles' for settlers' recommended positions a great deal (not sure about workers). Does that still hold true?

You're better off turning that feature off IMO.

BTW, what does ISTR stand for?

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Willem
Blake's AI has become the official AI as of BtS. Any changes that he's made to it since it's release have been incorporated through Firaxis only. There's been no additions outside the official patches.

How about UNofficial patches?
Better AI started by Iustus, continued by jdog5000.

Unofficial Patch started with Solver, continued by Dresden.

Either of these are often included in mods that others produce, and are quite worthy in themselves.

--
EDIT: Hold on, I now see you were being specific to Blake's work. He's off to monastic service. Others have to pick up the ball.

[DaveV]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Almost all of Blake's earlier unoffical patches had been included in the offical 3.17.

But Blake says:

Because Aggressive AI does not so easily fall victim to trivial rushes, it does play significantly harder - or at least, promotes a balanced game.

(As for why this is: There was way too much whining about the AI training too many units. So the default AI is pretty wussy, much like the default player. Aggressive AI embraces unit spam in all it's glory).

I would have liked to remove the Aggressive AI setting and replace it with Peaceful AI setting, making aggressive AI the default and making it clear what the suboptimal setting (for challenge) is, but that wasn't high on my list of things to get changed...

edit:
So to just spell it out.
Non-aggressive AI is non-competitive. It's what players wanted.

[snafuc4]

Originally posted by Willem

You're better off turning that feature off IMO.

BTW, what does ISTR stand for?

OK, thanks.

ISTR = I seem to remember

Cheers