PROJECT: Playtest Thread III

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Fugi the Great
Comparing this version to the first playtest, the slider bar on the National Manager used to stay put when you closed it, so that when you reopened it, it was still in the place you left it. Now it always defaults to the top when you open it. A reason this was changed?

What playtest version? And what slider?

Originally posted by Fugi the Great
Since the spell check button on the bottom of this page no longer works, I recommend the Google Toolbar that will spell check anything typed on your computer.

That Google Toolbar is spyware, isn't it? And only support for Internet Exploiter. Anyway Aplyton would need an integrated spellchecker, to make me use it. I rather have a problem with to less commas, that makes sometimes the post a little bit unreadible. Well and sometimes in the heat of the battle, some words get lost. And maybe here and there some typos, but no reason to get upset in general.

-Martin

[Maquiladora]

The reminder that a treaty is about to end, can the treaties last 20 turns instead of is it 10? Its annoying, especially with 8+ other civs.

Also about the reminder, can it tell you which treaty is about to end? Not sure if this one might have been mentioned before, anyway.

EDIT: Actually this might already be 20

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann

What playtest version? And what slider?

I think hes talking about the scrollbar, I know it used to stay in 1.1.

[Maquiladora]

Heres an interesting screenshot.

1. Why hasnt the AI connected all its cities with roads?

Actually ive noticed this a lot with the new playtest (may have been with olders ones too), the AI takes far too long to connect all its cities, sometimes just doesnt do it at all.

It helps to have roads to every city ASAP because roads can increase happiness due to smaller capital distance, and obviously defence/attack is easier too.

2. Why hasnt it placed 2 more cities in the 2 tiles outside its border but on its small continent? It has 4 settlers but they havent moved from the cities in at least 5 turns.

3. This AI is way in the lead scientifically and militarily (mostly due to wonders), and if they placed more farms instead of mines, theyd be even further.

What are the minimum requirements for growth in each city? I may have asked this before but i forgot. Also why does it decide to place for example, a trading post instead of a farm or mine?

4. Why are all those military fortified doing nothing? Theyre building all military in their cities but no more transports to attack across the water.

Another thing unrelated to this screenshot, I noticed the AI builds tile imps around its bigger cities first, I think this should be the other way around and improve smallest ones first.

Small cities arent any use at all, in fact theyre a hindrance because they alter the sliders, and have to use more specialists. It takes a long time to develop a city (growth and buildings) so it only makes sense to work on smaller ones first.

Also when the human aims for one of the AI's super-cities it almost kills it straight away, so if all its cities were more equal it would make less difference.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Heres an interesting screenshot.

1. Why hasnt the AI connected all its cities with roads?

Actually ive noticed this a lot with the new playtest (may have been with olders ones too), the AI takes far too long to connect all its cities, sometimes just doesnt do it at all.

It helps to have roads to every city ASAP because roads can increase happiness due to smaller capital distance, and obviously defence/attack is easier too.

Actual I don't why this is so, I noticed a long time ago when I modified the road astar, however so far I looked into other things.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
2. Why hasnt it placed 2 more cities in the 2 tiles outside its border but on its small continent? It has 4 settlers but they havent moved from the cities in at least 5 turns.

Looking into the settling map could help. One possibility is that these new cities would be too close then. However the AI has enough room for new cities. However the city on the other continent is conquered.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
3. This AI is way in the lead scientifically and militarily (mostly due to wonders), and if they placed more farms instead of mines, theyd be even further.

What are the minimum requirements for growth in each city? I may have asked this before but i forgot. Also why does it decide to place for example, a trading post instead of a farm or mine?

The AI places farms until the city has enough food meanining it needs 30 turns for one pop at minimum, I exposed this number to startegies.txt. Alternatively it places farms until there is enough for the next pop or for the next ring.

Note that the AI can't use laborers properly yet. And farmers only to archieve these settings described above. And for the early game as long as you don't have laborers you are better with mines. Actual that's what I see the more mines an AI has the more it is in the game, well until turn 200 of my test game.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
4. Why are all those military fortified doing nothing? Theyre building all military in their cities but no more transports to attack across the water.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Another thing unrelated to this screenshot, I noticed the AI builds tile imps around its bigger cities first, I think this should be the other way around and improve smallest ones first.

That has to do something with the utilisation stuff, Fromafar penatized the tiles with low utilisation, at least I undid this for ring 1 cities. Maybe we should change the order how the tileimps are added into the queue.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Also when the human aims for one of the AI's super-cities it almost kills it straight away, so if all its cities were more equal it would make less difference.

What do you mean by this?

-Martin

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
What do you mean by this?

Its basically the same as saying, a couple of big cities and lots of small cities is useless, compared to all equally developed (but medium size) cities. The easily biggest city for the AI makes a good target for the human.

The AI places farms until the city has enough food meanining it needs 30 turns for one pop at minimum, I exposed this number to startegies.txt. Alternatively it places farms until there is enough for the next pop or for the next ring.

Note that the AI can't use laborers properly yet. And farmers only to archieve these settings described above. And for the early game as long as you don't have laborers you are better with mines. Actual that's what I see the more mines an AI has the more it is in the game, well until turn 200 of my test game.

I dont get that, you say it places farms to reach minimum growth of 30 turns, but alternatively it places farms until there is enough for next pop or next ring?

And then you say it can only use farmers to achieve the settings above?

Which does it use farmers or farms? If it can terraform and/or farm enough land to reach minimum growth, it shouldnt use any farmers.

It definitely slows down at around turn 200 because it just decides to stop settling or it cant see enough room, and also drops behind in science because of slow growth in existing cities.

The first expansion phase to Tyranny it goes very fast, then into Monarchy-Fascism it stops building cities and entirely military, even to over 80% support sometimes.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
I dont get that, you say it places farms to reach minimum growth of 30 turns, but alternatively it places farms until there is enough for next pop or next ring?

And then you say it can only use farmers to achieve the settings above?

Which does it use farmers or farms? If it can terraform and/or farm enough land to reach minimum growth, it shouldnt use any farmers.

OK once again, I created a function that checks whether the city has enough food or not. The criteria are:

Does the city has enough food to support the current population.
Does the city has enough food so that it needs for one pop at most 30 turn. (The condition before is included in this one)
Does the city has enough food to support the current population and another pop. (Has it enough food once it is grown)
Is there enough food available once the city has reached the next ring.

I use the same function, so the same criteria to decide whether the city has to build a farm and whether the city has to engange a farmer. Well after some rethinking the 30 turn condition is enough for the farmers.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
It definitely slows down at around turn 200 because it just decides to stop settling or it cant see enough room, and also drops behind in science because of slow growth in existing cities.

The first expansion phase to Tyranny it goes very fast, then into Monarchy-Fascism it stops building cities and entirely military, even to over 80% support sometimes.

That's indeed a problem if the support is such high. An adjustment in the strategies.txt would help.

I think for the connecting roads issure the problem might be that the RoadUtilityBonus in strategies.txt is so low, in GoodMod it is higher.

-Martin

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann

OK once again, I created a function that checks whether the city has enough food or not. The criteria are:

Does the city has enough food to support the current population.
Does the city has enough food so that it needs for one pop at most 30 turn. (The condition before is included in this one)
Does the city has enough food to support the current population and another pop. (Has it enough food once it is grown)
Is there enough food available once the city has reached the next ring.

Also what happens if the city reaches the maximum size? Is it taken into account?

Actually i had some success increasing ImproveSmallCityGrowthBonus, not perfect but certainly better. I didnt see the AI terraforming to place a farm though, maybe because it placed a farm before it had enough to terraform.

That's indeed a problem if the support is such high. An adjustment in the strategies.txt would help.

Well i dont think any tells it 80%, which is strange that would allow it to go so high.

I just see lots and lots of units going in the same direction exploring, sometimes.

I think for the connecting roads issure the problem might be that the RoadUtilityBonus in strategies.txt is so low, in GoodMod it is higher.

I tried increasing RoadUtilityBonus to 300 and didnt see any difference in over 200 turns, this is over 150 turns capable of making roads, then i tried it at 600 RoadUtility and no difference, some roads as usual in both tests, but not connecting all cities.

Could it be spending all PW immediately on farms instead of building roads, regardless of RoadUtilityBonus?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Also what happens if the city reaches the maximum size? Is it taken into account?

Actual I take the raw growth rate into account, not the one modified by the city overcrowding coefficent and I check whether the city is near the limit.

However I should use for farmers just the 30 turn condition based on raw growth rate.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Actually i had some success increasing ImproveSmallCityGrowthBonus, not perfect but certainly better. I didnt see the AI terraforming to place a farm though, maybe because it placed a farm before it had enough to terraform.

Actual it does terraform, whether it places afterwards a farm is another story.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
I just see lots and lots of units going in the same direction exploring, sometimes.

Well exploring is another thing that needs to be improved.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
I tried increasing RoadUtilityBonus to 300 and didnt see any difference in over 200 turns, this is over 150 turns capable of making roads, then i tried it at 600 RoadUtility and no difference, some roads as usual in both tests, but not connecting all cities.

I used the values of GoodMod for RoadUtilityBonus, ImproveProductionBonus and ImproveGrowthBonus. Most of the roads were connected, some cities weren's connected at all, and other civs didn't build roads at all in a 200 turns test. So indeed I see that this helps however the road paths still need some improvement.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Could it be spending all PW immediately on farms instead of building roads, regardless of RoadUtilityBonus?

I doubt it, the other boni seem to be too high.

-Martin

[Ekmek]

I built another "patch" at rev441. its in my sig and I included the text files i missed out last time. now I'm on to my source code attempts...

EDIT: I completed my NeedsCityGood code (for Units only for now) and added the exe in case anyone wants to try it as well.
You need to get the Good Name (like Desert_one or however its done in terrain) and that same label must go to the unit field NeedsCityGood.

Now if you have a good inyour city radius you can build that unit, but if you trade that good to another city then you CANT build it and the buyingcity can. It makes cities more strategic and allows for the option of sending special units to more productive cities, and makes you have to choose between trading a good or using it for development.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by E

Now if you have a good inyour city radius you can build that unit, but if you trade that good to another city then you CANT build it and the buyingcity can. It makes cities more strategic and allows for the option of sending special units to more productive cities, and makes you have to choose between trading a good or using it for development.

That sounds great!

Edit: Sounds great, works great, have a question though:

I noticed that the city only registers the Good there when the city is built, so you cant add a Good by the scen editor to an existing city and in a way "refresh" the build menu. Very minor issue though.

Havent tried it with a trade route in place yet.

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
I noticed that the city only registers the Good there when the city is built, so you cant add a Good by the scen editor to an existing city and in a way "refresh" the build menu. Very minor issue though.

y'know when itested previously it was no problem (before adding the trade route part) and when i was coding/testing it that problem would appear. the last time i tried it worked. hopefully martin can see what i did wrong in that respect.

Glad you like it. there are a lot of other things I'd like to do with goods but they may have to wait but as a hint:

I'm thinking of making tileimps where you can plant goods (like cotton) so you have to plant resources to build you war machine, ie cotton needed for infantry and certain cities are cotton exporters

exporting good traits. with the m_buying thing i used here i'm thinking of adding building-like attributes like increase food etc so you can export farm stuff. Also I want to have one that IncreasesCrime so when you export poppies to other players it causes problems in the cities like the British opium Wars or todays Drug Wars. Not advocating the morality of it but it would be a cool phenomn to deal with here.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by E
Also I want to have one that IncreasesCrime

Could you not simply use the existing DecreasesCrime (or whatever it's called) with a negative value?

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by J Bytheway


Could you not simply use the existing DecreasesCrime (or whatever it's called) with a negative value?

I believe so but as far I know DecreaseCrime is not associated with buying or having a good. so I have to take the capability fgrom the building.

[grimm]

hello. i'm new to this. i hope not to repeat a usual question:

when trying to start game tells me i need a mss32.dll
after downloading one and putting to game/or/win.sys tells me it fails a remote procedure call @4 for the master volume

what can i do ? (is there anything i can do?)

i'm running windows 2003 on an
1,5 Ghz Centrino Notebook