PROJECT: Playtest (the 4th Thread)

[Protra3211]

Been playing the playteast with build 646.On very hard and after 200 turns in 3rd place.Managed one wonder thats why im doing so well. In most games I drag near the bottom for at least 60% of the game.
I think I will go back to the tweaked DiffDB -copied numbers from Apolyton mod except technology as well as alowing 5 more cities for each form of goverment.
But so far no CTD,s and all game messages are working.
Side note : keep the military readiness at war like the AI so as not to get a easy pump up in production.
E have you tried your Civ3 mod with the new playtest and has it improved the AI?

[Maquiladora]

Just a couple of questions on the latest revision,

-Added Science Tile Imps with BonusScience (+Int) tileimp can add science
-Added Happy Tile imps. with HappyInc (+int) a tileimp can add happiness

Are these bonuses for the city or the whole civ?

gs/gameobj/Player.cpp
-Added ActualBuildingEverywhere for wonders this flag will actually create the building in cities that don't alreadyhave said building

When the wonder is destroyed are the buildings destroyed too? What about new cities built after the wonder, do they get the free building?

Also are you making 647 available for download? Id like to play with the AE mod and the tweaked files again if possible.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
I havent actually played the playtest with the new units E added though, maybe once last year, so id have to play it again to see what are the upgrade paths. Also with the tweaked diffDB etc.

The upgrade paths I have introduced in the AE are only related to the classical CtP2 units.

I understand your point of view Maquiladora, but if the upgrade for the Warrior starts with Pikemen and the upgrade for the Swordsman with Infantryman, I don't think that it is a real problem...

[Maquiladora]

Well at the moment it depends if we're keeping those new units, Legion etc, E added. If we keep them then the Warrior has an obvious upgrade path to Swordsmen and Legion, if we arent then i still think the Warrior should be a dead end, since the Samurai is a special unit and Hoplites are purely defensive.

Perhaps we need a new thread to decide what units are going to be in the AE mod.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Maquiladora

Perhaps we need a new thread to decide what units are going to be in the AE mod.

OK, I will try to find a moment to create a new thread today or tomorrow.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Tamerlin


OK, I will try to find a moment to create a new thread today or tomorrow.

No need.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Perhaps we need a new thread to decide what units are going to be in the AE mod.

As long as it is a mod placed in a scenario folder you can add as many units as you want and the game allows. But if you want to add units to the main database than you have to find a way to not break the savegame compatibility.

By the way what is this: a space in a directory name?

-Martin

[Tamerlin]

AE Updater and Longbowman

I have posted yesterday the Units.txt file in the DESIGN: Unit Values thread with the Upgrade paths and the new unit Longbowman as discussed in the said thread and in the current thread.

As I am not sure everybody will spot the new files, I am posting them again here and encouraging those interested to have a further look at the Design: Unit Values to read the comments.

Though the unit is working, along with the icons, there is still some work to do if we want it to be perfect. I have managed to spot and solve the more visible problems but there are a lot of datas I don't know how to replace or even if they have to be changed and what would be the effects.

For example: Powerpoints increased to 200 instead of 100


The uniticon.txt is another example:

In the following line :

ICON_UNIT_LONGBOWMAN { FirstFrame "UPUP089L.TGA" Movie "NULL" Gameplay "UNIT_ARCHER_GAMEPLAY" Historical "UNIT_ARCHER_HISTORICAL" Prereq "UNIT_ARCHER_PREREQ" Vari "UNIT_ARCHER_STATISTICS" Icon "UPUP089A.TGA" LargeIcon "UPUP089L.TGA" SmallIcon "UPUP089B.TGA" StatText "UNIT_ARCHER_SUMMARY" }

... you can see that there are still a lot of references to the Archer unit. Do I have to change the other datas (it is working as is), and what are the other datas used for ? And where ?

Lot of questions... so few answers.

[Tamerlin]

AE Updater with Longbowman files

And the file I have forgotten to attach to the preceding post...

[Maquiladora]

Could anyone tell me what might be wrong with this SLIC code using the playtest. Its the barbed wire code from the WW2 scenario.

The problem is when the unit moves onto the barbed wire, it loses the movement (so that works), but the sprite disappears.

When i remove the code obviously the problem goes away.

  //---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 // Zeroes out movements points from any land units that move onto Barbed Wire
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

HandleEvent(MoveUnits) 'WWBarbedWireMove_F' post {		

location_t	tmpLoc;
army_t		tmpArmy;
unit_t		tmpUnit;
int_t		numUnits;
int_t		unitType;
int_t		i;

	tmpLoc = location[1];		// destination location
	if (TileHasImprovement(tmpLoc, TerrainImprovementDB(TILEIMP_BARBED_WIRE))) {	
		tmpArmy = army[0];
		numUnits = tmpArmy.size;
		for(i = 0; i < numUnits; i = i + 1) {
			GetUnitFromArmy(tmpArmy, i, tmpUnit);
			unitType = tmpUnit.type;
			if (unitType < 71 || unitType > 82) {// if unit is not an airplane
				AddMovement(tmpUnit, -1000); // subtract any remaining movement points
			}
		}
	}
}

[Ekmek]

why are you slicing it? You could just make the movement points 2000 or something.

[Maquiladora]

Because the AI moves its units around the terrain if its a high movement cost, if its slic'ed, the move path doesnt detect it, so the barbed wire actually "catches" the AI units.

[Ekmek]

hmmm. but thats how obstacles work, wouldnt the human cheat it?

I think this could be an easy code though. or you can use my minefield code.

[Maquiladora]

Obstacle wasnt the right word.

What i shouldve mentioned is the "barbed wire" in this case is acting as a minefield (maybe to deduct random HP, i dont know yet). It has to be a surprise, rather than something to go around. I want the AI to plough through it, so the human has some use for it, but so the human cant "railroad" the AI down one path.

The human avoiding it isnt so much an issue, as the minefields will only be in (or built in) human territory, and the human will be on the defensive for most of the time. Its a tool for the human to protect their gains on the frontline.

Its not all definite how itll work yet, but its annoying i cant test it. The Pillbox code doesnt seem to work now either.

[BureauBert]

It's been a long time since I have been working on my own implementation of pillbox & barbed wire. My current version of this event handler looks like this:

// Zeroes out movements points from any land units that move onto Barbed Wire

HandleEvent(MoveUnits) 'BarbedWireMove' post {		
	location_t pibTmpLoc;
	army_t pibTmpArmy;
	unit_t pibTmpUnit;
	int_t pibNumUnits;
	int_t pibCount;

	pibTmpLoc = location[1];		// destination location

	if(TileHasImprovement(pibTmpLoc, TerrainImprovementDB(TILEIMP_BARBED_WIRE))) {	
		pibTmpArmy = army[0];
		pibNumUnits = pibTmpArmy.size;
		for(pibCount = 0; pibCount < pibNumUnits; pibCount = pibCount + 1) {
			if(GetUnitFromArmy(pibTmpArmy, pibCount, pibTmpUnit)) {
				if(!IsAirUnit(pibTmpUnit)) {
					AddMovement(pibTmpUnit, -1000);
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

Remark: IsAirUnit is just a self-defined function that does what it says.

One thing that seems important with the Apolyton Edition (Playtest) is that you should use functions like GetUnitFromArmy in a way that evaluates their return value:

if(GetUnitFromArmy(pibTmpArmy, pibCount, pibTmpUnit)) {
... etc. ...
}

I had some troubles using these functions in a "void"-manner, like:

GetUnitFromArmy(pibTmpArmy, pibCount, pibTmpUnit);
... etc. ...

Also, it seems to be a good idea to let handlers that return STOP also return CONTINUE if the STOPping conditions are not met .

Strange, but on my own download-page it says "Does not yet work with the latest playtest" -- I don't remember why it didn't work, but I am fairly sure it was due to some SLIC-related bug/misbehaviour of some old playtest version and I am totally sure I had no problem with disappearing sprites.

With recent playtest versions I didn't proceed to pillboxes and barbed wires because I was too fascinated by all the changes in early stages of the game (settling and such ...) , but I know it did work with some playtest version(s) in the meantime.

However: The most recent version of my barbed wire SLIC can be found for comparison here.