PROJECT: Playtest (Thread No. 5)

[Protra3211]

I know what mean.There are other files in the aidata file that change how the AI acts.Such the Diplomacy file look in the section Diplomacy Default 50 Threaten.Down the file are settings for Military safety event -postive and negative decay.It changes under headings Provoke War and Make Friends. In the mods these settings are changed to produce a more active AI that feels theats early but the down side is a harder AI to bribe with a game that has more wars.It also changes how the AI moves its units.It also depends on personality settings as well. Diplomod 3.6 along with changes in aidata file produced a aggressive AI that felt theaten early if you build up forces on its border-share continet regard cost drops faster.
Better example -look up the file aidata inside is -interactions read file:If anyone moves behind AI border invadermoventcost is applied (military saftey event) number are changed in mods to decay faster,which changes how the AI acts.
But balance is needed so AI to AI interaction allows them to have times of peace for growth and building up there empires.

[tentaal]

Hello,

Is Multi player supposed to work?
I can create a new game and other players can join the game. But when I launch it I get this error :

"GameObj.cpp Error - No such object"

Version 2007-08-07
0x0070d1a6 [?Packetize@NetCellList@@UAEXPAEAAG@Z + 0x307]
0x007420db [?ChunkList@Network@@QAEXGPAV?$PointerList@VPacketi zer@@@@@Z + 0x133]
0x00734f81 [?SetReady@Network@@QAEXG@Z + 0xb75]
0x0073d1a3 [?ProcessNewPlayer@Network@@QAEXG@Z + 0x6c1]
0x00727ccb [?Unpacketize@NetReport@@UAEXGPAEG@Z + 0x5e]
0x007339a6 [?PacketReady@Network@@UAEXHPAEH@Z + 0x7f]
0x007494cc [?Idle@NetThread@@UAE?AW4NET_ERR@@XZ + 0x359]
0x0073059d [?Process@Network@@QAEXXZ + 0x4c6]
0x0040facf [?ProcessNet@CivApp@@AAEHIAAI@Z + 0x27]
0x0040fc84 [?Process@CivApp@@QAEHXZ + 0x97]
0x00408e36 [?CivMain@@YGHPAUHINSTANCE__@@0PADH@Z + 0x3ea]
0x004087af [WinMain@16 + 0x6d]
0x00a1256c [WinMainCRTStartup + 0x134]
0x75ab3833 [__onexitbegin + 0x74ee1fdb]
0x771ea9bd [__onexitbegin + 0x76619165]

[Pave]

Scenarios don't start up on my laptop. The crash usually happens really near the end. This has been going on for a while now and it would be nice to modify the files without touching the originals.

Version 2007-08-07
  0x007583b0  [?TileBlt16To16@aui_Blitter@@UAA?AW4AUI_ERRCODE@@PAVaui_Surface@@PAUtagRECT@@01HHI@Z + 0x228]
  0x00757cdf  [?TileBlt@aui_Blitter@@UAA?AW4AUI_ERRCODE@@PAVaui_Surface@@PAUtagRECT@@01HHI@Z + 0x38b]
  0x007fd5ee  [?Draw@Pattern@@QAE?AW4AUI_ERRCODE@@PAVaui_Surface@@PAUtagRECT@@@Z + 0x8e]
  0x007daee4  [?DrawThis@c3_Static@@UAE?AW4AUI_ERRCODE@@PAVaui_Surface@@HH@Z + 0x11b]
  0x0078caec  [?Draw@aui_Region@@UAE?AW4AUI_ERRCODE@@PAVaui_Surface@@HH@Z + 0x34]
  0x0075e34d  [?Draw@aui_Control@@UAE?AW4AUI_ERRCODE@@PAVaui_Surface@@HH@Z + 0x47]
  0x0078cba2  [?DrawChildren@aui_Region@@QAE?AW4AUI_ERRCODE@@PAVaui_Surface@@HH@Z + 0x87]
  0x0078cb09  [?Draw@aui_Region@@UAE?AW4AUI_ERRCODE@@PAVaui_Surface@@HH@Z + 0x51]
  0x007a98b3  [?Draw@aui_Window@@UAE?AW4AUI_ERRCODE@@PAVaui_Surface@@HH@Z + 0x23]
  0x008a46d4  [?StartCountingTo@ProgressWindow@@QAEXHPBD@Z + 0xd5]
  0x008a45f1  [?BeginProgress@ProgressWindow@@SAXAAPAV1@PADHHH@Z + 0x461]
  0x0040dae0  [?InitializeGameUI@CivApp@@AAEHXZ + 0x3a]
  0x0040de9e  [?InitializeGame@CivApp@@QAEHAAVCivArchive@@@Z + 0x1b1]
  0x0040fe19  [?StartGame@CivApp@@QAEHXZ + 0x11]
  0x00410b9d  [?Execute@StartGameAction@@UAEXPAVaui_Control@@II@Z + 0x12]
  0x007a488f  [?HandleActions@aui_UI@@QAEXXZ + 0x16d]
  0x007a470c  [?Process@aui_UI@@UAE?AW4AUI_ERRCODE@@XZ + 0x47]
  0x0040f941  [?ProcessUI@CivApp@@AAEHIAAI@Z + 0x234]
  0x0040fc94  [?Process@CivApp@@QAEHXZ + 0xa7]
  0x00408e36  [?CivMain@@YGHPAUHINSTANCE__@@0PADH@Z + 0x3ea]
  0x004087af  [WinMain@16 + 0x6d]
  0x00a1256c  [WinMainCRTStartup + 0x134]
  0x79568989  [__onexitbegin + 0x78997131]

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by tentaal
Is Multi player supposed to work?

Actually, yes. But I cannot test it for that I would need someone else, of course. And he or she should have time when I have time and most importantly I should reach the servers if I want to test the internet connection. When I try I get a message that I should connect to the internet. This is certainly done over a DSL and a router. I had no problems with that on Windows 98, but with Windows XP it is different.

-Martin

[Despot]

Hi, well, I've dowload the lastest revision and got an error when I nuke a city, it seems that it turns on the global event which "melts" the poles and the world floods a bit, destroying some cities and stuff, and when it happens the game crashes with the following crash.txt:

Version 2007-08-07
  0x00506e0d  [?BeginTurnProduction@Player@@QAEXXZ + 0x1d0]
  0x0051ef73  [?GEVHookCallback@BeginTurnProductionEvent@@EAE?AW4GAME_EVENT_HOOK_DISPOSITION@@W4GAME_EVENT@@PAVGameEventArgList@@@Z + 0x30]
  0x0061ee81  [?Activate@GameEventHook@@QBE?AW4GAME_EVENT_ERR@@PAVGameEventArgList@@HAAH@Z + 0x9b]
  0x0061fc0e  [?ActivateHook@GameEventManager@@QAE?AW4GAME_EVENT_ERR@@W4GAME_EVENT@@PAVGameEventArgList@@HAAH@Z + 0x40]
  0x0061d1bb  [?Process@GameEvent@@QAE?AW4GAME_EVENT_ERR@@XZ + 0x2d]
  0x0061f9e3  [?ProcessHead@GameEventManager@@QAE?AW4GAME_EVENT_ERR@@XZ + 0x4b]
  0x0061f96e  [?Process@GameEventManager@@QAE?AW4GAME_EVENT_ERR@@XZ + 0xa0]
  0x0061f8be  [?ArglistAddEvent@GameEventManager@@QAE?AW4GAME_EVENT_ERR@@W4GAME_EVENT_INSERT@@W4GAME_EVENT@@PAVGameEventArgList@@@Z + 0x480]
  0x0061f430  [?AddEvent@GameEventManager@@QAA?AW4GAME_EVENT_ERR@@W4GAME_EVENT_INSERT@@W4GAME_EVENT@@ZZ + 0xec]
  0x00449f6f  [?dh_endTurn@@YAXPAVDQAction@@PAVSequence@@W4DHEXECUTE@@@Z + 0x3d]
  0x0044077e  [?HandleNextAction@Director@@QAEXXZ + 0x190]
  0x0044058a  [?Process@Director@@QAEXXZ + 0x25]
  0x0040f973  [?ProcessUI@CivApp@@AAEHIAAI@Z + 0x266]
  0x0040fc94  [?Process@CivApp@@QAEHXZ + 0xa7]
  0x00408e36  [?CivMain@@YGHPAUHINSTANCE__@@0PADH@Z + 0x3ea]
  0x004087af  [WinMain@16 + 0x6d]
  0x00a1256c  [WinMainCRTStartup + 0x134]
  0x77e6eb69  [__onexitbegin + 0x7729d311]

Also, I can upload the save game if it's necessesary.

It's been sometime that I would like to getting involved more with the code and stuff, I've tried to follow E's links in his signature but found them not to be intuitive enough, if there's a specific thread for it let me know please.

Thanks guys.

[Ekmek]

Despot you try here?

http://ctp2.darkdust.net/

I cant help much now since I'm n vacation and at an internet cafe. I can help more after the 19th. i hope you have the patience

[Ekmek]

Well we are up to revision 804 so I know a new playtest is due soon. Martin are you still working on something so I should wait or release one in the next few days?

[LemurMadness]

Great news

I guess we're getting soon to a 1.2?

[Protra3211]

That would be great E.I think it was around this time when the code was released.Up to 804.
Maybe a tournament game would be intresting to try.
All files are a snap to zip in without worry so the setup is easy.But a DiffDB file that is on par with the mods would be in order.For production-gold-tech.I could do the work on that as I have all the mods downloaded and on flle.
I know it depends on the intrest level.Maybe we could drag one or two players from Civ4 for one last go round.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by E
Well we are up to revision 804 so I know a new playtest is due soon. Martin are you still working on something so I should wait or release one in the next few days?

Yes, I am still working on something, and I am coming closer to the goal, hopefully just a few days.

-Martin

[Tomite]

hey folks my name is tom & i've been lurking around this site for years, played & looked thru all the mods i think etc.; well
i've been trying the playtests all summer & would like now to contribute to the discussions & hopefully inspire somebody to
make a few more source code changes. i've been taking notes so my lists are longer than what i'll say now, but i'll try to
be concise
btw i think the work done so far has been awesome. the basic game now is better than any previous modded thing! i love the
flags & parchments too!

First, i think there are two things which if fixed would make a big difference & hopefully are not big projects to change.
One is that i do not think the distance penalty in strategies works, correct me if im wrong. i have increased them by factors
of ten or twenty til they are now at 200,000 without having any effect. ok i won't be concise right here but i think this is
important cuz as long as units are being assigned to stuff across the empire you really cant work the goals and strategies to
improve the ai much. if the target-to-goal distance penalty was in goals.txt rather than strategies one could have goals like
"advance on enemy" with lower d-penalty & lower priority that would gather spare units, then "attack" etc would have higher
priorities with greater d-penalties to focus he armies. Of course if these could then be modified by a functioning d-penalty
in strategies (like a .75 or 1.25 multiplier) then things would be that much better.

The second thing is the unescorted settlers. this is really a big issue but what i'd like to point out is hopefully pretty
fixable. That is that it seems new settlers ARE escorted starting somewhere after turn 300. If this is simply a case of
minimums being met or priorities changing then it seems like those factors could simply be changed to have early settlers
escorted. This is really big for a lot of reasons many of you are aware of. in short the constant production of settlers
only to give them or the new cities to humans or barbarians cripples the ai.
these are the biggest things i know of that hopefully would not drag someone into a big project. i myself plan to put time
regularly into the game over the next while, i would like to expand a good bit on the strategies file. unfortunately, even
darkdust.net is confusing to me, much less the parts of the code i've seen.

Here are most of the actual bugs in the revisions that i've seen:
1- the leader name doesn't come up in spawngame til you hit the female/male buttons.
2- the terrain in shadow display values as if they had a river. this would matter if these are the values the ai uses
for its settle scores.
3- the bombard order gets given twice. i myself can clear orders after bombing, but again this may be messing with the
ai.
4- there seems to be some serious ZOC issue that may be new to rev787. i have defeated armies then not been able to
move into their old ZOC, once not until i had defeated the enemy civ entirely. again of course i worry only for how the ai
would handle this.
5- almost certainly new to rev787 (how does something like this change?) is the fact that the wonders screen show the
current year for all wonders rather than the year built. surely this confuses the ai.

Here are changes i always make to the playtest text files, ranging from actual mistakes to a couple things that just seem to
serve only to make things worse for the AI:
in "ai":
1- the advance lists have been changed. i looked there because my opponents did not research PHARMS & MOD. MEDICINE.
they have been moved so far down the list it must be an accident, so i just use the orig game advance list file.
2- BldgBldLists: Academy is under Pub. House and Drug Store is under Hospital. this may not matter if they research the
above, the order of unit bld lists doesnt matter. oh, and Aqua Filter is in Defense, i put it in Growth.
3- Strategies: Barbs inherit default where wonders are high priority. i add a BldListSeqElement for bld wonders as a
low priority, also the Element there now has no line for priority. also barb's force matching is 0.0 so they never group to
attack.
4- Strategies: i put all sci percents at 90 % except a few at 80. i see no reason the AI wouldnt research as much as
their gov type allows. if people do that id like to hear why.

in "data":
1- Const: yes i use modified MedMod map generation #'s & am pretty happy with them
2- Risks: i set chance of finding city or settler to zero. this is something to me that only messes the AI up trying to
deal with a city way far away, often just for the barbs or human to take. i'd like to hear a good reason against this.
3- Units: the playtest has Artillery upgrade to SAM's which do not bombard. i'm not playing with any options (nor
pollution) but if i keep this line i cant build artillery after sams are avail.. so no land bombard.
4- Orders: if one ever gets there, the targets are switched for INJOIN & SUE this is a mistake from the actual disc i
read while going thru the forum archives (the AI designers responses to MedMod question, which should be rescued). and yes the ai lawyers do sue (or injoin whichever).
5- Terrain: has been changed a decent bit, many values higher, but in strategies the minimum settle score is not higher, so i lower beach & some other scores.

Finally! i cant write this much without mention just a couple things that are not important really but i cant let go:
1- can i change the radar map colors for kelp & coral? i like a reduced colors map but the yellow and brown throw the
water colors way off.
2- here is what would seem to be a super simple change that maybe would make a big tho subtle difference in the game and
that is if the trade routes were listed by profit rather than straight income. i.e. income divided by caravans. the way it
is now of course the farthest logical routes get crowded out by the fantastical. i always look at routes by profit & think
trade would be a bigger factor if it were looked at this way. anyway id love to try it & see.
well i know this is very last minute, but i think there are more folks out there looking in than it would seem, and hopefully this will help spark some debate or even changes. Protra your ideas have worked better than the things ive tried to perk up the AI, (one thing is that the target:border is not recognized in goals.txt). i
have looked at ai play a lot recently and will try to post some general observations about that soon. cheers, tom.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Despot
Also, I can upload the save game if it's necessesary.

Well, that would be nice. However I am afraid that a fix isn't going to make it into the next playtest, since it is uploading.

Originally posted by Despot
It's been sometime that I would like to getting involved more with the code and stuff, I've tried to follow E's links in his signature but found them not to be intuitive enough, if there's a specific thread for it let me know please.

The best is you open a separate thread, so that you can a little bit more specific about your problems.

-Martin

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Tomite
First, i think there are two things which if fixed would make a big difference & hopefully are not big projects to change.
One is that i do not think the distance penalty in strategies works, correct me if im wrong. i have increased them by factors
of ten or twenty til they are now at 200,000 without having any effect. ok i won't be concise right here but i think this is
important cuz as long as units are being assigned to stuff across the empire you really cant work the goals and strategies to
improve the ai much. if the target-to-goal distance penalty was in goals.txt rather than strategies one could have goals like
"advance on enemy" with lower d-penalty & lower priority that would gather spare units, then "attack" etc would have higher
priorities with greater d-penalties to focus he armies. Of course if these could then be modified by a functioning d-penalty
in strategies (like a .75 or 1.25 multiplier) then things would be that much better.

Well I have to look into that, so far I cannot say anything to it.

Originally posted by Tomite
The second thing is the unescorted settlers. this is really a big issue but what i'd like to point out is hopefully pretty
fixable. That is that it seems new settlers ARE escorted starting somewhere after turn 300. If this is simply a case of
minimums being met or priorities changing then it seems like those factors could simply be changed to have early settlers
escorted. This is really big for a lot of reasons many of you are aware of. in short the constant production of settlers
only to give them or the new cities to humans or barbarians cripples the ai.

Actually during the game I don't escort my settlers, either. But there is indeed a problem with the AI, I played the Barbarians the AI just founded one tile away of my units a city. It really ignores this danger.

Originally posted by Tomite
these are the biggest things i know of that hopefully would not drag someone into a big project. i myself plan to put time
regularly into the game over the next while, i would like to expand a good bit on the strategies file. unfortunately, even
darkdust.net is confusing to me, much less the parts of the code i've seen.

What part of darkdusr.net confuses you?

Originally posted by Tomite
2- the terrain in shadow display values as if they had a river. this would matter if these are the values the ai uses
for its settle scores.

I doubt that this is used for the settle scores, they should be taken from the real terrain. Call it a cheat.

Originally posted by Tomite
3- the bombard order gets given twice. i myself can clear orders after bombing, but again this may be messing with the
ai.

Maybe this is just a user interface bug, in that case it wouldn't matter for the AI, but actually I don't know what really is the problem.

Originally posted by Tomite
5- almost certainly new to rev787 (how does something like this change?) is the fact that the wonders screen show the
current year for all wonders rather than the year built. surely this confuses the ai.

Simply, this happens if I mess around with the turn year display. However it does not not confuse the AI since it is just a matter of displaying a string, and actually this has only value for the human player. Anyway this is fixed in the next playtest version.

Originally posted by Tomite
Here are changes i always make to the playtest text files, ranging from actual mistakes to a couple things that just seem to
serve only to make things worse for the AI:
in "ai":
1- the advance lists have been changed. i looked there because my opponents did not research PHARMS & MOD. MEDICINE.
they have been moved so far down the list it must be an accident, so i just use the orig game advance list file.
2- BldgBldLists: Academy is under Pub. House and Drug Store is under Hospital. this may not matter if they research the
above, the order of unit bld lists doesnt matter. oh, and Aqua Filter is in Defense, i put it in Growth.
3- Strategies: Barbs inherit default where wonders are high priority. i add a BldListSeqElement for bld wonders as a
low priority, also the Element there now has no line for priority. also barb's force matching is 0.0 so they never group to
attack.
4- Strategies: i put all sci percents at 90 % except a few at 80. i see no reason the AI wouldnt research as much as
their gov type allows. if people do that id like to hear why.

Why don't you post your modified files, so that we can add them to the project?

Originally posted by Tomite
2- Risks: i set chance of finding city or settler to zero. this is something to me that only messes the AI up trying to
deal with a city way far away, often just for the barbs or human to take. i'd like to hear a good reason against this.

In that case we should make the AI able to deal with it. Actually it was always so disappointing to notice that no ruin would give a city.

Originally posted by Tomite
3- Units: the playtest has Artillery upgrade to SAM's which do not bombard. i'm not playing with any options (nor
pollution) but if i keep this line i cant build artillery after sams are avail.. so no land bombard.

We could turn the SAM into a bombard unit, actually it looks like a rocket launcher, so why shouldn't it be able to bombard?

Originally posted by Tomite
4- Orders: if one ever gets there, the targets are switched for INJOIN & SUE this is a mistake from the actual disc i
read while going thru the forum archives (the AI designers responses to MedMod question, which should be rescued). and yes the ai lawyers do sue (or injoin whichever).

In that case we should fix it.

Originally posted by Tomite
5- Terrain: has been changed a decent bit, many values higher, but in strategies the minimum settle score is not higher, so i lower beach & some other scores.

Well, you have to explain this a little bit more. To get it right, the terrain values are higher but the settle scores are the same, so why to you reduce them for beach if beach values are higher?

Originally posted by Tomite
Finally! i cant write this much without mention just a couple things that are not important really but i cant let go:
1- can i change the radar map colors for kelp & coral? i like a reduced colors map but the yellow and brown throw the
water colors way off.

Of course you can change this, by modifying your favorite ColorsXX.txt and add this at the end of the list like Colors06.txt and then set the according userprofile.txt option to 7.

-Martin

[Martin Gühmann]

Playtest Revision 812 is out

It is time for a release of a new Apolyton Edition Playtest version. We are now at revision 812. This time we got human to human diplomacy HotSeat support. If everything works well this is also true for PBEM.

All you need is is the following file and follow the instructions in its readme:

2007.10.20.CTP2.Playtest.rar

Edit: Removed links. For an up to date version of the Apolyton edition click here.

By the way E, could you replace the old playtest in the directory with this one so that I can save some space and remove the outdated source code archieve from the directory. It even links to a non-Apolyton space.

Here is the brief changelog since revision 787 from the readme:

2007-10-20 (Revision 812)
Fixed:   The wonder tab of the info window shows again the right construction 
         year of wonders, also the date of messages is shown correctly again.
Fixed:   The diplomacy window cannot be closed by using hotkeys that open other
         screens, so that you cannot close this screen without rejecting or 
         accepting diplomatic proposals.
Fixed:   The scenario editor cannot opened in PBEM mode per hotkey.
Added:   HotSeat (tested) and PBEM (untested) human to human diplomacy support.
Added:   The following civilizations: Han, Yamato, Sumer, Kush, and Macedonia
Fixed:   The map editor generates now the coast line again if needed.
Fixed:   Savegame power graphs

[Maquiladora]

Just a few notes I made testing hotseat and PBEM quickly:

When one players turn ends you can't see the barbarians move (or any other previous civs turn) when it switched to your turn. I guess this is to be expected.

You can hear the "building complete" voice of the next player when you end turn.

Didn't get the civ greeting popup when I met my human opponent in PBEM, it did appear in hotseat though.

Diplomacy doesn't work properly in PBEM. I send an offer to exchange maps from P1 to P2, I end my turn as P1 and the popup P2 should receive actually appears at the end of P1's turn, but I can't click any of the diplomacy window, I can of course only "quit game" or "close".

It seems the proposal is just refused or doesn't even get seen, as I offered map as a gift and nothing was given either. And actually something weirder happens afterwards. I continue the turns and every turn after I offered my map as a gift, it seems it keeps trying every turn, as the diplomacy window offering my map to P2 appears at the end of my turn (P1) every time I end turn. Of course it never reaches P2.