17-04-2004 00:48									#331
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: I believe this is inherent to the Activision code as both my brother and I experience it quite often playing the 'Vanilla w/ Sprinkles' version. It only happens to the non-host and your 'fix' seems to work. However, to do that kind of fix you have to wait until all TIs and Terra is done so you don't end up with the 'other' problem--CTD. If you play long enough it WILL give you all of your PW though. Somehow it tracks how much you have and will EVENTUALLY give it back. Even if you are accumulating it for like 10 turns!

Ive never experienced it with the vanilla + 1.11 patch, only with the playtests. IIRC it never happened with the vanilla game without the patch too, so its something in the playtest.

I never played long enough to wait for the PW to eventually come (< 50 turns) when it misses a turn and its pretty unplayable this way

	17-04-2004 02:13									#332
	Re: Re: But is it possible Support Apolyton

quote: Originally posted by Martin Gühmann Of course it is possible, we have the source code actual it is just a constant defined in ..\ctp2_code\gs\utility\gstypes.h: #define k_MAX_ARMY_SIZE 12 That leads me to the question why don't you like the increased army size limit. -Martin

Excellent I hoped as much.

Why I don't like increased stack sizes is purely b/c its too easy to defeat the AI via a few size 12 fast moving stacks. Even if the ai has one the player need only withdraw and attack with the fresh one. Then its roll over time vs the 2-4 units they have in their cities. Reduce the stack size and you get more armies on the map and a more front line situation. Anyway I'm going to watch the project and possibly contribute too when I get some holidays.

	17-04-2004 02:29									#333
	Suffering from ads?

It would be easier for the AI if the stacks were infinate, not an even smaller limit. You still have the problems youre describing with any finite stack amount.

The problem you mention can be helped one way by making defence generally stronger than offense, as it should be IMO, but right now attackers (or the flanking+speed+range attribute) are the best.

	17-04-2004 03:08									#334
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Ive never experienced it with the vanilla + 1.11 patch, only with the playtests. IIRC it never happened with the vanilla game without the patch too, so its something in the playtest.

Actually this does happen in the vanilla v1.11, just not as often as it was occuring in our game. In the games I have played recently with Toni the glitch occured in the mid-late game and rejoining/resyn solved the problem. In the playtest it seems to occur much earlier and much more frequently, so maybe there was a partailly fix in the patch.

	17-04-2004 16:14									#335
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: The problem you mention can be helped one way by making defence generally stronger than offense, as it should be IMO, but right now attackers (or the flanking+speed+range attribute) are the best.

There was the idea to make the defensive units always use their defense value in combat, even when counterattacking on their round - that should make it possible for stacks of Hoplites to reasonably defend against attacking stacks.

	17-04-2004 17:11									#336
	DebugSlic Tired of ads?

I am trying to play some Mod's with the latest playtest build (2004[1].04.12.CTP2Playtest.zip). Apart from the diplomacy bug described above (which kind of "freezes" the game after a while) I am also getting the screen centered on some event in some unexplored region during the turn of a particular AI player repeatedly (possibly that player pirating the same trade route for some turns or something similar), which doesn't do any harm but is a little bit annoying.
I have also been trying to replay my own Mod, which I had stopped developping because it became too slow on ultra gigantic maps but is only fun on ultra gig. I am still hoping it will be more fun with less memory leaks and an overall improved performance of the game engine .
In this Mod I am using a version of Visible Wonders, unfortunately this gives me loads of SLIC-errors (concerning good old argument type mismatch) at startup, although I definitely set DebugSlic=No in userprofile.txt. I think this must be a kind of bug implemented with the re-implementation of SLIC-functions.
Well in the meantime I will continue testing Activision-SLIC-compliant Mods only .
Apart from these problems it is great to see most of the (important) SLIC-functions being reimplemented so quickly. The entire effort of the people involved in the source code project is amazing and reading the forums is a lot of fun, too.

	17-04-2004 17:22									#337
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Interesting, I never seem to get the centering thing you mention, and with DebugSlic=No, I also get no SLIC errors.

	17-04-2004 17:39									#338
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: I am also getting the screen centered on some event in some unexplored region during the turn of a particular AI player repeatedly (possibly that player pirating the same trade route for some turns or something similar), which doesn't do any harm but is a little bit annoying.

I get this too alot, i think it is pirating.

There is another centering bug on explored visible terrain when an enemy moves a stealth unit.

	17-04-2004 17:47									#339
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Well, so far I tried:

- Apolyton Pack 2.0: No SLIC-errors
- GoodMod for Apolyton Pack on ultra-gig map: No SLIC-errors
- Call To Conquest: No SLIC-errors
- Modern Times (my own mod including Visible Wonders, PopBoom and some other "best of"-features ): loads of SLIC-errors (argument type mismatch)

I assume the first three Mods in the list are just "DebugSlic-clean" SLIC avoiding the functions that always caused "type mismatch" errors (which AFAIK cannot be avoided through better SLICing but only through not using those functions - maybe this could be fixed in a later re-re-implementation of these SLIC-functions).
Maybe you didn't experience the errors because all the Mods you tested have been clean .
I think e.g. the "PopBoom"-feature is included in "MyMod v0.99", which can be downloaded and applied relatively simply, "Visible Wonders" need a certain amount of editing IIRC, but possibly run without much editing as stand-alone Mod with the vanilla version of the game. Just in case you would like to try some known Activision-SLIC-erroneous Mods . As for GoodMod I remember that Martin often mentioned his efforts to make it DebugSlic-compliant - so we shouldn't be surprised by getting no errors .

	18-04-2004 04:31									#340
	Downloading playtest files Tired of ads?

Hi All,

I'd love to playtest this build, but I can't seem to download the file. When I click on the link to download, all I get is a blank screen. Do I have to be a paid subscriber to download this file?

Daniel

	18-04-2004 04:32									#341
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Hmmm no, everyone should be able to download....

	18-04-2004 04:32									#342
	Re: Downloading playtest files Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by bartdanr I'd love to playtest this build, but I can't seem to download the file. When I click on the link to download, all I get is a blank screen. Do I have to be a paid subscriber to download this file?

Nope. I guess that your problem is that somethingto do with the forwarding isn't working properly. What browser are you using? Do you get the advert screen before the blank screen?

	18-04-2004 04:52									#343
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

I sometimes get a blank screen as well, but when I try a second or third time it usually works.

	18-04-2004 05:33									#344
	Update 2004-04-18 Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

New version available:

2004.04.18.CTP2Playtest.rar

Edit: This version is now obsolete, the next version is available here.

(It has to be a .rar, rather than a .zip, because the .zip exceeds the 5MB limit on uploaded file sizes (Maybe I should subscribe to Apolyton to fix that ). Perhaps Locutus could repackage it as a zip and post it in the directory if anyone has a problem with rars.)

Changes:
Added: Rush buy button status updated when gold gained from goody huts
Fixed: Empty(ing) build queue crashes
Fixed: Invalid memory access when loading from a file with a different table size
Fixed: SLIC bugs
Changed: Menu structure and graphics

Now it's time for bed .

Last edited by J Bytheway on 01-05-2004 at 01:55

	18-04-2004 06:15									#345
	Re: Update 2004-04-18 Increase Your PM Length

Thanks J Bytheway...

Oï


Shhhhhhhhh...

	18-04-2004 06:16									#346
	Re: Re: Update 2004-04-18 Remove this text

Real stupid DP...

	18-04-2004 14:55									#347
	DebugSlic II Full PM-box? Change here!

I just downloaded the brand-new playtest build and of course I had to try getting my own mod started in the first place . Unfortunately I am still getting loads of SLIC-errors wirh DebugSlic=No before seeing the new startup screen, which is really great and looks much more "professional" than the original one.
This time I did what I should possibly have done some posts earlier - I looked up the lines in my scripts that cause the errors. It's always just the "GrantAdvance"- and "CreateBuilding"-events:

PHP:


Event:GrantAdvance(iwwPlayer, AdvanceDB(ADVANCE_SUBNEURAL_ADS),0);

Event:CreateBuilding(popCity, BuildingDB(IMPROVE_GERM_THEORY));

The program tells me it expected int_t as Argument #2 (it wants the advance and the building as an integer, which never worked as far as I remember). The above lines always worked as expected the way they are written here and the only error is the error message.
Maybe this could and should be fixed at the level of SLIC-implementation, too, but at the current stage of testing it would be sufficient to make the exe respect DebugSlic=No again .
Sidenote: I tried starting the Mod with both ModSwapper and ModManager with the same result and in between I checked userprofile.txt using a text editor - DebugSlic has always been set to "No".

	18-04-2004 15:19									#348
	Remove this text

It should be expecting an int_t, because the AdvanceDB and BuildingDB functions should be evaluating to an int_t. Are you using either of those functions elsewhere and not getting errors from them?

	18-04-2004 15:24									#349
	Increase Your PM Length

BureauBert,

Could you attach your script so that I can have a look at it? Both those lines contain a database reference and I've had some problems with this when loading a saved game, but never on startup.

	18-04-2004 15:39									#350
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

BureauBert,

Could you provide the exact wording of the error dialog you get (maybe post a screenshot of it).

	18-04-2004 17:43									#351
	Got spare money?

Since I have installed the new playtest version provided by J Bytheway I have a message telling me that I need Indeo Video Playback for the intro video... even with my older installations of CtP2. I have a black screen instead of the video...

What's going on? Indeo Video Playback for XP is sold 14.95$ and buying it is of course out of question.

	18-04-2004 18:05									#352
	Full PM-box? Change here!

The text displayed in the lower part of the screen in the French version of the main interface needs to be changed, the text is too long and needs to be shortened so that the letters in the middle of the sentence do not overlap:

[CHANGE]

Cette version de Call to Power 2 a été développée sur le site http://apolyton.net. Contact : ctp2source@apolyton.net

[/CHANGE]

	18-04-2004 18:22									#353
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Tried the latest playtest. The empty queue bug is indeed fixed, as is the wrong diplomacy proposal window bug. The startup screen looks great. No video playback problems.

	18-04-2004 18:29									#354
	DebugSlic error documentation Increase Your PM Length

J Bytheway & Peter Triggs,
Thanks a lot. I documented all scripts I am using at my "work-in-progress-site":

http://ctp2.free.fr

and I put a screenshot of the error dialog plus links leading to the scripts in question at the site's index.
I hope this is a bit more comfortable for you (1 non-working forwarding instead of 3 ).
If you prefer forum-attachments instead, please post a short demand, I am online more or less continuously today (though I just started a GoodMod test which is running well in terms of program performance - not so well in terms of government performance ).

	18-04-2004 18:31									#355
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by Tamerlin Since I have installed the new playtest version provided by J Bytheway I have a message telling me that I need Indeo Video Playback for the intro video... even with my older installations of CtP2. I have a black screen instead of the video... What's going on? Indeo Video Playback for XP is sold 14.95$ and buying it is of course out of question.

I don't know whats causing it, but you can start with the nointromovie command line argument to skip the movie and avoid any error messages.

	18-04-2004 18:42									#356
	Re: DebugSlic error documentation Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by BureauBert and I put a screenshot of the error dialog plus links leading to the scripts in question at the site's index.

Thanks. I've found the source of the error, and you seem to be right in that it has no check against DebugSlic before showing itself. I'm not really sure where such a check should be put, but it should be fairly simple to do.

Fixing the root problem which causes the error will probably be rather harder though .

	18-04-2004 19:36									#357
	DebugSlic Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I just found this one in the "Altered Source Files"-thread:

quote: slicif.cpp: Made sure that the database access code throws only slic erors at run time when DebugSlic=Yes, by Martin Gühmann.

Sounds like somehow similar ...

	18-04-2004 19:41									#358
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Yes. Unfortunately there seem to be a wide variety of methods by which these errors are produced, and we need to track them all down...

(Of course a better solution would be to standardise them, but I think that's asking a little too much, at least in the short term...)

	18-04-2004 20:15									#359
	Re: DebugSlic Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by BureauBert Sounds like somehow similar ...

Sounds familiar but are at different places, the one I fixed was in the UI slic engine that uses a function of the slic script stuff that is used in the slic script at compiling time and not at run time, it was intended to through this message when slic is compiled, but not when it is executed. However your slic error is a error at compiling time and not at run time. You use the GrantAdvance event, type missmatches are detected at compiling time and not at run time. So this one you have to fix. And this one should occur even if DebugSlic=No.

To fix your code use instead of the GrantAdvance event the GrantAdvance function so replace:

Event:GrantAdvance(iwwPlayer, AdvanceDB(ADVANCE_SUBNEURAL_ADS),0);

by

GrantAdvance(iwwPlayer, AdvanceDB(ADVANCE_SUBNEURAL_ADS));

And then you should be fine.

-Martin

	18-04-2004 23:43									#360
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by J Bytheway I don't know whats causing it, but you can start with the nointromovie command line argument to skip the movie and avoid any error messages.

How do you do that?