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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:16
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quote:
Originally posted by alms66
Mark, I've updated the activity file with all the tier 1 techs. Once you get them working, we can see about putting recipients down for them, because I didn't put any for now. |
Adam:
I have made some crude hookups for the new activities. This should let you get going with the new broad "tier 1" activities. I don't like putting the new activities in the activities file, since they will screw up interfaces in the other scenarios to no good purpose. To that end, I've put them in the scenario file, which I have sent you.
For now each activity dumps all RPs straight into the tier 1 tech ("Communications, etc"). You can change them now to be whatever hookups you want. The code now dumps a number of RPs equivalent to 0.01% of gross civ production into the activity for free. Of course the player can add more using the Tech items in the econ menu. (you will have to hit the reorder button to see them all) This base amount may still be a bit too big as the civ grows, but that's part of what we're testing.
Let me know if there are any issues.
Cya,
Mark
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alms66
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Louisiana
Oct 1999
time: 23:16
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quote:
Originally posted by LDiCesare
I just committed a scrollbar for the tech panel. It's still far from a cool interface, though. |
It's better than nothing. 
quote:
Originally posted by Mark_Everson
I have made some crude hookups for the new activities. This should let you get going with the new broad "tier 1" activities. I don't like putting the new activities in the activities file, since they will screw up interfaces in the other scenarios to no good purpose. To that end, I've put them in the scenario file, which I have sent you. |
I didn't like the idea either, but I thought it was what you asked me to do?
quote:
Originally posted by Mark_Everson
My next job is to try and get specials to appear when the correct tech levels are reached. |
I made a suggestion (#8 in the d8 comment thread) about getting the economics.xml divorced from the scenario file. If you think it's a good idea, perhaps that could be your next job.
At this point economics is the only thing required for this scenario to run and it just seems wrong to have any external links, when you can just as easily import them, or better yet, make a scenario template that has already done the importing for you, so all you have to do is fill out the new information.
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alms66
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Louisiana
Oct 1999
time: 23:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark_Everson
I just looked into this. I believe that the �economics.xml� file can be integrated with the scenario file now. At least it looks, on cursory inspection, like the code is already there for econ to be in the scenario file. I think that I fixed it when you last asked, and then forgot to tell you. Have you tried it? |
You told me that specials could go in the scenario file, but I didn't realize the whole file could. I'll give it a try.
quote:
Originally posted by Mark_Everson
It looks like militaryattitude should also work in a scenario file. I looked at tiles, and it has some peculiarities that I'm not sure how to address now. In principle you now have most of what you asked for. |
I'll try militaryattitude also.
By tiles, you mean terrain.xml, I assume. Leaving this one out for now is fine. In the long run, however, I suspect having an intergrated scenario file, independent of outside files (except for the graphic tiles themselves) will be the way to go. If a scenario designer wants the tech tree from a certain scenario, then all he has to do is import it from that scenario and it's done.
It would be nice to bypass the middle-man "images.xml" for graphics, but it appears that this is loaded on program startup rather than scenario startup, so doing it could pose a problem.
I should probably cross-post that somewhere, but I don't know what the current scenario file discussion thread is. Is it still 'On the subject of Scenarios'?
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alms66
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Louisiana
Oct 1999
time: 23:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark_Everson
Sounds like it's the right one. If not, I'm sure someone will point it out. But the request is already in the features list, so you could probably skip it. |
Ok then.
BTW, I've integrated the scenario file so it has no external dependencies, other than those that all scenarios must have. I've also added the Tier 1 activities. It runs just fine, now I'm off to get that tech tree ready for a preview...
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alms66
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Louisiana
Oct 1999
time: 23:16
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I've noticed that there is no way to preset the "tech" categories in the econ interface (or am I missing something?). I don't intend on using it in this particular test scenario, but it will be needed in the future to set the AI so it can research new techs.
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alms66
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Louisiana
Oct 1999
time: 23:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark_Everson
You mean set tech order values, or what? If that is the problem, try moving those orders way down in the scenario file, and see if that helps. |
If tech order values means setting the % spent on tech research in the econ interface, then yes. In the scenario, currently, I have several fields preset to 5 (or 8 maybe). I want to do this for the tech fields (Military Tech, Food Tech, etc.) I thought those production order tags could only go in the civilization tags (i.e. were a subtag of civilization)?
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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:16
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quote:
Originally posted by alms66
If tech order values means setting the % spent on tech research in the econ interface, then yes. In the scenario, currently, I have several fields preset to 5 (or 8 maybe). I want to do this for the tech fields (Military Tech, Food Tech, etc.) I thought those production order tags could only go in the civilization tags (i.e. were a subtag of civilization)? |
Yeah, you're right, I wasn't thinking on that.
I'll try to see what's going on later. There are some bugs with orders upon startup. As a workaround, you can also set orders as an event. See the bottom of Delenda, just above the merchants block, for an example. Try your orders as Turn 1 events. If that doesn't work then use Turn 2, that should work. (Turn 1 may or may not work depending on exactly when those happen upon initialization.)
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alms66
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Louisiana
Oct 1999
time: 23:16
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I'll give the events a try.
Terrain Activities
These are a bit weird to call activities, but…
We’d need one for each terrain type, so that we have a Plains Activity, Mountain Activity, Forest Activity, etc. I’m not sure how the number of RPs are calculated for the other activities, but for these, it would have to be based on the number of tiles of that terrain type that you own. There could also be a Coastal Activity, which counts the number of coastal tiles that are adjacent to owned tiles, since you can’t own coast.
What’s it used for? Well, Forest Activity would grant RPs to energy related techs, shipbuilding, etc., while Mountain Activity would grant RPs to Mining and Metallurgy (possibly), and the Coastal Activity would grant RPs to Water Transportation, Shipbuilding, etc.
Negative Activities
I think we should also allow negative RP generation. For example, the Coastal Activity would grant RPs to Shipbuilding, but if you’re in the frozen northern reaches of Siberia you shouldn’t get Shipbuilding from it, so the Tundra Activity generates negative RPs towards Shipbuilding, effectively canceling out the Coastal Activity. Whether or not negative activities can force a Civ into a hole (i.e. have a negative RP total, not just per turn), or merely hits bottom at 0, is a matter of discussion.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:16
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I'd say population on a given terrain can yield some activities. It would have to depend on population in order to avoid settling lots of squares with 10 people to get some RPs.
About negative, I'd rather have conditional (forest + coast = increased shipbuilding) but that looks feasible. I'd rather use it ony to cancel some RPs generated by the same square.
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alms66
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Louisiana
Oct 1999
time: 23:16
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quote:
Originally posted by LDiCesare
I'd say population on a given terrain can yield some activities. It would have to depend on population in order to avoid settling lots of squares with 10 people to get some RPs.
About negative, I'd rather have conditional (forest + coast = increased shipbuilding) but that looks feasible. I'd rather use it ony to cancel some RPs generated by the same square. |
Population should definitely be a factor, though the number of tiles should also be a factor. This is just an example:
If you have 10 tiles with 1000 people (10*.1) would yield 1 RP, while 100 tiles with 100 people (100*.01) would yield 1 RP, and 1000 tiles with 10 people (1000*.001) would yield 1 RP. But the bonus for the number of tiles would add (tiles/1000) to this total, for:
10@1000=1.01
100@100=1.1
1000@10=2.0
This way, if you do settle lots of tiles of the same type, it still has an effect (which it should, your empire is made up of mostly one tile type!). Even if the exact numbers from this example were used, I don't think the bonus is too large for occupying such monotonous terrain.
And conditional would be better than negative, definitely.
quote:
Originally posted by Mark_Everson That's a good idea Alms. It could possibly be refined to people pursuing X actions in Y terrain give RPs in Z activity. The actions would be like building particular infrastructure, or working in particular sectors of the economy. We wouldn't have to do the specific parts immediately, but could work up to it. |
That would be great. It would really help solve that "If I'm an Island civ, I should get bonuses to shipbuilding" situation.
quote:
Originally posted by Mark_Everson Hey Alms, a side topic while I'm thinking about it. . . When you put in 5% orders for like Build Farm you should generally use the ROI field to restrict the builds to only those that really benefit the economy. It is possible to overspend on building up farm capital. Generally for a category like that you should use an ROI of 10 (10%) or maybe 5. The ROI constraint prevents investment being wasted.
Sector infrastructure like Build Farm, and military units are the only place that ROI has meaning for now. For military units it is keyed off % of revenue that goes to Army Supplies. When that is high, mil units are less attractive and don't pass a 10% ROI test. |
Is there a way to preset the ROI field?
I've never used this before, and frankly don't know whether it's explained in Dawn or not, but we should add that to the list of things to do, if it's not.
So you're basically saying, use the ROI field on everything but tech spending and unit building, right? If I were to use ROI for tech spending and unit building, what would happen? If it's nothing bad, why even have the second field?
*Edit*
Corrected Example
Last edited by alms66 on 03-01-2005 at 03:50
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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:16
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quote:
Originally posted by alms66
Is there a way to preset the ROI field?
I've never used this before, and frankly don't know whether it's explained in Dawn or not, but we should add that to the list of things to do, if it's not. |
I'd thought it was in the xml stuff, but it looks like I was wrong. I'll put it in the xml handling code sometime soon. It's not in Dawn, and as a matter of fact the interface excludes it to reduce confusion. I think it is more a topic for the econ tutorial whenever that happens.
quote:
So you're basically saying, use the ROI field on everything but tech spending and unit building, right? |
Sector infrastructure "Build X" and military units are the only things that use it now.
quote:
If I were to use ROI for tech spending and unit building, what would happen? If it's nothing bad, why even have the second field? |
For tech spending it doesn't do anything. For unit builds it makes units less (more) likely to be built for high (low) levels of Army Supplies spending.
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alms66
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Louisiana
Oct 1999
time: 23:16
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Another activity...
Contact Activity
Mere contact with other cultures is enough to spark new ideas and spur on technological and social advancement. That is what the “Contact” activity represents. This is not the same as technological or social diffusion that comes from contact. The difference being that diffusion is the spread of existing ideas/inventions from one culture to another via contact, while the contact activity is the formation of new ideas/inventions by one culture due to contact with another culture. An example of diffusion would be a traveler from CivA traveling to CivB, seeing the wheel, and bringing the knowledge of it back to CivA with him. An example of contact activity would be a man from CivA seeing that in CivB citizens are able to freely move about, have lower taxes and have more civil liberties than in CivA, from which he conceptualizes the ideology of Democracy.
One possible way of generating the RPs is to base it on the level of contact (War, Peace, Alliance – or – -1, 0, 1). War could generate 1/3 as many as Alliance and Peace could generate 2/3 as many, for example.
It may seem a bit premature to include this activity (assuming everyone agrees to include it in the first place), but I don’t think it is. Since war should generate a few RPs (even if not as many as stated above), this activity will still be useful now, though it will be much more useful once the ability to change diplomatic states is in (this statement based on the last sentence of the previous paragraph).
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alms66
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Louisiana
Oct 1999
time: 23:16
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It's not meant to replace diffusion, but to work along with diffusion. I was merely pointing out that it was not the same thing as diffusion. One could argue that there would not be any Contact Activity between two very ancient civs, but that arguement doesn't hold up for very long through the course of history, due to cross-border intermingling, etc., so I feel that including it throughout the entire game (unless we want to throw technology requirements on activities, which may be a good idea anyhow) is justified.
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Max Sinister
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Please don't let the tech spread as fast as in Civ3. It's completely unrealistic.
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02-01-2005 00:23
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