[SPOILERS] Lurkers Rooting for More Destruction

[Miguelito]

What happens if you pre place barracks in their cities?
Otherwise could give the barb civilization a barracks UB that requires Fusion. Or well, what you did

[scooter]

If a Barracks is pre-placed, it happens as soon as they build an Archer or Warrior, which is much faster. This is actually how I noticed the issue. I was experimenting with different minor buildings, and noticed this happening super fast.


I have also observed fallout disappearing off the map relatively quickly. Does fallout have a natural decay to it? I really thought it was only removable via Ecology workers, but in my testing nearly half of placed fallout was removed by T50 or so. Not a huge deal, just curious how the mechanic works as I've never really played with nukes/fallout.

[scooter]

1) Zulan would prefer we abandon the naming scheme choices for the mod that Ramk was doing where he was changing the mod name to match the game, and then after PB74 was just naming every mod PB74. So for this game and future CtH games, he'd prefer the out-of-the-box mod name. In this case that's "CloseToHome_5.0.0" so while we're using the same mod as the previous several games, it will be named that way rather than simply being "PB74," which means you'll have to create a separate shortcut for this. I hope this is not a big deal, however it was going to happen anyway because...


2) I had to make a very tiny one-line tweak to CtH to make things work. Specifically there's a very weird barb behavior I am sidestepping that appeared in my playtesting. I'll explain this a tiny bit more once you've all explored a bit. But I assure you this has virtually no impact on the way the game plays - it's just mitigating an issue. I'll post the mod with the updated file once I confirm with Zulan how he would like it named so that things are easier on his end.

BTW, that would make this CtH 5.0.1 or something similar.

Moving this in here, but I was hesitant to give it a .1 designation because I don't think this change actually is necessary to be in CtH long-term. But I suppose that depends on the root cause here. I don't actually know why the presence of a Barracks causes a disbandment like this. Making it so barb cities never build Barracks seems like a hacky solution that works for a one-off rather than something that should actually be in the mod. It's also possible folks use CtH for single player, so that would be bad as it would affect AI players.

[Krill]

You do have an alternative option for hosting if you need it.

[scooter]

Thought mods were still a sticking point? Figuring out the mods issue was on my TODO after this game is launched.

[Tarkeel]

Moving this in here, but I was hesitant to give it a .1 designation because I don't think this change actually is necessary to be in CtH long-term. But I suppose that depends on the root cause here. I don't actually know why the presence of a Barracks causes a disbandment like this. Making it so barb cities never build Barracks seems like a hacky solution that works for a one-off rather than something that should actually be in the mod. It's also possible folks use CtH for single player, so that would be bad as it would affect AI players.

My point was mainly that you made a change, so it's not 5.0.0 anymore, and needs a different name.

[Krill]

scooter, I will email you.

[Qgqqqqq]

I would call it 5.0.x, to make clear it's not necessarily on the path.

[RefSteel]

I e-mailed this too, but just in case, in more detail, and for future mapmakers' reference:

Turns out barracks don't have to be modded out, and you can just use CtH 5.0.0: When you gave the pre-placed units promotions, I assume you did so directly while leaving them at Level 1 with 0 xp. But when the game deletes units in a city that can produce higher-xp units itself, it doesn't check for promotions; it checks for the unit's actual xp! So if you edit the units to have at least 3 xp each, they won't get deleted even when a barracks is present (whether pre-placed or built). If you just give them the xp, they'll promote as usual, but if you give them the xp and increase their levels accordingly (e.g. 3 xp, lvl 2 and add whatever promotion you like) they STILL won't get deleted, and they'll have promotions of your choice instead of the AI's. (You can also give them extra promotions beyond what their level would normally allow without causing any additional problems.) Note if you put Barbarian West Point into a city, you would (I assume; not tested) need to give the pre-placed units more xp (I assume 8 to allow for the 'rax). I also don't know if barbs can adopt Vassalage or if this would have an effect; it might be best to give their pre-placed units 5 xp (and level 3 if you want to choose your own promotions - or 10 xp and level 4 with West Point) just in case if you think the barb cities will last that long.

I hope this helps!

[scooter]

I e-mailed this too, but just in case, in more detail, and for future mapmakers' reference:

Turns out barracks don't have to be modded out, and you can just use CtH 5.0.0: When you gave the pre-placed units promotions, I assume you did so directly while leaving them at Level 1 with 0 xp. But when the game deletes units in a city that can produce higher-xp units itself, it doesn't check for promotions; it checks for the unit's actual xp! So if you edit the units to have at least 3 xp each, they won't get deleted even when a barracks is present (whether pre-placed or built). If you just give them the xp, they'll promote as usual, but if you give them the xp and increase their levels accordingly (e.g. 3 xp, lvl 2 and add whatever promotion you like) they STILL won't get deleted, and they'll have promotions of your choice instead of the AI's. (You can also give them extra promotions beyond what their level would normally allow without causing any additional problems.) Note if you put Barbarian West Point into a city, you would (I assume; not tested) need to give the pre-placed units more xp (I assume 8 to allow for the 'rax). I also don't know if barbs can adopt Vassalage or if this would have an effect; it might be best to give their pre-placed units 5 xp (and level 3 if you want to choose your own promotions - or 10 xp and level 4 with West Point) just in case if you think the barb cities will last that long.

I hope this helps!

Huge thanks on this, this was correct! What's very funny is I polled Tarkeel about this, and he immediately suspected promotions were a factor somehow. So I attempted to edit both promotions AND level, but I had no success. However, I did NOT edit XP. Of course, that appears to be the actual sticking point.