Thursday, August 28, 2008

Major Update in Subversion

Over the past few weeks, I have completely rewritten BUG's core and committed it to our Subversion code repository. Users won't notice much of a difference (except all their settings will be reset to default, but just this one time). However, modders and mergers will find it much easier to merge BUG with other mods.

My main goal was to allow merging without modifying the core BUG files. Merges become difficult when two mods modify the same files. Dr. Elmer Jiggle's CvCustomEventManager went a long way toward easing this process, but it still required you to modify that file. This is no longer the case. All events can be added via separate mod config XML files.

I will write a detailed HOWTO article in the next few weeks. For now, this post has the paper napkin version. For those that are handy with Python and XML, check out the directory CustomAssets/Config for examples on porting your mods over to the new BUG core, creating your own options and INI files processed entirely by BUG, and hooking up your event handlers -- even define new events. All of the mods in BUG have been ported to the new core, so there are several meaty examples to help you started.

For continuing coverage, check out the forum thread.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Changes to the Victory Screen (F8)

The BUG team is slowly working its way though the whole Civ4 interface ... the latest target ... the Victory Screen. We've added a few features like the ability to tell at a glance how many Civs you have yet to meet, how many you have managed to vassalize, what space ship parts you cannot build due to missing techs and how many turns until your 3 cities hit their legendary status.

We've also modified the diplomatic members tab to include the two candidates and we've estimated who will vote for whom. We had some fun here by including mythical 'BUG Poll' results including statistical errors. Information (and mod development history) can be found at our forum hosted by CFC.