NECRO CRISTI


EDIT 6/7/07: 0.1 proper now available at http://www.sendspace.com/file/g5d180

Mod Description:
Necro Cristi is a post-apocalyptic mod about the remnants of humanity trying to survive in the zombie-invested and nihilistic ruins of civilization. It brings together my love of post-apocalyptic films/books, philosophy, Alpha
Centauri, Utopianism/Dystopianism, and general sci-fi and horror geekiness.

Features:

An entirely redone tech tree focussing as much on the religious and political
development of mankind as on science and war. All new wonders and buildings as well of course.

Five new religions, all with different gameplay mechanics. Ensure your
survival with militant evangelism, apocalyptic nihilism, or worship of your
undead masters!

New civic system. Will you forge a new feudalism run by Merchant Princes, or
an Ecological Utopia?

8 unique factions (complete with art) representing the last of mankind. Prowl
the abandoned highways as Eves Forgotten Children, embrace the gothic
revivalism of the Zanzibar Dynasty, or attempt to restore order with Homeland Security.

Zombies replace barbarians! Live under the shadow of the growing undead
menace and prey the infection doesn't reach your own cities.

Post Apocalyptic soundtrack.


Screenshots:

Choosing a Faction. There will eventually be 8, each with 2 leaders representing different facets of that factions philosophy.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/molari/screenshot1.jpg

Part of the early tech tree. The techs are all done, but as you can see I'm still in the process of tying them all together.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/molari/screenshot2.jpg

The Civics screen. All in, although only those in the first two colums do anything meaningful yet. I wish I knew how to fix the last option falling off the edge in that somewhat unaesthetic way.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/molari/screenshot3.jpg

Status:
I am learning how to mod the xml files as I go along so progress is slow (finding time around 2 jobs and an upcoming PhD viva also plays its part), but with the help of the modding tutorials on this wonderful site I am getting
there. The tech tree and civic system are largely done, and half of the
factions are in place. I need to add in buildings, units and religion and
then I'll have a 0.1 release on my hands.

Assistance, Issues, etc:
At the moment I am enjoying learning how to play around with xml and art
files, but I'm sure there will come a time when I hit a brick wall. For now
though, moral support (and of course testing/suggestions once there has been a release) is more than enough. I would also appreciate any input on issues of copyright regarding images and music - as you can see from the first screenshot I am not creating my own graphics, so just how much flexibility is there for 'recycling' images grabbed from around the web?

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It might be great mod :) Good luck with it because this community needs good postapocalyptic mod :)

It might be great mod :) Good luck with it because this community needs good postapocalyptic mod :)

Yeah, the old one died quite horrably.

At any rate I will look forward to a release of this mod. it would certainly be an interesting play.

A quick progress update and a couple more screenies.

All 8 factions now in, each with 2 leaders. I am in the process of adding things like flavour, text, etc.

Technologies all in also.

Religions in and functioning (although they only act like vanilla religions at the moment).

Buildings half done, and I've finally managed to navigate around the xml enough to add my first unit (Did I mention I was a beginner at modding?).

Some more pics:

Meeting the neighbours

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/molari/screenshot4.jpg

Religions in all their badly formatted glory!

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/molari/screenshot5.jpg

So far I've only encountered one crash which I've been unable to fix. It's to do with making first contact with another civ. At the moment if this is done in the first couple of turns the game crashes. When meeting later everything plays out fine. If anyone has heard of anything like this before and knows of a possible solution, by all means let me know.

Keep the updates coming. This does look cool.

nice screeshot (and nice girl) keep the mod going on :)

I don't know what may cause this problem maybe something in diplomacy texts?

Still running into problems with the crash mentioned previously. I've managed to narrow it down to a specific technology (rather than first contact), but have reached a dead end. Here is a zip of the mod in its current state in case anyone with bug-removing abilities fancies having a crack:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/t0iope

Please note that even without the bug this is not really in a playable state. I mean, it is technically playable (as long as you don't research the technology in question), but still far short of even a beta release.

Some more info on the crash: When researching the technology 'Spirituality' about 95% of the time I am getting a crash to desktop. There are no error messages on startup, I've tried emptying the cache, playing with a variety of civs, pretty much everything I can think of but no joy.

Also, this is based on the Barebones mod, with spirituality replacing mysticism if that is of relevence. This never used to be an issue, and though I've tried retracing my steps I really can't see anything wrong.

I'd be grateful to anyone who could help here as I'm wary of continuing to develop the mod until this rather large bug has been squashed.

EDIT: The crash can also happen before the first technology is chosen, so doesn't seem to be just tied to Spirituality. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the civ4techinfos.xml, but I'm unsure which other files to check for a technology bug, especially one which seems to hit at random.

I think the problem is that you forgot to include the tech schema in the assets file (CIV4TechnologiesSchema.xml, also note that it has to be in the technologies file, as far as I know).

It needs to be there in order for the technologies to work. Just use the one included in the regular civ game (this applies for all other XML as well).

I tried adding the tech schema but it didn't seem to be the problem as I'm still getting the crash. Gah, this is driving me nuts.

OMG those Leaderheads look great. :eek:

Maybe lack of TXT_cause crashs - try to type there anything

asioasioasio - do you mean having the actual text in the xml file (rather than a seperate xml file with all the tags for text in the game) might be causing a problem? I was under the impression this was done only to make translations easier, and found it needlessly time-consuming. Heck, I'm willing to try anything at this point though . . .

I'm not sure about it - i saw in others mods that texts works well
but i'll make them in separate file

Try to type anything (evend three dots) in tags of civilopedia.

I checked technologies.xml and it doesn't seams to have bad ebtries)

Hmmm.

I tried making technology descriptions into TXT_KEY_TECH references, and also adding something in the civlopedia entry but the crash is still occurring. It's the seemingly random nature of it that is so frustrating - as it only sometimes occurs it's very difficult to track down where the problem is.

My only thought is that maybe it's nothing to do with technologies at all. I'll continue to investigate.

for me technologies looks ok - sorry i don't have time to look in other files now, when i'll have it i might look for bug.

A couple more screenshots, just to show progress is being made.

About to take the Pale Hand capital

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/molari/screenshot6.jpg

A technology in the civlopedia. It is my long term goal with this mod not just to provide a good gameplay experience but to tell a story too. One of the reasons I enjoyed Alpha Centauri so much, and FFH for civ for that matter, is that the world-building and narrative are given due attention:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/molari/screenshot7.jpg

Also a general question: At what stage in a mods development do people find it productive to download it? Do you need something you can enjoy as a reasonably stable game, or are you happy with something more unfinished to get a sense of where it's going, help with bugs, etc.? And should I move this to the modpacks forum when I do release it?

There's no simple question for this

I like to play complited mod (or just in stable version)
But it's good idea to release it earlier for betatesting

More screenshots. I'm rather proud of my title screen:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/molari/screenshot8.jpg

The buildings are coming along nicely too:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/molari/screenshot9.jpg

Real life means taking a little break over the weekend unfortunately, but a beta release creeps inexorably closer . . .

The Civics and the Religion names need some space to fit it right...

As I said in earlier posts, this is my first foray into modding, and I'm still in the early stages of development. If you have any links/python snippets for changing the layout of the civics or religion screen by all means volunteer them.

The 0.1 beta is now available at:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/d4d42u

What to expect:

8 factions with 16 leaders
The beginnings of a coherent tech tree, religion, and building system
Cool sounds

What not to expect:

Most other things ;)
Seriously, I am obviously aware of missing graphics, text entries, unbalanced costs, inaccesible civics options etc. etc. These gaps will gradually be filled in!

I am releasing now for a couple of reasons:

First and foremost is this damn random crash which has 'something' to do with religions/religious buildings/religious technologies. At the moment I'm getting it most (but not all) of the time if I research religious technologies straight away. Put off researching these technologies right away and you'll probably be alright. Even better, replicate the crash, use your brilliance to isolate it and inform me how to fix it. I have spent literally weeks trying everything I can think of but it persists. Please save my sanity.

Secondly, to give a taste of what I'm trying to do here. Incomplete and low-key as the mod currently is it is certainly playable. I would be interested in any suggestions of both gameplay and thematic kinds.

Colin

I'll give it a try and see, but is this for Warlords??

Yeah, should have mentioned - for Warlords. Although I've not tested it on vanilla I would be surprised if it worked.

OK your building problem is caused by no artdefines for the military academy there, .
Tech tree should have a little spacing in between tech so people can choose them,, this is a good start, but the replace me is,, well??

Hope this helps some, wish people would do the same for my MOD's, even bad help, is good help, LOL:p

Thanks for the reply. I added a correct artdefine for the military academy building but I'm still getting the crash unfortunately. Still, it's another possible reason to cross off the list at any rate.

With the tech tree I think I'm going to wait until I've added in all of the techs before I neaten it up, otherwise I'd only have to reposition them all over again.

I went thru the other building and they dont crash, but you must have copy and pasted the FABIAN_SOCIETY from the Minor Civ, cause it keeps coming up for talk(s) every turn.

Could you elaborate a little? Are you saying you aren't getting any crashes at all? If so could you possibly post up copies of files you've altered please?

With your other point, do you mean the Fabian diplomacy window pops up every turn? I've not come across this before in my testing. Does this occur regularly, and for all leaders? Why would copying from a minor civ do this?

Lots of questions, I know.

cheers,
Colin

I played long enough to crash after Idolatry was researched. I checked the files and nothing art connected should appear with this tech, but the CTD tells me it is art related. Odd.

woodelf - how do you get information on the cause of a CTD?

woodelf - how do you get information on the cause of a CTD?

From experience and hunches. Going straight to desktop normally means an art issue, but in this case that doesn't make sense. I won't have time to try again until next Monday so I hope someone else can do some detective work for you.

If you post the crash here, i have two hours, starting now, if you post it.

Do you haave autosave turned on?
Maybe it would help recognize cause
And i also think it's connected to graphics

It might be the situation that ai try to build unit with bad graphics - i had this situation in one of the early stage of 1939 mod

By 'bad' graphics, do you mean a problem with the actual .dds files themselves? The only new graphics I've introduced have been the leaderheads - everything else is from the original game, apart from the technology placeholder art which is from the barebones mod. Wouldn't a faulty graphics reference in an xml file cause a crash every time, rather than only sometimes?

By 'bad' graphics, do you mean a problem with the actual .dds files themselves? The only new graphics I've introduced have been the leaderheads - everything else is from the original game, apart from the technology placeholder art which is from the barebones mod. Wouldn't a faulty graphics reference in an xml file cause a crash every time, rather than only sometimes?

You know if anyone has an autosave post it here, it might be nice , and someone might help!!:p

The crash is happening because you don't have an advisor set for some of your techs.

When the game gives you your list of techs to pick from it try's to decide which tech is best for you. At some level thats a largely random process. It picks the 2 techs it thinks are best, puts them on top the list and puts the name of the advisor behind the tech (military advisor or science advisor, etc). If the tech doesn't have an advisor associated with it then the game crashes.

BtW, great idea for a mod. Im excited to see where you go with it. Im especially impressed with the writing, very evocative.

Terrific catch Kael. Now he can keep modding!

Thanks Kael, you're a legend. I've played through about 10 test games now and so far (touch wood) haven't had a CTD. Much appreciation.

Thanks also to everyone else for helping. Now back to modding . . .

hey, that's cool.. not another ULTRAREALISMMEDIEVALWORLDWAR mod. (nothing against those mods, but I like fantasy-themed mods :) )
good luck!

These have the best looking custom leaderheads I have ever seen. There may not be animation, but these look incredable.

wow:eek: i've never seen such a good mod for a beginner.

The 0.1 release proper is available at the following site:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/g5d180

(it is a little short of 30MB)

The major change is the removal of the CTD (thanks again to Kael).

Additions are primarily the addition of art for techs and civics. Over half the techs now have quotes too.

Being brutally honest I could probably have spent my time more productively learning python and investigating the xml further. But hey, I decided to trawl through my poetry collection for my favourite lines of Byron and Elliott, and compose an elaborate future history. I am nothing if not capricious.

Colin

Is this for Warlords or Vanilla?

Yes, Warlords. Colin, do you need me to ammend the title to say that?

That'd be helpful, thanks

Done. Keep up the good work.

I found a cool pic of a Hanging Cage on the net a few weeks back and forgot I had modeled it. Here's (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=6081) the finished texture and model. I figured it could be used as a post-apoc jail. Screenshot with download.

Very nice - reminds me of Willow. I'll definately use it when I move onto modding graphics. Cheers.

A quick question to anyone who has modded religions before - what do I need to edit to get the new icons I've done to show up by the cities on the main map?

Presently I've edited the civ4religioninfo.xml in the GameInfo folder to show the new religion icons and this shows up fine in the civopedia and the religion screen. However the original icons (hinduism, taoism etc.) still show up by the cities. Is there somewhere else I need to mod, and if so where is it?

Also, until a religion is founded I'm getting a pink box where it should be - again is there somewhere I can put an entry for the 'greyed out style' religious icons used in vanilla?

cheers
Colin

This is a tricky one. I think it's the GameFont.tga files. There are some people here who are good at it, but I'm not one of them.

There is an older tutorial about modifying these using free software in the Tutorials section.

Hello, I actually had a similar Idea of this sorts but actually a bit different, I was setting the scenario in Post New York city, where the city was abandoned due to rebels, disease, corruption, and all the other good things in life. The whole map was of the city, and there were rival gangs or pacts or groups that banded in the city after it was disbanded by the government, and they fought for New York City. This idea was actually fueled by a book I read, but forgot the name. I was thinking the Zombie idea for barbarians is Awesome! Good luck with this!!!

By the way free music that is really cool can be found here, also check out the other projects or other artists:
http://www.mikseri.net/artists/?id=48147

God damn targa files. God damn alpha channels. God damn everything.

Thanks for the tutorial link woodelf. I am now going slowly insane trying to figure out how to mod the blasted .tga files without a CTD on startup. Civ4 may be incredibly moddable, but it can be a bitter struggle at times.

The Architect - there is some interesting music there, thanks. I decided to make my mod after reading a book too, in my case re-reading Day of the Triffids. Obviously zombies took the place of genetically engineered killer plants ;)

Just a quick update to say I am still working on the mod, but BTS is eating into my time at the moment. On the plus side having seen all the cool new things you can do with the new expansion I am going to convert the mod to BTS; it seemed sensible to do it at this early stage rather than 6 months down the line when a lot more work would be involved. Once I've converted the current build I will hopefully move to the modpacks subforum as well.

Colin

can't wait for the BTS update =)

the link wont work any more

That's because it's been updated to BTS (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237238).

Is there still a link to download the MOD ?

The post above says its been updated to BTS. I know this is an old mod, but I'm kind of curious if anyone still has a Warlords version. :D :dunno:

Hey...

A while back I took Colin's mod a step further...

I left all the original art, but changed the tech tree a lot, and added some content.

Everything I did was just XML coding. I can help with that in future if needed.


http://www.atomicgamer.com/directory.php?id=36173

Collin is not more around here, but Korias has taken the mod.
you should work together with him ;).

The current thread is here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237238).