Ok, So I have millions of newbie questions all the time, I thought I could have one thread and ask them one at a time! So number one is, can you have a technology that only certain people can research but they can still trade it to others? for example, gunpowder could be researchable by europe and the turks but other civs would have to beg, buy, or steal it off them...

Nope, you can't.

Bugger! Oh well no.2. What Utilities do people use for adding in units and civs and stuff to their scenario? I looked in the Utilities section and was rather overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in their!

I do it manually :)

I think Steph made a tool that ease the process: it takes care of the pedia stuff. But, as Stormrage, I do it with notepad and the editor itself.

ok, ok that sounds fairly easy.

Now what do you think of this as a civ list (for a world map):

Italia
Iberia
France
Germany
Britain
Poland
Hungary OR Austria
Skandanavia
Russia
Greece
Portugal OR the Neatherlands
Egypt
Etheopia
Mali
Berber
Carthage
Zulu
Arabia
Persia
Turkistan
India
Khmer
China
Mongolia
Japan
Korea
Indonesia
Tibet
Iraquis
Mexica
Inca

I generally do it by hand myself although marine corp made a program to make it easier if you have a lot of units to add Unit Utility (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=166321)

You forgot the Orcs. I think its nice. Can`t find any objections at the moment :)

You forgot the USA in your civ list! ;)

Here's mine:

arabia
aztecs
bantu
british isles
carthage
chinese
eastern europe
egyptians
french
germans
greeks
inca
indians
iroquoi
israel
japanese
koreans
malay
malians
maya
mongols
nubians
persians
romania
romans
russians
scandanavians
siamese
spanish
steppe nomads
turks

That's 31 civs that cover the entire world.

Thanks for the reply guys I really apreciate how much feedback I get with my lame questions!

@BadKharma - Thanks for that, when I start making the BIQ file I will defo use it!

@Olorin, I genorally focus of before then anyways as I rarely reach that time preiod, and even when I do I am more concerned with europe and it would be really hard to make the USA work. However if the was a way I could have them in without messing up the new world for the 1500 years before them I might squeaze them in :).

Edit, I crossposted with ya Quinzy, thanks for ya civ list, the are some pretty interesting stuff I missed out their! I might change mine to include some of those.
Now a question for non tank people (tank people can have the question below) which civ do you think is more important, hungary, austria or romania?
Also is Bantu a better option than the Berber?
Now I am going to go on wikipedia and find out about the nubians, malay and siamese

Now my second question goes out to anybody who knows anything about tanks or Artillary! I am writting up the unit lines for the europeans and I just dont know what to do with the Tanks and Artillary. I had a go at the Artillary - Cannons would face riflemen, artillary trench infantry and radar artillary would be very late... But I think that I messed it up towards the end. Also tanks I havn't done as I really dont have a clue other than the were some in one of the world wars...



Soldiers
Attack (defencive bombard),Defence, Movenment
Artillary
Bombard strength, Rate of fire, Range

AGRESSIVE LINE
Warrior --> Swordsman --> Medieval Infanty
1,1,1 --> 3,2,1 --> 5,3,1
Iron Iron

Spearman --> armoured Spearman --> Pikeman
2,2,1 --> 3,3,1 --> 4,4,1
Copper Copper Iron

DEFENCIVE LINE
Archer --> Longbowman
1(2),2,1--> 1(4),4,1

CAVALRY LINES
Chariot --> Horsman --> Horse Archer --> Knight --> Cavalry
1,1,2 --> 2,1,2 --> 3,1,2 --> 6,4,2 --> 7,6,3
Horses Horses Horses Horses Horses
Iron Saltpeter
ARTILLARY
Catupults --> Trebuchett --> Cannon --> Artillary --> Radar Artillary
2,1,1 --> 4,1,1 --> 6,2,1 --> 8,4,2 --> 10,5,3
Timber Timber Iron Iron Iron
Saltpeter

GUNPOWDER LINES
Musketman --> Fusilier --> Rifleman --> Trench Infantry --> Modern Infantry
3,3,1 --> 5,5,1 --> 6,6,1 --> 8,7,1 --> 12,8,1
Saltpeter Saltpeter

Machine Guns --> ANti-Tank/FLAK/Rocket Laucher
0(10),10,1 --> 0(12),15,1


So yeah any help on tanks would be good, I am just setting up the generic lines at the moment...

Bantu is a huuuge, broad term that covers most of the south of africa.
I left out the Berber as a civ because the Carthaginian civ covers the North Africa area, and thusly covers the Berber tribes.

Nubia was a civ fighting against the Egyptians. I have them "upgrade" to the Ethiopians.

Malay is a broad term for the Oceanian islands, so it covers Austronesia, Indonesia, etc.

Siam/Thailand covers that South East asian peninsula for me.

If you want to ask my why I picked them all, and left out others, you only need to ask :)

@Quinzy - Thanks, I quite like the idea of having berbers though (I used to know some of them so maybe I am biased) I will look into Nubia as a replacement for ethiopia...

And as the thread is called Kai's Questions then sure, why did ya pick them all? Also why Thailand over Cambodia? and isn't mesoamerica a little crowded?

@ the tank people-
How is Tank - Mech Infantry - Modern Armour OR Tank - Armour - Mech Infantry?

Ok more questions (just answar any you can guys I am relying on you!)

How do these rule changes sound?

All pregunpowder units (except Artillary) require one population but no support
all govenment support is lowered to practically zero
a mercenary line is added that requires payment but not population
Sevoral "Peoples" Resaurces added.

e.g. Numidians - gives carthage numidian mercenaries (and units that don't cost pop points). Allows Romans to build a slave market in the city where the recaurse is, spawning slaves untill it goes obsolete...
e.g. If Britain contains all 3 "Britons" recaurses they can build the "Britains never shall be slaves" small wonder...

Thailand over Cambodia, well, only in name. It is, essentially, the Khmer peoples.

Mesoamerica has 3 civs- Aztecs for North Mexico, Maya for South Mexico and Central America, and the Inca for Peru and North Chilie.

I wouldn't really "replace" Ethiopia with Nubia. Their two cultures kind of clashed and mixed at different times. The Aksum invaded the Kush, for example. Nubian was mostly in Sudan, and some of the various Ethiopian kingdoms streched as far a Sudan, so for the sake of gameplay, Whoever was the top-dog takes precidence, so that's Nubia in Early game, Ethiopia after.

EDIT: Maybe just have a "Native Peoples" resourse to encompass all of that?

#1 would ruin the game. The game would be completely unbalanced for those civs which are agri or lucky in their start location.
#2 not sure of the suggestion, but sounds as if it would devalue the different governments and ruin a significant component of the game.
#3 see #1
#4 people / animal resources are a popular mod. But you have to either balance it or preplace everything. Because if you need black people resource to make a black people only unit then only the vikings will find it (and so on). Or worse some tribes get their magic resources and others do not, dooming them.

So Bantu you put in southern Africa? I might swap the Zulu for them as the Zulu's were very late arriving...

And the Zulu are a Bantu tribe anyways :)

@ Bjornlo - I see Your points, everything would be preplaced, so the wont be the 'luck' in getting the right resaurces, however I see your point about balance and the governments I will have to think about how to balance it out.
Also you strike me as someone who enjoys the modern age, any suggestions on my tanks?

Quinzy - Ok definatly going to have bantu instead of zulu then!

Edit: about the pop cost, this would only be for pre gunpowder units, this way I can make ancient gov's as good as modern ones, but without the unit support. And the AI will still flip to the modern ones when they come along as they will need them for the unit support for their new gunpowder units.

I might even then have the modern merc's not require unit support as once you have recruited (built) them you dont need to pay for their support or equipment etc.. which cost more during the modern era rather than in the ancient era when people often had to provide their own equipment...

How do the dissaperance ratio's work?

If it is set to say 40, does that mean the is a 1 in 40 chance of it going? or it will go after 40 turns? or that 1/X-40 is the chance of it going. Can someone help me?

disappearance ratio of 40 means that every turn there's a 1 in 40 chance of the resource disappearing and reappearing at a different location.

Bantu is a huuuge, broad term that covers most of the south of africa.
I left out the Berber as a civ because the Carthaginian civ covers the North Africa area, and thusly covers the Berber tribes.

I'd agree with that.

Nubia was a civ fighting against the Egyptians. I have them "upgrade" to the Ethiopians.

There were independent Nubian kingdoms right up to the late Middle Ages. In fact, the Nubians were the first people to successfully repel the Arab invasions of the seventh century. So I wouldn't simply see them as an ancient precursor to Ethiopia.

Malay is a broad term for the Oceanian islands, so it covers Austronesia, Indonesia, etc.

No, "Malay" is a racial or ethnic term referring to the predominant ethnicity in Malaysia and the surrounding region.

I only used Malay because I couldn't think of a better catch-all term... It's be handy if you had one :) Pacific Islanders perhaps?

And I know that Nubia was around for quite a while, but with only 31 civs it kinda limited me. I figured that an Ethiopia-Sudan combo was best in this situation.

Oh yes, if you have only 31 civs and you're trying to be global in scope, it would be daft to have both Nubia and Ethiopia. But I would just have Ethiopia and forget Nubia rather than have one morph into the other.

disappearance ratio of 40 means that every turn there's a 1 in 40 chance of the resource disappearing and reappearing at a different location.

Does that mean on a random map it will reappear somewhere else? cos that would mess up my resource placement!

@Plotinus - Does that mean that Nubia would be a good choice instead of Ethiopia as I am more bothered about the ancient to medieval era's? Also would your units still be apropriate for Nubia as they were basically the only reason I wanted Ethiopia in the first place! They are awesome!

Can I ask a, perhaps daft, question while i'm at it? Would the units for Nubia in the ancient age be anything along the lines of that for Ethiopia?

Looking at it more, Ethiopia does seem a better idea.

Personally I would guess that ancient Nubian units would look more like ancient Egyptian units than Ethiopian ones. Although I should think that my Ethiopian units would probably work for Nubia too, or at least some of them would. They're not really very civ-specific. Perhaps an Egyptian style for ancient units and an Ethiopian one for medieval ones might work, but don't hold to that too closely. For example, Kinboat's Egyptian Monk would make an excellent Nubian archer (in fact that's how I use it in my African scenario).

If you're interested in cross-era continuity, Ethiopia is probably better than Nubia, because Nubia was the scene of various empires and kingdoms rising and falling on the basis of each other, while there was marginally more continuity in Ethiopia. Also, the Ethiopian empire survived from antiquity into modern times, whereas none of the Nubian kingdoms did.

Yeah, i'm going with ethiopia instead :D

I'll use the medjay archer as a mercenary unit for egypt and the monk as the archer unit, that was it represents the sheer number of nubians in the egyptian army (mercenaries and fully paid soldiers) as well as giving nubia a good scene in the mod.

Does that mean on a random map it will reappear somewhere else? cos that would mess up my resource placement!

Yes. (10chars)

@ Embriodead - Thanks for the replies :P
So the only way to totally 'fix' certain recaurces would be to put BOTH a dissaperance and reaperance ratio to 0? or would that screw up the calculation 1/0?

I think I will probs go with Ethiopia then although what about Abbasinia?

Ethiopia and Abbysinia is basicly the same country.

Ethiopia is a good choice, imo.

Ok, sounds good! Still no one to answar my tank question? oh well...

Still, I am seriously worried about eliphants randomly spawning in the americas!

@Quinzy - Hey good idea, mind if I steal it?

Work away :D I don't mind ^^

Im just gonna offer my Civ list from my game

Tibet
Vietnam
Xiong-nu
Java
Rapa-nui
Mercosur
Amazonicos
Tupi
Haitians
Shawnee
Souix
Prussia
Ireland
Norway
Bulgaria
Egypt
Seljuks
Khazars
Israel
Kushan
Bahia
Mali
Maori
Abyssinia
Etruscians
Pheonicians
Byzantines
Kanem-Bornu
Chibcha
Haida
Phillipines


As far as the Tanks...I go with a 3 tank line...A Fast, Medium, and Heavy tank, for both Modern Armour and Synthetic Fibers...as well as several spawnable tanks for each skill as well...

Fast Tank --> Fast Modern Armour
Medium Tank --> Medium Modern Armour
Slow/Heavy Tank --> Slow/heavy Modern Armour

Also, as far as Elephants...I have an Elephant Resource that is only in Desert, Plains and Jungle...as well as a Camel that is only in Desert...Those both allow A Camel/Elephant line (Rider/Knight/Cavalry)

Well, I think I can say Spacer has the strangest (nothing wrong with that tho :)) civ list out there :)

I have a "Conquored Culture" motif going on...with a few cultures I concider Important...and several removed because Im tired of them :)

@ Embriodead - Thanks for the replies :P
So the only way to totally 'fix' certain recaurces would be to put BOTH a dissaperance and reaperance ratio to 0? or would that screw up the calculation 1/0?

Zero ratios work fine for both, though a resource won't appear at all on random maps in that case.

Ok, thanks guys, for all the info! I have lots of units already in the modern era, so I might just stick to tanks -> armour, although what would be the modern defenders? at the moment I have Rocket launchers/anti-tank...

Would Gatling guns come before stationary machine guns?

Is it possible to have a civ that no one can talk to or trade with? or that everyone is at war with without makeing everyone ellies

Is it possible to have a civ that no one can talk to or trade with? or that everyone is at war with without makeing everyone ellies

If you are using Civ III conquests, then you can have the civ you don't want to be traded with and set 'em to a permanent alliance against some other civs, but the side effects are:
#1. The 2+ civs will be at war, and if they declare peace depends on #2.
#2. If there is just one civ on a alliance, then the civ(s) might declare peace, thus deffeating the intended use.
So I would suggest that you 'buddy up' two or more civs to go on a side of the alliance. It's not perfect, but it works.

I don't completely understand your second statement, but I think that a permanent alliance will do the trick.

The second part was without the perminant alliances, so that Civ-X would either not be able to be talked to or would be at war with all the other Civs but all my other civs would not be allied with each other...

Yeah, Gatling Guns were the predecessors to the MG.

Zero ratios work fine for both, though a resource won't appear at all on random maps in that case.

I thought that "0" for appearance ration meant that it appeared in a random amount, and the same for disappearance meant that it didn't move?


Would Gatling guns come before stationary machine guns?
Yup.


Is it possible to have a civ that no one can talk to or trade with? or that everyone is at war with without makeing everyone ellies
Nope.

@Spacer: That's what I like to do with my Tanks!

Thanks for the replies guys :)

I thought that "0" for appearance ration meant that it appeared in a random amount, and the same for disappearance meant that it didn't move?

Oops yes, at least for luxuries, I never tried it with strats.

So what can I do to stop it moving at all?

I tend to use the settings provided by Civ Conquests for Horses...they rarely disappear, so those settings are close to what you are looking for (I think)

From what I've seen, they never disappear, because their "Disappearance Probability (or is it ratio?)" is set to "0".

From what I've seen, they never disappear, because their "Disappearance Probability (or is it ratio?)" is set to "0".

Yeah Disappearance Prob. of 0 = never disappears / moves.
Appearance Ratio is only used for map generation, to correct my first statement.

Ah ok then, I am happy now :P

Ok next question. Can buildings become obsolete and if so does that just stop them being built or stopp the effects of all of that current building in ya cities or deleate them all?

I believe they still exist...the benefits of the building can be made obsolete in many ways...A building can require a certain Govt, and will stop working if you change from that Govt...It can also go obsolete if a certain skill is learned...

It can also go obsolete if a certain skill is learned...
What do you mean by skill?

He means technology. ;)

sorry bout that...I forget to be specific sometimes...

yes, skill = Technology

Ah, ok thanks guys :). Now I got a question, I put together a recources.pcx of 'most' of the resources I want in my game but they got messed up! All I did was cut and paste and I used photoshop version 6 and saved it as a .pcx file, could someone help please?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/59217/PrtScrn_-_Resources_are_broken.JPG

You need to use a 256 colors palette. Last two (or first two in PSP?) are the transparency colors.

Thanks :)

Edit: Anyone know how to change your pallatte in photoshop?

Yep, check mrtn's tutorial in his sug :)

Thanks again!

I am so glad you guys are all so helpfull!

Now what do you guys think about making units more expencive (both to build and maintain) but giveing them more hitpoints? This would make both barrackses and combat experiance more important as well as increasing turn times! I kind of stole the idea of Rhyes' mod and I was wondering whether to impliment it...

That'd be something you'd need to playtest to get all the settings right :)

If you give all the units more hitpoints, then there's no reason to make them more expensive, since the combat ratios will still be the same.

Well the reason to make them more expensive was to decrease the number of units in the game and so decrease turn times. While the extra hit points should hopefully make combat experiance more important and will make barrackses more important as with the increased number of turns to heal the units the ability to heal them in one turn becomes more powerful