Okay, so having played a whole bunch of games of BTS, so far I've become frustrated by the fact that Culture victories seem altogether TOO easy and TOO common in BTS. More than 75% of the games I have played so far have ended in a Cultural victory for myself or the AI...My response has been to curse loudly and eventually just turn off Cultural Victory in the custom game menu...

Well I've just started to peek at things again in an effor to re-work my Gamespeed MOD, and I have noticed something that explains this...

BTS does not have the file CultureLevelInfo.XML at all. This seems to indicate several interesting things all at once!

First off Firaxis made a HUGE oversight with BTS, they added quite a few new wonders and buildings, and random events and a variety of modifiers, moany of which are capable of adding to the culture level of your cities...but they completely failed to adjust the Cultural Victory conditions for BTS!

Warlords also lacks this file, but the effects are far less noticeable because there are not really any culture boosters in Warlords beyond what was in the Vanilla game...not like BTS which seems to be overflowing with them!

Secondly, unless my understanding is somewhat flawed, this seems to indicate that BTS and Warlords are both constructed as MODs to Vanilla! Any file they lack they search the Vanilla folder for first! Thus there was no need to duplicate the CultureLevelInfo.XML file for each of these expansions...Only obviously in BTS there was.

So this leads to my question...and I cannot verify the veracity of this idea right now as I am in a place where I cannot test this for a day or so...Can I modify the Culture levels of BTS by simply adding the CultureLevelInfo.XML file into my MOD and dropping it into the Assets\GameInfo folder of my MOD? I am like 99% certain I can...Can someone give me that missing 1% certainty please?
:confused:

Okay, so why are you posting this in the civ 3 C&C forum? :mischief:

Wrong forum! :)

EDIT: Crosspost

oh where is Zulu..... I miss him!

No, this is the right forum.;)

FexFX had the subconscious wish to tell the civ3-community -spoken with a formulation of T.A Johnes -"another piece of garbage" of Civ IV. :)

FexFX, have you ever played C3C to see how cultural victory works in games with real empires?

And FexFX reported a proof for a fact we always reflected about. FIRAXIS doesn´t develop expansions. They cripple the original game and later sell these "ripp-outs" as additional expansions. Of course they always have troubles to reimplement these "rip-outs" again as there always were patches to the crippled first part of the game.

This is an interesting theme in Civ 3 forums, too. And may be this is a reason, why we don´t get the source code for Civ 3.

Oh, I wouldn't say they won't give it to us.... just that we haven't convinced them that they made a pile of mistakes that we reckon we can fix.
Of course, them being a gaming company, they'd never listen to such truths...

$$$$$$$$$$$
Pass the hat; just make sure it's a big one.

Oh, and we'll all have to sign the fine print saying we won't release a game that's so good, and free, that everyone will stop buying theirs.

In honor of Zulu...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Zulu_WRONG_FORUM_animation.gif

Come on Blue Monkey, even they wouldn't go that far...

Well... maybe. They just refuse to admit they made mistakes, and won't fix them themselves because of Civ4, and won't let us fix them, because then we'd be making the game better instead of them.

Being someone who has played both Civ 3 and Civ 4, I must say that Civ 4 is superior. Civ 3 is an old relic, and I've abandoned it. You should too.

Being someone who has played both Civ 3 and Civ 4, I must say that Civ 4 is superior. Civ 3 is an old relic, and I've abandoned it. You should too.

Civ IV is the better game. The problem is that the game looks like crap and the modding community isn't as good as here. So, we can all change to Civ IV and demand to change the graphics, etc., or wish for a source code here that isn't coming.

CivIV is a different game. it has somewhat better A.I. (Still not smart.) It also seams just a bit dumbed down to me.

Meh, 4 isn't any better than 3. Just 3D with worthless advisor screens mostly.

I wish they would release the source code for 3. It wouldn't cost them any money to do so would it? (Excluding future profits which is debatable - I am just referring to the amount of money they would have to spend to release it.)

I think the reason they won't is because they would rather have everyone buy a copy of Civ 4. It allows their newest (and most profitable) copy of their title to hold something that the predecessors do not. It's a money game, fans be damned.

FexFX, I will offer you the extra 1% you need.
EDIT: Besides, even if you are wrong, so long as you are modding it through your custom assets folder, all you have to do is erase it. But I too am 99% certain you are right. Make that 99.99% Now all you need is .01% :D

Secondly, unless my understanding is somewhat flawed, this seems to indicate that BTS and Warlords are both constructed as MODs to Vanilla! Any file they lack they search the Vanilla folder for first! Thus there was no need to duplicate the CultureLevelInfo.XML file for each of these expansions...Only obviously in BTS there was.

And what do you think are the conclusions, that it seems, as if BTS and Warlords are both constructed as "mods" for Vanilla as it was thankfully (so may be accidently) reported by FexFX?

And about Civ 4: In my -not very exciting- test run with BTS an event popped up, that my advisors now decide to grow up and sell small dogs. There was no explanation about that and the event sounds, as it was written for little children. :vomit: About religion. It is included as stupid as it was in former times (no wonder if BTS is a "rip-out" of the original game). Sometimes somebody is yoodling when he researched a new religion. And the graphics are still ridicoulus.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/58536/Civ4_greetings.JPG

This can be done much better with the possibilities of "old but better" C3C.

Civ IV is the better game. The problem is that the game looks like crap and the modding community isn't as good as here. So, we can all change to Civ IV and demand to change the graphics, etc., or wish for a source code here that isn't coming.

Petition time?

So, Goldy left us? :(

Petition time?

I'd say so. ;)

CivIV is a different game. it has somewhat better A.I. (Still not smart.) It also seams just a bit dumbed down to me.

Please explain to me how a somewhat better AI would be dumbed down. Dosn't that cotradict itself?

The AI is smarter, the gameplay on a whole is dumbed down.

Being someone who has played both Civ 3 and Civ 4, I must say that Civ 4 is superior. Civ 3 is an old relic, and I've abandoned it. You should too.

Civ IV is the better game.
:rolleyes:



I strongly disagree with you both. IMO, Civ4 is a PIECE OF [something that smells very bad].

Whaaa? ..Heretics!

Cata, you stay out of this ;)

I played Civ4 a lot, I have both expansion packs.

Civ 3 is a better game, Civ4 is boring at times, there are many turns where you don't do anything, the game is to short and if you choose marathon, there is just more turns where you do nothing.

Graphics are not great on civ4, the units movement seems ackward at times (especially naval units), the units are better on Civ3.

You don't have to go to war, you can pay someone else to go to war for you, other than that the diplomacy is much better on civ4, but that is about it.

I came back to civ 3 because it is more enjoyable and I prefer the more classic way of playing civ.