Hi there everyone! This is my first post on this site; I'm feeling pretty charged today and thought I'd try my hand at a Civ IV mod that I've been thinking of for a while.

I'll introduce myself first. I'm a 26-year-old college student from Wisconsin. I've studied programming extensively but changed my major to history relatively recently, due in part to interest and part to my hobby of writing. Trust me--history helps a lot with that. The first Civilization game I ever played was Civilization II, which ranks among the most memorable birthday presents I ever received. It was followed by Alpha Centauri, which I still play from time to time. Other than that I've played games from most genres.

My reason for posting rather than springing into action trying to make a mod is because of the title of this post. Before I commit to creating a mod for the game, I'd like to make sure nobody else has already done what I intend to do, or if there's framework for the type of thing I'm intending to implement, what might be the best place to start.

There are a number of aspects of the game that I would like to change. Barbarians, great people, dark ages and golden ages, random events...well, here goes nothing.

I'd like to change the great people mechanic. Give them a more decent movement range and far greater frequency but limit their lifespan. E.g. when the years are still in 40 year increments, you have 3 turns to expend a great person if you care to do so.

Yes, I said if you care to do so. Great people also should no longer have to be spent to provide their bonus--and some bonuses should have a chance of executing when the great person dies of old age. For example, a great farmer (early, new great person) would provide a boost to food output in all villages he's connected to by a trade network. When he dies, your people have domesticated the dog; +1 food from hunting camps, plus a brief commerce boost as the knowledge inevitably disseminates.

However, that's not to say that you should always let great people die of old age. When combined, they can provide great benefits--if you get the right people in the right place. For example, a great general plus a great prophet might launch a crusade, or a great prophet plus a great philosopher might allow you to schism a religion, creating your own branch if you weren't fortunate enough to found it originally. A pair of great philosophers might give you a permanent +1 research per 20 population, or an artist and a philosopher together could cause research institutions to contribute more culture.

Great people as I envision them:
Ancient times (less likely in later ages):
1. Great farmer: Provides +1/2 food per worked grassland for all cities connected by trade route. Made possible by agriculture technology and more likely with all farming done. May provide permanent boosts to agriculture on expiration, or be expended in an attempt to uncover a new special resource. Combo with great philosopher provides a permanent small boost to happiness as the philosophy of cooking is expanded.
2. Great hunter: Provides +1/2 per worked plains for all cities connected by trade route. Made possible by hunting technology and more likely with each hunting camp. Can be expended to produce a great warrior, great explorer, or large production bonus for a city. Combination with a philosopher provides the ethos of sport hunting, providing a small commerce boost to cities with game.
3. Great warrior: All allied troops on the same square as the great warrior gain +15% to their offensive combat strength so long as he lives. Allied troops one square away gain +10%, and two squares away gain +5%. These bonuses are doubled versus barbarians. Can be expended to complete a monument instantly. Expiration gains the player nothing; the great warrior's death in battle, though, may cause permanent warrior ethos gains. Can be combined with a great artist to produce the national or heroic epics instantly, or with a great philosopher to establish military tradition.
4. Great explorer: Sight range of 2, move of 2. Ignores movement penalties, automatic commando ability. Capable of traversing water squares, but with the same limitations as early ships. Triple regular chance of good result from goody huts. Able to ignore barbarians and enemy civilizations. Expend in an opponent's city to gain a diplomatic boost by impressing them with your culture and civilization. Expiration is likely to reveal sections of the map or provide a trade route to a previously unknown civilization, or drop a language barrier between two civilizations. Combination with a great philosopher provides a boost towards great people production in new cities.

Later great people:
5. Great philosopher: Provides +1 science and culture in all cities connected by trade network. Requires writing and a library. Nearly useless alone but has a combo with every other type of great person and some of the best possible expiration effects. Expiration can found a new library in a city that doesn't already have one, double the production output of all cities producing wonders for 5 turns, provide massive cultural output, assimilate the effects of great people that other cultures have reaped (e.g. someone else's permanent agriculture bonus from a great farmer becomes yours also), and more.

You get the idea, right? I don't have a complete list of everything I want there yet.

Other than that, I'm thinking of things like logging and mining providing further-reaching bonuses but being slightly tougher. The first time a square is mined, for example, 3 shields are dispersed among the trade route for each worker mining the square (prior to introduction of engineering). These 3 shields persist for the 20 turns that the worker spends mining the square. Addition of more workers (or higher technology) makes more shields come faster, dispersed as much as possible. After the process is complete, the mine is finished and is treated as it is in normal games. Destroying the mine does not allow the process to be repeated--however, players might mine land that is not inside their cities. Lumber harvesting, on the other hand, provides slightly more resources per worker but takes much less time.

Barbarians should be able to trigger a dark age in a powerful civilization. Barbarians cutting a trade route off from the capitol could cause a splinter civilization--similar to making a colony but without as many bonuses.

Language barriers impede diplomacy and make tension along borders more likely. Borders which share a common language are less likely to generate dissent or cultural squabbling. A civilization can spend money or great people towards dropping a language barrier--but it also costs culture if you're appeasing the other side. It can also be a diplomatic demand, but it's a very harsh one.

How's it sound? Am I deranged, or does this sound feasible? More than that, does it sound FUN?

Sounds really interesting. I don't think that stuff has been done.

The Dark Ages was originally to be present in Civ 3, but was quitted because bonus is better than penalty. Then the Gold Age was born.

The Great People: I enjoyed the idea of various types, but it's only a preview, right? I enjoyed the idea of founding a new religion based on a old one. Would permit the birth of Christianity from the Judaism, and the Protestantism, etc... Putting a life span on a GP is something good but, once expended (like the Academy of the Scientist), what to do?

Language: It could add diversity for sure. Just imagine multiplayer games with people don't knowing what the other think or do. It could work just like a Religion (but founded on start), spreading (with diplomat-like units). A new tech could be add to let people know other languages (once you research the tech you understand the oponent, but the oponent won't understand you until he has researched the tech) allowing a pseudo-spying capability.

I dont know how - or even if - you can do all you want, but these are some interesting ideas for Civ 5.

Why does a dark age have to be an ENTIRELY bad thing? Or involuntary?

What happened during the dark age of Europe? A VERY simplified overview: Barbarian invasions (and other things) were pounding the bloated Roman empire, so the infrastructure collapsed. People banded into feudal fortresses to survive, forsaking many of the higher arts that had been achieved by Greece and Rome.

So, imagine that in the game, you're playing along and research Feudalism. You have a huge empire but not that much military, but you're the economic king of the world.

Suddenly, a bunch of rivals declare an alliance against you. They're technologically behind you, but not by that much. They're bigger than you if you combine all their forces, and your teching strategy has left you exposed.

Declare a dark age:
Cons: You sacrifice a bunch of your highest-level techs, your government changes to feudalism, and your tech output and great people generation are halved for twenty turns. No tech output from library or university. No religious spread. No wonder production is allowed during this time. No commerce, trade, or diplomacy are allowed. All units outside your cultural borders are recalled to the nearest city. Workers work at half speed.

Pros: It's like early, drastic conscription. A great number of troops are instantly completed inside your cities, sacrificing a unit of population for each new troop, reducing your cities' size by half. These troops are defensive; you can move them outside of your cultural borders, but each conscripted troop that leaves those borders generates two points of unrest in all cities. These troops do not require support as long as the dark age lasts.

A dark age can not be declared if your government is already feudal.

So maybe not a Dark Age. Try a new way to modify Civics so one of them gives +100% military unit production with -x% of research, worker build 50% slower etc...
That way you won't "reinvent the wheel"

Not to diverge too much from the thread's original purpose, but speaking of dark ages, what are they but eras of retgrograde technological progress?

There should be something like Education so that if you don't educate you actually lose technologies. Also, when a tech is first researched, only the discoverer knows it, and it must be spread. The thing about lifespans of Greats just brings up the whole generational thing. Is there room for such complexity?

@Talanic:

Regarding this idea:


Barbarians should be able to trigger a dark age in a powerful civilization. Barbarians cutting a trade route off from the capitol could cause a splinter civilization--similar to making a colony but without as many bonuses.


The Random Events mechanic may be a way to trigger some events. You can set certain events to automatically trigger whenever the trigger conditions are met. You will need to get your arms around XML (which is easy) and Python (which isn't as easy as XML, but for programming languages is pretty easy to understand.)


Check out Solver's how-to guide to Events modding for some basic information on how to script new random events:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=230567

Check out my Events mod (from the link in my signature) to see how I've implemented some unique events.