I decided to post this concept; it is something I have been playing around with in my spare time, so that if others wish may use or not as pleases them. I have always wanted something to do in the game for the future while keeping oceans and navies, so I attempted to mod other terrain to create space as described below. There are some play issues with it (specifically units) that folks may not care for which is fine and understandable. Still others who are trying to expand civ3 into the future may find this approach usable for their purposes. Again it is a concept not a completed design, some steps have been done, others still have to be completed (these require re-balancing the game and seeing if AI would use).


Concept: Create a Map that can represent the solar system to include earth and other planets/stars (inside system or out).

Goal: Play on earth from 4000BC to 2300+ AD, keep ocean based navies, and then move into a space race for further fun.

Steps to Facilitate:

1. Use terrain that is 'impassable to wheeled' to represent Space (Orbital and solar) and Space Junk. This required some cut and paste from others (SPACE OPERA) into select terrain (Marsh, Swamp and Mountains). Additionally, mark mountains so roads/mines can not be built in them (considering same for swamp/marsh, but may want to be able to build space ladders?). Status: complete

2. Develop Test Map using 352x352 huge option. This is 50% complete (enough to test concept with). As around 40-50% is space with nothing on it the hope is that size will not lead to long delay times. Note this concept can not be used effectively with the random map generation (as keeping coast-ocean as set in normal civ3) and requires creation of play map/s. Might use to create a template that then mod, but takes a while to generate a map.

3. Mark all units (not space capable) as wheeled and change ship's carrying ability to allow transport. Status: complete for scenario using (RaR moded).

4. Replace Pine Forest graphics with Swamp (as want the look of swamps on map), thus pseudo swamps are clearable as soon as forests. Note: still get forest on plains as expected. Status: complete.

5. Make Hills represent Mountains and use LMHills for all hills. Status: complete.

6. Move action 'clear wetlands' to a later tech; completed for mod playing with.

Issues and Still To Be Done/Developed:

1. Para drop capability needs to be moved to later tech as now even though the units can not move into/through the selected space terrain they can be dropped onto it. Still thinking on what to do here ... may have to do without for WW2 period until around 2020?

2. Air Units can fly into space as soon as have them .. not desirable until a later tech. At this point am testing as land/sea unit options. Works but haven't yet played a game to see what AI does with them.

3. Add in space capable units (i.e. foot units). Still to be done. Have 1 for testing and can go into space and land terrains.

4. Adjust move rates for space terrain.

5. Create new resources for mars/Venus/asteroid belt/outer planets or stars.

6 have not seen what happens if allow barbarians ... guess is space will be filled with bandits by the time one gets into it.

7. Have not mod'd volcano terrain to be anything in space, plan is to make 'impassable' and use to block edges of map and other select regions. One option considering is to block right part of map to represent interstellar boundary. Would put stars or such there with a resource that gens large amount of food etc. Thus get interstellar drive (= para drop) and can then go colonize near stars.

Got any screenshots of what you've done so far?

have a map about half done; have inner planets and the asteroid belt on it, would be happy to post it and have done so using the attachment thingee above. It is a bit unaesthetic (fancy word for ugly) at this point as still trying to get the mix right and playing with unit capabilities.

best

JSnider

There are a couple of terrain mods out there that you can use as an inspiration... ;)

Lukree Land-Space Terrain (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=34138)
Code1/ Vadus Space Terrain (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=71552)
My own Solar System Terrain (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=119824&highlight=space+terrain)
NavyDawg' Space Opera Terrain (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=241467)

I think there are Mars and Moon terrains as well, but I don't remember where...

Flamand... Thanx for the references .. had a couple in already (Space Opera), but some of those i didn't find when ck'd the library. Will use for some of the other terrrain wish to mod out to be planet/space features. Had found the moon terrain (had dl'd it some time ago) ...still looking at to see if can incorporate.

This will be excellent if you can pull it off.

Thanx for comment ... at this point have the terrain working as I hoped. Now have to redo units and techs for last 2 eras. As thought the impact is on air and para-drop capable units, can have navies but air units need to become space units (later in the game) with terrain mix playing with (otherwise have ww1 planes flying into space). At this point have changed both unit types to land and am playing with A/D and Arty/move to see if can make work, at sea have keep carriers but changed to remote attack with blitz and no carry capacity. Will be starting a play test shortly to see what the AI does. Oh yeah the other task is to redo resources so don't have sheep and cows on mars and Venus.

After some testing, a compromise on air units is possible by deleting recon from all A/C until want to be able to go into space. In effect without recon a plane can not highlight space ... down side is can not do the same on land/sea either. The other problem is can bomb/attack units in space within range and detected (if there are any), a minor issue for me at this point.

Hi JSnider, I thought this was a great idea, so I gave it a shot myself. You can see the result here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6784706).

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/4160/80831138qx0.jpg

Thanx for the interest ... I'm still playing with this but doing as indicated in 1st post (i.e. using jungle/swamp and mtns to be space/asteroid terrain and they are impassable to wheeled units which all early land units are now). This for me solved the ship issue, although space ships (which are land foot units) can't go onto the ocean. I've completed a 1st test but had to stop as ran into the 512 city 'design bug', redoing the map to make the 'prime planet' smaller.

Additionally, am testing 2 concepts for space colonies, planets like 'earth prime' and solar systems. The later are surrounded by impassable terrain, so need paradrop capability (which comes in my redo in a later space tech) to get to them. The systems can only hold 1 or 2 cities but are filled with high value resources to make worth going for. At this point i am testing the 2 to see if the AI will go after. Oh the base for the tech tree here is RaR, have collapsed the existing 4 tech into 3 and added a 4th with mostly advanced techs like AI-Human Symbiosis, Deep Space Exploration, etc.

As said before the biggest impact is no recon for planes and no para units around the 1940s .. looking for an option on the 2nd that doesn't let me parachute folks onto the moon in the 40s .. fine for steam punk maybe, not what i'm trying to do.

a few years back i attempted something almost identical to what you are doing. in fact my proto-map looks like yours, but yours is better. i was trying to develop a scenario for SoG's Far Horizons, but then i got accepted into college, started working at the UN, started teaching in china, and needless to say havent had any time to pursue this.

anyway, id be curious to see where you go with this. if you have questions or just wanna share discoveries please post for me. I'll enjoy hearing them at the very least, but will respond quickly too.

one heads up though: make sure the earth is large. if AI civs get stuck in a default "one city challenge" they dont perform. they wont build wonders, create hordes of settlers that cant settle, etc. so they wont be a challenge. and given that 3/4ths of the game centers on the activities of earth anyway, dont feel obliged to make the solar system have accurate proportions. furthermore, an AI with even 2 cities will do decently, but 3-5 makes for a challenge. simply put, a human can do far better with a small kingdom than the AI can.

so, good luck! keep us posted!

KC ..

If you have any input would appreciate. At this point the prime planet (with 10 AIs plus me) is large, I still think to large. So no issue there and have found that the AI will go for space if i don't crowd them out 1st .. hardest thing to do is not conquer them before space age .. so have some balance issues. Have finished all but the fine tuning of the space techs/units/bldgs and am trying another test. If this works will consider making avail for others to try and find what i'm to blind to see. I was getting creamed in one game (3 players keeping up in tech and units) until that 512 limit hit (gotta say if wasn't retired and still working in my IT area, i'd ask the staff to try to break that, ah well to late now). If interested in screen shots would be happy to provide.

yeah post screen shots and as soon as you feel ready post the files as well! id be glad to help test a little (its always nice having someone else add their input to yours). as for conquest before space age, all i can offer (off the top of my head) is to do what the RFRE mod did (worked on that one too) and make a special terrain with a huge defense bonus or simply mod city walls to have an enormous defense bonus. this way conquest is possible but much harder for both the AI and yourself (although undoubtedly with a little artillery it wouldnt be too bad...) ill think on this one tonight a bit but yeah keep any news coming!

I'll be putting alittle scenerio toghether using a modified version of my Far Horizons Reduxe rules soon, using this terrain. Flamand is helping by making the map for me, it will be cool.

Hey Coltrane hows it going?

hey man how have you been?! sorry i flaked out on the mod before... you know how life can just get in the way of your gaming plans. i still have my half finished files on my comp at home awaiting the day i A) drop out of school, B) graduate, C) win the lottery or D) relax and so far none of those things have happened! but when i have a few weeks over the summer (ie really soon) ill be d-loading what you have now and giving it a whirl! i miss my old civ3! i dont let myself play at college cause my school doesnt offer it as a major :P go figure...

anyway, sorry to hijak your thread JSnider... but unless you post those screenies i may have to do it again! haha

Life can get in the way sometimes I know. I hope you can try out my newest mod. I hope to get the scenerio out soon, it will have space travel....:)

Post screens .. right, gotta try that again don't I. Ok hopefully have 2 in this post, one showing part of the Prime planet (earth), then a moon, and then secundus (mars like planet). Also tried to add a picture of overall map. The only thing i've yet to do to finish the mod is balance the units in last age and update the tech tree. On 3rd test play now, but looks like i'll run into the 512 city again.

Well almost had this complete except for updates to civ..pedia files and some final genetic techs, then ran into the old crash to desktop for no reason ... always when try to go into a city (usually when size exceeds point where pollution starts .. in game 12+) or hit the F1 key. Everything else works.

What have done is check all the graphics specs for units, buildings, LHs, and resources; found no issues at this point. Question I have is there an overflow issue in terms of the amount of money/production/science values that the game can handle. At this point am redoing map/s to lower amount of resources available and thus output to cities.

Any suggestions would be appreciated ... oh the terrain/unit changes tried work fine and open up the game all over again once earth becomes static, starts a colonization race for space/other planets real estate.

Also working on adding a couple alien races into the game on another planet .. but gotta find the crash puzzle problem (hope do not have to start all over with adding units etc.)

Sounds like it could be a missing graphics link... No idea what else it could be...

You are probably right but I sure can't find it ... as only occurs when open certain cities and use the F1 key. Probably a key (as seems size related) there but haven't found it yet. I do get an error msg in msoft (in computer management) that I believe is associated with problem so maybe i'll take that and try to decode it vs keep going with a file search and match.

Otherwise everything else is working liked i hoped (if a tad clunky).

Thanx for your input