Will there be scriptable events, allowing the community to create it's own conquests (nearly) as good as those shipping with C3C? Can we replace the current graphics for units with new ones? (don't know if that's already possible)

I think it mentions on one of the previews that even the new conquests are without scripted events. So this looks a lot less likley. For your 2nd query you CAN already change units and such. Take a look around the Creation and Customisation board on these forums. (I have a funny feeling I've called that the wrong name... :-p )

You will have the same capabilities that were used to make the conquests that come with it.

Seeing as how Civ3 and PTW had nothing in the way of scripting and as far as I know, there has never been any mention by the people at Firaxis regarding scripted Events, I wouldn't count on being able to make a whole bunch of Legionaries appear, go attack a city on x turn, have the surrounding terrain change when it has been taken, and have gold appear in the attacker's treasury...and other fun stuff.
Well hey, you can't even set Diplomatic stances between civs or Reveal map...and you want Events. If new additions are in proportion to what has been added so far, you may be pushing up daisies by the time events scripting comes into the picture.

What we do know is that we will be able to set diplomatic stances (ie. locked alliances) and there was also a mention of a small woder that reveals the world map. I think these are probably the 2 most important things I would want when making scenarios... And if the editor allows you to do what they are doing in the conquest scenarios i am guessing you will be able to set your own victory conditions. It would be cool to make like a cold war scenario where you could make the goal to be the first nation to build X amount of ICBM's for example... the possibilities are going to be huge.

Originally posted by yoshi
Well hey, you can't even set Diplomatic stances between civs or Reveal map...and you want Events. If new additions are in proportion to what has been added so far, you may be pushing up daisies by the time events scripting comes into the picture.

:lol: :lol: funny but true. Event scripting is the thing that interests me most for C3C, but from what I read here it is still not in. Some of the new feats sound very good, but it was events that kept Civ2 alive for years and allowed scen creators to make some really great stuff. So it is very sad that Civ3 with all its advantages towards Civ2 can never take its place :(

:/ Scripts and other improvements were what I was most looking forward to and still am (if not in C3C then maybe in another expansion or eventual 'Gold edition'). Without scripting ability Civ3 will never surpass Civ2. Not that Civ3 isnt a good game and C3C will make it better; Civ3 just wont have very life span (Editing abilities (and the modding community formed as a result) of Civ2 have kept it alive to this day and will keep it alive to few years to come.)

Another good editor idea is the ability to lock governments. Like in a WWII scenario, the Soviets shouldn't be able to have a revolution to democracy while the Germans are invading. This would also be very handy in a "What If..." scenario about if the Soviets "won" the Cold War. It drives me nuts how the Soviet Union, China, and People's Republic of America all immediately start a revolution to become democracies on the first turn of the game.

I see there is still an interest in events script editing. That is good. There is also an interest, on the part of many who have posted, in Locked Alliances, Locked Govts. (last post), ect. Where is all this stuff? If people demand x and you can supply x, then do so! Firaxis has clearly failed to do so in many respects. What backward economics course did the marketing people at Firaxis take (if any)?
What do we, the players, know about editing scenarios? Plenty. What does the average, nerdy, "I took programming in school so now I'm so above you", Firaxis emplyee know about it? Apparentely, ZIP.
Maybe they should visit this site more often and listen to the players rather than go off on a conversation-killing (Chomsky term) rant about how they know everything already and only give praise (let alone an answer) to the few posts that happen to agree with Firaxis' narrow view of how Civ3 and its add-on spawns ought to be.
Unfortunately those of us who do give a damn about every aspect of this potentially universal game are few in number. In the PC gaming world it's mob rule, and the mob says it could give a flying Sid about editing.

There is still an interest ! Sure !

A minority is concerned, I agree but this minority made the Civ2 scenarios that were played by many for a long time. A multiplying factor, sort of :D

Scriptable events would probably be the greatest contributor to Civ3 lasting.

So far the reasons to go from 2-3 are imaginative only :mad:

So Fireaxis prove us all right and don't bother to put this feature in - within 2 years the game will be virtually dead - and we'll have all gone onto better things.

:D

Civ2 anyone? :rolleyes:

Originally posted by yoshi
Well hey, you can't even set Diplomatic stances between civs or Reveal map...and you want Events. If new additions are in proportion to what has been added so far, you may be pushing up daisies by the time events scripting comes into the picture.
Not to comment the scripting ability, but those two other things you mentiond are in for CRC, so there's at least something to look forward to for scenario makers.

[deleted]

...those two other things you mentiond are in for CRC, so there's at least something to look forward to for scenario makers.
Youre' referring to the new Locked Alliances setting and the Satellites tech that reveals the world map when first discovered?
If the extent of diplomatic settings available are just things like Locked Alliances, then that's not enough.
When I said Reveal Map, I was referring to the Editor's lack of such a setting. If they have included this into C3C, I haven't heard of it --I'm assuming that this will be included as it is a key feature involved in scenario-design (for obvious reasons). The fact that this wasn't a feature in Civ3 is odd. The fact that it wasn't in PTW is more than just an oversight. If they leave something as basic as this out of C3C... :cry:... :mad:...:nuke:!
As for the Satellites tech, I wouldn't even call that an improvement as it is essentially Civ2's 'Appollo Program' wonder only in the form of an Advance --just because they forgot to put it into Civ3 doesn't make it new.

------------------------------------------
At first it looked like Firaxis was going in a different direction (i.e. focusing on the core game) since they left out so much that had been in Civ2 --especially where scenarios were concerned. The fact that Conqests is so scenario-oriented seems to be a contradict this. Either way, the core game was still lacking. So considering all of this, it seems reasonable that Civ3 be better than Civ2 in terms of scenario-design. And quite frankely, no matter how good C3C may be, without Events, scenarios are going to be second-rate. Civ3 is no longer unique i the sense that is reproduces the progress of civilization. What has always made it unique is the fact that players can alter most of the game. I'll admit I was impressed with the Editor at first because of it's friendly interface (beats .txt files), but it lacked so much that it really wasn't much use. With PTW they 'added' more options (which should have been there to begin with). But if you look at it, the Editor really is lacking in every area. For example, a lack of a graphics Editor means that only the most dedicated players (i.e. those who are willing to go out of their way to purchase expensive graphics programs just to mess with the FLIC files) are able to make those changes. Part of the reason why players are not interested in Editing is because they would have to put in too much effort just to mess around. In Civ2:FW, I could create a whole new scenario in a few hours using the Editor because it was so user-friendly. Civ3's Editor could be even more user-friendly. I've never messed with Civ3's unit files because I lack the software necessary to do so (and see no point in wasting my time and money obtaining such software in order to create scenarios without so much as a Reveal map setting, let alone Events).
There are also plenty of hard-coded limitations (too many to mention here) that prevent players from adjusting the Rules to their prference.

And since the turns are so long, ANY change made will still be contered by that downside --think, the German forces are marching into Paris and you have to wait 5 minutes (at least) just to send them to Cherbourg!

If Firaxis were to base any changes to Civ3 on aspects of Civ2, then they would probably want to base them on ToT --at least where Events actions/triggers/modifiers/flags/masks are concerned.

[There is an 'Events' thread in the 'C3C Requests' forum if you're interested in the subject.]

RE: Yoshi and the backward economics course - Supply and demand of x...

Firstly, I would like to point out that we all bought Civ3 and salivated all the way home. We installed it, played it, enjoyed it and then (most of us) tried to mod it. I, for one, was dissapointed but still made some changes and enjoy those mods.

Then, when PTW came out, we all ran out as fast as we could (again, most of us) and bought it, salivated all the way home, installed it, palyed it, enjoyed it, etc...

I am almost certain, that despite any moaning about what Firaxis are doing wrong, how they are not improving 'our' game (as we seem to see it) in the ways that we want them to and all of the (eventually hollow) threats that some of us have made about throwing the game into a lake, burning the manual and finally, ritualisticlly uninstalling the game if they don't give us what we want... When C3C finally comes out, I'm 110 per cent sure that those of us who bought Civ3 and PTW will leave the kids alone in the house, forget about collecting our husband/wife from the airport who has been away on business for three months and go to the nearest CPU store that has a copy and we will salivate all the way home, play it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

Secondly, in our humble modders paradise, we all seem to forget that this game has been sold to oooooh sooooo many more people than there are subscribers to these forums and so Firaxis don't need to listen to us to sell copies of the game because we ARE in a minority.

Finally, I'm really grateful to everyone who has participated in modding the game, even if all they did was change the text in the menus, but we (the modders/imagineers/etc.) have to face up to the fact that the people who sell us the games we play are, when all is said and done, in it for the money no matter how much they enjoy making them. Has anyone you know ever recieved money for modding a "finished" (Ha ha) game? No-one I know has and I would never pay money for a mod (not one that doesn't have a Fiaxis logo on it anyway... PTW? C3C?) - Modding as an art does not (and should not) make anyone who does it in its true spirit any money whatsoever so why should any moneymaking entity be interested in it at all unless everyone who would buy it is a modder?

throwing the game into a lake, burning the manual and finally, ritualisticlly uninstalling the game if they don't give us what we want...
I read one post that said he went as far as urinating on the disk...after hurling it against a wall and stomping on it a few times.
Although some reactions are a bit extreme, having waited as long and witha as much anticipation as we have for a game that was meant to be better than its predecessor in every way, only to buy it and find that it is not what it was cracked up to be can be pretty frusterating. Personally, I get annoyed because although there are civish games out there, they fail to be better alternatives (e.g. CTP...ugh).
What I want is Civ2 with air units that can't be blocked by land units, ships that can't attack land units, Bombardment, maintenance costs gold, ect. Now you'll say: 'But that's exactly what Civ3 has!' And I say: Nope. You see, that's pretty much all Civ2 needed in order to be the best game out there --I didn't include the AI, because the Civ3 AI has whole new stupidities that Civ2 didn't have.

Firaxis don't need to listen to us to sell copies of the game because we ARE in a minority.
They have listened to, and incorperated some requests. Its just that there is so much more that could be done --all made available through the Editor, which is probably the best part of the game from a modder's point of view.


It would be nice to just have more options for scenario-design purposes.
For instance, a simple way of limiting land/sea unit range would be to make the 'Range' field also apply to them (i.e. unit disbands or can go no further or whatever the penalty for going beyond the range would be). The default settings would be set to 0 (infinite), in other words the way it is now. But modders (or even players just interested in limiting unit movement) could use it for their own purposes. If the programmers at Firaxis are as 'into it' as people say they are, then spending a few extra hours making this slight alteration to the game's program code. Designers would love it. Most non-modders would care less but some would have the option open to them. The user-friendly nature of the Editor makes this an easy if somewhat time-consuming (i.e. changing the rnage field for each non-air unit) procedure.
Another example would be including a maintenance caption in the Editor's Units screen (I mentioned this above and in the C3C requests thread. Simple to implement and fun to mess around with. In fact, when I first got Civ3, I assumed that the big deal everyone made around unit maintenance costing gold logically implied that units would have different maintenance costs. I went straight to the Units screen expecting to be able to set unit maintenance to my preference. To my dismay, there was not caption for this...all the units cost the same! I must admit that the unecessarily hard-coded unit characteristics in Civ2 (and their lack of improvement throughout the expansions) made expect some sort of stupid oversight on the part of the Civ3's developers.

The Editor is quite complete, it's the game the that's lacking (and no, I'm not contradicting myself).


[One thing I doubt they will ever be able to significantely improve is the game's slow turn rate. Even the best of modders can do little about that. :( ]

You may or may not be aware of this, but every little change to the "core" engine requires a lot more work than "a few hours," after you account for having to rewrite what often comes out to be a large portion of hard-coded material and often that creates more problems than it "solves." Add to that the fact that companies are usually on a very tight schedule and have other things which must be done by a certain date and adding things 'here and there' which would be 'nice' becomes very very difficult to do.

Originally posted by warpstorm
You will have the same capabilities that were used to make the conquests that come with it.

And what are these capabilities... lemme guess... 'No comment' :D :p

Originally posted by yoshi

Youre' referring to the new Locked Alliances setting and the Satellites tech that reveals the world map when first discovered?
If the extent of diplomatic settings available are just things like Locked Alliances, then that's not enough.
Yes, I was referring to the new Locked Alliances. I responed to the following quote from you:
you can't even set Diplomatic stances between civs Since it will be possible to start a scenario with some civs in a locked military alliance against some other civs, it is obvious that you will be able to set diplomatic stances between civs. Whether that's enough to make you satisfied is another question...

When I said Reveal Map, I was referring to the Editor's lack of such a setting. If they have included this into C3C, I haven't heard of it --I'm assuming that this will be included as it is a key feature involved in scenario-design (for obvious reasons). The fact that this wasn't a feature in Civ3 is odd. The fact that it wasn't in PTW is more than just an oversight. If they leave something as basic as this out of C3C... :cry:... :mad:...:nuke:!
As for the Satellites tech, I wouldn't even call that an improvement as it is essentially Civ2's 'Appollo Program' wonder only in the form of an Advance --just because they forgot to put it into Civ3 doesn't make it new.
I only said that reveal map is in for C3C, which it obviously is through the Satellites tech for the main game. And since it's in there, it can be modded to be in for scenarios as well. Add it to roadbuilding or any other tech that all civs start with if you want to start a scenario with map revealed.

RE: Yoshi and the backward economics course - Supply and demand of x...

Firstly, I would like to point out that we all bought Civ3 and salivated all the way home. We installed it, played it, enjoyed it and then (most of us) tried to mod it. I, for one, was dissapointed but still made some changes and enjoy those mods.

Then, when PTW came out, we all ran out as fast as we could (again, most of us) and bought it, salivated all the way home, installed it, palyed it, enjoyed it, etc...

I am almost certain, that despite any moaning about what Firaxis are doing wrong, how they are not improving 'our' game (as we seem to see it) in the ways that we want them to and all of the (eventually hollow) threats that some of us have made about throwing the game into a lake, burning the manual and finally, ritualisticlly uninstalling the game if they don't give us what we want... When C3C finally comes out, I'm 110 per cent sure that those of us who bought Civ3 and PTW will leave the kids alone in the house, forget about collecting our husband/wife from the airport who has been away on business for three months and go to the nearest CPU store that has a copy and we will salivate all the way home, play it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

Secondly, in our humble modders paradise, we all seem to forget that this game has been sold to oooooh sooooo many more people than there are subscribers to these forums and so Firaxis don't need to listen to us to sell copies of the game because we ARE in a minority.

Finally, I'm really grateful to everyone who has participated in modding the game, even if all they did was change the text in the menus, but we (the modders/imagineers/etc.) have to face up to the fact that the people who sell us the games we play are, when all is said and done, in it for the money no matter how much they enjoy making them. Has anyone you know ever recieved money for modding a "finished" (Ha ha) game? No-one I know has and I would never pay money for a mod (not one that doesn't have a Fiaxis logo on it anyway... PTW? C3C?) - Modding as an art does not (and should not) make anyone who does it in its true spirit any money whatsoever so why should any moneymaking entity be interested in it at all unless everyone who would buy it is a modder?

Hey Gromit, I'm having deja-vu.

Since it will be possible to start a scenario with some civs in a locked military alliance against some other civs, it is obvious that you will be able to set diplomatic stances between civs. Whether that's enough to make you satisfied is another question...
Its obvious that you will be able to set Locked Alliances. That says nothing about Peace, War, Vendetta, ect. You can't be saying that having only the Locked Alliances setting is enough for you. It shouldn't be for most. It certainly is not for me.
And since it's in there, it can be modded to be in for scenarios as well.
That is not an acceptable substitute for a 'Reveal Map' option in the Editor. Why make players go through the trouble of doing all that when including an option like this is so much simpler. By no stretch of the imagination is this asking for too much. I can't believe someone would actually question its (obvious) merit.

...adding things 'here and there' which would be 'nice' becomes very very difficult to do.
It sounds as if you're talking about rewirting the program code just to make a (slight?) alteration to an already existing field (if you were referring to my unit 'Range' example). I may be wrong, but I think you're making it out to seem far more complicated than it should be. How difficult could it have been to include new abilities and flags in the Units screen for PTW? If it were as difficult as you say it is (assuming that the Civ3 program works the way you think it does), what would the developer's incentive be to include anything but the most essential game elements --there were plenty that needn't have been included to attract buyers.


The Editor should have as many options as possible, thus encouraging modders. As I mentioned above, it's user-friendlyness makes modding a breeze, if a little repetative. The copy/paste feature for most captions in the Editor window speeds things up a bit.

More unit flags and abilites is a priority for me. I personally tried to use the Civ2 unit special ability flags to their fullest capacity when designing scenarios (ToT offered even more abilities).

I think we've established that Events are dead :cringe:, but there are a huge number of things could be included into the Editor AT LITTLE COST TO THE DEVELOPER which would make for a good time. In my experince, if there's one thing players in any catagory of game like, it's new features.

BUT...the one thing that needs to be worked on before anything else is the AI. You all know what I mean. Once that is dealt with I would add that the AI should get its own screen in the Editor with settings applying to various aspects of AI behaviour.
I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that Conquests will be including some new AI setting into the Editor..then agian, I may just be thinking of the ambiguous "Improved AI" they keep referring to.

Question for those of you who have play-tested C3C: Is it just game-play you're testing, or are you also working with the Editor (assuming any significant changes have been made there --besides a "Locked Alliances" setting)?

yoshi, many of the major modders on this forum and CDG are in the beta test.

Oooops!

Do you know if there were any contests or anything giving beta games? Can you buy, I don't care about the cost? I doubt my own question is even worth asking but the main reason I'm hear is I think all of the mod-makers on Civ Fanatics should put together all of the best mods to a create a super scenario with a lot of extra units and as many extra civs as possible. And could you please tell me how to add extra hit points to units in the editors, it's vital for a mythical mod I'm trying to create.

It would not be difficult to add a new field to a unit and implement it. You add it once for the object that represents a unit (class or whatever they did at Firaxis), you reference it when initializing, destroying, and when implementing functions that depend on the field. That is really not a lot of programming for something like "range".

That is really not a lot of programming for something like "range".
Good. Range is something I think has always been lacking in CIV. Units need some kind of limitation to their movement; i.e. attacking distant enemies should not be an option without owning/allied territory nearby (where ground units can "re-base;" i.e. re-supply). As I said, for those who don't like this feature (although I can't imagine why not), the default 'range' would remain at 0 (i.e. infinite --like it is now). At least players who want ground unit limitations (anyone who enjoys playing strategically should approve of this) would have the option of setting this.
Another alternative is just to add a whole new Ground Unit Range caption that could be activated or decativated in-game according the player's preference; i.e. a preference in the 'Begin Scenario' menu.

I actually created a thread just for this in the 'C3C Requests' forum, but it wasn't popular --amazingly enough.

To give you an idea of why this would be a good addition to the Editor/Rules:
People I try to introduce to CIV give replies like, "So the units can just waltz right across the whole map if they like? That's stupid." If marketing is to be a factor here, I would suggest that present and future developers of CIV take this into account.


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And could you please tell me how to add extra hit points to units in the editors, it's vital for a mythical mod I'm trying to create.
Open 'Rules' window in the Editor, then click on 'Units.' There you will see a caption with 'HP' next to it. Click on the caption and set the number you want (default is 1, I think).
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THX anyway but I figured it out right aftering posting this, sorry. But about that myth mod, I'm trying to create the following units:

Minotaurs, Chimeras, Pegasus', Giants, Elves, Dwarves, Nephilim, Leviathians and maybe Sphinxes or Cerberus'.

If anybody has any suggestions or comments please tell me quickly before I start testing the animations.

Originally posted by Packer-Backer
Do you know if there were any contests or anything giving beta games?

There was a website where potential beta testers wrote an article on why they should be a beta tester. This brought a large number of the testers in. The rest were picked from the various fan sites by Firaxis.

Can you buy, I don't care about the cost?

No.

I might have missed this if it was already answered but I didn't see this question. I am aware of locked military alliances btween civs, but can you make it where civs start out at war and are locked that way so they never get along and only fight when they meet. This would be real helpful in fantasy mods.

Originally posted by Packer-Backer
THX anyway but I figured it out right aftering posting this, sorry. But about that myth mod, I'm trying to create the following units:

Minotaurs, Chimeras, Pegasus', Giants, Elves, Dwarves, Nephilim, Leviathians and maybe Sphinxes or Cerberus'.

If anybody has any suggestions or comments please tell me quickly before I start testing the animations.

You are creating these units? I would be interested in them. Do you have them posted anywhere?

Originally posted by warpstorm
yoshi, many of the major modders on this forum and CDG are in the beta test.

As if I needed to be reminded I am not a great modder :cry:

Another question. Does anyone know if there will be an option to allow more than 31 civs on a map at a time?

Originally posted by tjedge1
Another question. Does anyone know if there will be an option to allow more than 31 civs on a map at a time?

Well, given the facts that :
1/ the current limit for civs is 31
2/ they restrained from 8 to 7 new civs

an educated guess would be "No".

Will there be more AI flags? And if so, does anybody know what they are?:confused:

It would be great if they had flags for Germany, Soviet Union/Russia and Italy. Then you could do decent WW2: Europe Scenario.

Originally posted by Inhalaattori
It would be great if they had flags for Germany, Soviet Union/Russia and Italy. Then you could do decent WW2: Europe Scenario.

That's not quite what I meant.:rolleyes:
I mean in the editor. Like artillery flags, terraform flags and so on. I think what I really want is to not have requirements to select the AI flags and then I wouldn't care about more flags. I don't like picking all of the worker actions just to flag a work as terraform. It would help the fantasy mods a bunch since elves don't cut down trees and orcs do. Anyone know anything about that?