NEW AS OF 02/02/2002: Long Winded Changes, Early Release Preview 5 has been RELEASED!

Download it here: LWC Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=176848&t=5064#post176848)

From the changelog:

-NEW VERSION: Long Winded Changes, Early Release Preview 5 (ERP5). Changes the bonus resources provided by most resources (all changes are increases), tweaked the disappearance probability on Horses and Iron to make them 'move' less, changed Fruit to Bananas, fixed all the building bugs (including not being able to build some, and the coastal defense installations), minorly tweaked some unit costs, tinkered with a few naval unit abilitys (added Blitz to some...), and a few more minor changes.

The file is now called "LWC Mod ERP5.bic" to avoid confusing people. Load it as a Scenario to play with the changes. You must start a new game to see the changes, you can't just change the file name and load a saved game.

This version is a reccommended update for all users, and will not break (or effect) any old saved games. You will however need to reinstall the addon packs (like extra unit animations and non-labeled resource file), though those addon packs have not changed for this version.

NOTE: When unzipping the mod remember to OVERWRITE all the files it asks you about, or the mod may not install properly!


Note: This thread is quite long and most of the replys are old outdated versions (like 0.1.1). They're still worth the read, but to skip to comments made after the release of ERP5 skip to the following: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=176848&t=5064#post176848


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An updated modified LWC combat calculator is also available online at the website, and comes along with the mod in the LWC Mod directory. It's definately worth a look, and a quick reference to some defensive bonus changes made in the LWC mod.


Optional Addons: Visit the LWC website at lwc.realmofgaming.net (http://lwc.realmofgming.net[/url) to get the new unit animation addons, a building icon addon (had to remove it from the main download because it was too big, but you don't HAVE to have it), and a non-labeled resource.pcx file (for those who don't like the resource labels).

The website is updated, as well as the download, so here's the short form:

-NEW VERSION: Long Winded Changes, Early Release Preview 4. Oh so many changes, oh so little time. Basically I almost totally re-did all the units (cost, requirements, attack, defense, ZoC, etC), changed UU for America and England to more functional and useful units (the Minuteman and Longbowman, respectively), addition of multiple naval units (and changes of existing ones), 7 buildings (including a small wonder or two), some changes to the tech tree, tweaking of tech costs, changes to multiple wonders, a horde of small bug fixes, largely updated civilopedia, a fixed tech tree (display should be about perfect now), and a rearranged unit list.

To play you will need to load LWC Mod ERP4.bic as a scenario, rather than LWC Mod.bic.


All users should upgrade to this new version, because it's just that good! :D

And a request:

-REQUEST: EMAIL ME YOUR LWC SAVED GAMES! Zip 'em up, tell me what version of the LWC mod it is, and make them an attachment to an email to aemuli@yahoo.com

This goes for ALL versions, well into the future until I tell people to stop doing it!

Throughout the course of the game, if you wouldn't mind, save the games at the begining, middle, and end of each age. Exclude only the early and middle ancient age, as I have no need for those. I most desire saves from the late Middle Ages on, and personally prefer those from the difficulty levels of Regent or Monarch. However, I want the other ones too :)

This may also turn into a unique feature of the LWC mod later on, because when I get a good solid version of the LWC that everyone can play for multiple days/weeks I will request people send in some saves, which I can play around with and turn into a special kind of Scenario!

I'm not sure exactly why, but playing a game someone else has already started is really quite enjoyable, and I find I can learn alot from it (and I'm sure others can too). I have many, many, many ideas for this, but for now I want the saves strictly for testing. Most of the LWC changes take effect towards the end of the middle ages, and I don't want to have to play all the way from the begining just to get there and decide something should be tweaked :P

Oh, and you don't have to be a really good player either, or even have been playing Civ3 that long! Behind or ahead, good or bad strategies, it doesn't matter to me!



Enjoy!


------------------------------

Check out the changes.txt file from the LWC website (also included with the mod itself) for a full list of all non-unit changes (I haven't documented the units because they will be changed so much, and they've already all been changed alot). Here are some highlights:

-Totally changed unit combat system, which makes new units superior to old ones without allowing a slightly more advanced Civ to crush a neighbor who's behind in research. War is now also more profitable, but also more dangerous, as Attack values go up for Offensive units while their Defense values have gone down. Watch out for the counter-attack!

-Militaristic, Expansionist, and Scientific traits have been improved to bring them more inline with the other 3 traits.

-27+ NEW Units!

-5 NEW Technologys!

-10+ NEW City Improvements!

-4+ NEW Small Wonders!

-2 NEW Resources (Oasis and Fruit)!

-Barbarians aren't such pushovers any more. You'll have to earn that pillaged gold, and protect your treasury and people!

-And well over 120 OTHER game-improving rule changes!


Check the LWC Website (http://207.191.20.18/civ3/index.html) for various information and optional add-ons.

HOW TO INSTALL: Unzip the files into your Civilization III directory. The default is C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III, but if you choose another spot then be sure to unzip it there. So long as you do not use PKUNZIP, which ignores the paths set in the zip file. Any other unzipping program that uses the path variable set in the zip file (such as WinZIP, WinRAR, WinACE, et al) will work just fine.

If inside your Civilization III folder (or whatever you named it) you find a folder named "LWC Mod", and in your Scenarios folder you find a .bic filed with "LWC" in the name, then you've done it right.


-NOTE: The AI is capable of using and taking advantage of all changes. Any changes found that the AI can't use will probably be removed.



Be sure to thank the wonderful Kolyana (http://apolyton.net/forums/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=14818) for the web space/bandwidth :)

Two words: Lavish, Praise.



And as always, I welcome any and all feedback!

Ive been watching your thread and am very excited to start a game with your adjustments. I think it will makie it alot more enjoyable expirence. Could you please post what buildings you flagged for corruption, it would be appreciated. Will post another reply when i get a game goijng and see how things work out.
thanks again

Reame.txt is available from the website.


First version removed after 45 downloads.
Second version removed after 350 downloads.
Third version removed after 262 downloads.
Fourth version removed after 368 downloads.

Here is my current proposed changes for version 0.1.1, so tell me what you think of whether they should be in the next version or not:

-Palace now has 4 Bombard Defense and gives a 25% bonus to defense. 2 defense and 10% bonus was almost entirely unnoticable, so I had to bump it up a bit.

-Aluminum now has been raised up to 160 from 150 previously in this mod. It now has the same commonality as Iron and Horses, though it should still be more common I'll just leave like this. I've considered removing aluminum from the most modern units simulating how common Aluminum has become, which is the same thing the game does with Saltpeter (explained on the Rifleman's entry in the Civilopedia). But I figure the Spaceship is a game-ender so it should require all the resources it does (Aluminum, Uranium, and Rubber) for gameplay reasons...so I'm leaving it alone. It will now appear in the amount 2 for every player, but not every player will necessarily be near a deposit.

-Rubber now has 130 appearance up from 120. Oil has 120 and I figure rubber should be a little more common, but not much, so this does it. You probably won't even notice a difference, but as rubber is needed for some important units and the Spaceship it should be a weensy bit more common.

-Settlers can now Clear Forests and Jungles. The main use is so you can send off a settler and it can clear out a jungle/forest on it's own so it can build a city there. Seems reasonable to me.

-Swordsman, Roman Legions, and Persian Immortals can now Clear Jungles. They do have swords, don't they? They cannot, however, clear Forests, so you can't use them for logging. I gave the special units the ability because they replace the Swordsman, and it makes sense that they both have rather tough slicing weapons, which should be able to cut through trees anyway. The Romans had builders and architects in their ranks anyway, but I've decided not to allow them to build Forts.

Have you noticed that I hate jungles?

Great please do, I love it. :) :D

Especially does changes to the units so they can also chop down trees etc etc.

Please tell me when I could download does new changes.

Good job on the changes. Personally I have to wait untill November 19:th before I can play Civ3. So that sucks. Have been following the progress here and on civ3.com for a loooooooong time now.

I´m a bit, well a large bit, surprised that you and lots more have to make changes to the game, ALLREADY!!!?!?!?

This is outrageous. How can mr. Meier and Co. make a game that looks like this???

I really hope that my first experience will be good (not hoping for fantastic or "best-ever" anymore). However, when I see guys (and gals) like yourself post these downloads I get little calm. So thanx alot!

NEW VERSION!

Here are the changes:

11/12/01:

-Palace now has 4 Bombard Defense and gives a 25% bonus to defense. 2 defense and 10% bonus was almost entirely unnoticable, so I had to bump it up a bit.

-Aluminum now has been raised up to 160 from 150 previously in this mod. It now has the same commonality as Iron and Horses, though it should still be more common I'll just leave like this. I've considered removing aluminum from the most modern units simulating how common Aluminum has become, which is the same thing the game does with Saltpeter (explained on the Rifleman's entry in the Civilopedia). But I figure the Spaceship is a game-ender so it should require all the resources it does (Aluminum, Uranium, and Rubber) for gameplay reasons...so I'm leaving it alone. It will now appear in the amount 2 for every player, but not every player will necessarily be near a deposit.

-Rubber now has 130 appearance up from 120. Oil has 120 and I figure rubber should be a little more common, but not much, so this does it. You probably won't even notice a difference, but as rubber is needed for some important units and the Spaceship it should be a weensy bit more common.

-Settlers can now Clear Forests and Jungles. The main use is so you can send off a settler and it can clear out a jungle/forest on it's own so it can build a city there. Seems reasonable to me.

-Swordsman, Roman Legions, and Persian Immortals can now Clear Jungles. They do have swords, don't they? They cannot, however, clear Forests, so you can't use them for logging. I gave the special units the ability because they replace the Swordsman, and it makes sense that they both have rather tough slicing weapons, which should be able to cut through trees anyway. The Romans had builders and architects in their ranks anyway, but I've decided not to allow them to build Forts.

Have you noticed that I hate jungles?

11/13/01:

-BUG FIX: Somehow Barracks got flagged with -2 culture. While an interesting idea it was NOT intended and has been fixed. Barracks now correctly produce 0 culture.

-Factorys and Manufacturing Plant now produce -2 culture each. -1 was just too small to be noticable.

-Coal Plants and the Iron Works small wonder now produce -3 culture, up from -2 culture. A little mroe noticable, but it probably isn't a big deal.

-Recycling Plants now produce -2 pollution.

-Mass Transit now produces -1 pollution. With the above change it might help with pollution a little bit.

More changes may be needed to play with pollution a little, but probably the best is to somehow allow a pollution reducing improvement earlier on. Will have to wait until new improvements can be added, however.


You can download the new version in the first post in this thread.

Plutark,

I like these changes you've made, but I'd like to make one small suggestion. You've changed the privateer up to 2/1/3 which might be a mistake. Here's why; the great thing about privateers is, they don't carry a nation's flag. So, you can cut down another country's navy and not have the blame placed on you.
To go along with such cloak-and-dagger, there had to be something to balance it out and that caveat was the weak attack.
I use the privateers in teams of 3 or more. Many times I'll lose two of them, but I do succeed in knocking out the enemy and don't have the repercussion of war.
Just my two cents.
Keep up the good work!

When you build a city on forest/jungle it is automatically cleared, no need to clear it manually first. ;)
Other than that most of the changes sound good, I will try the mod after I finish my current game.

Looks great; I wonder if mod'ers will come up with a master mod much like the one over at the Europa forum.

One question though, do you know that settlers can already settle jungle and forest (and hills) with the same effect as settling on grassland? Or did you intend that they clear an area around the city site before settling?

Thanks,
Will

Great changes, for the most part. :goodjob:

A word about resource scarcity, though. While it's frustrating to not have access to a given resource (just try defending against tanks without rubber), I believe that's a large point of the game. If you don't have it, you have to trade for it. (Or if you can't trade for it, you have to take it, which may or may not be an option depending on what resource you're missing...)

With the modern resource dependencies, attacking/defending resources becomes a strategic necessity, which adds a whole new flavor to the game. It's much more interesting to knock out your enemy's supply to rubber, for instance, before launching a massive assault. Making resources readily available defeats their purpose.

My two cents. :)

A) I just realized today that forests/jungles are auto-cleared when you build a city. The strategy guide was wrong there, lol.

But I figure now they can also clear the area around the city. But frankly, I doubt it's a feature that will ever be used. I'm going to go ahead and remove it if for no other reason than not to confuse the AI.

B) I've moved rubber back to where it was at 120. Aluminum stays as it was for many reasons, but removing rubber from infantry was enough of a change to rubber.

But I will be removing uranium from the AEGIS, but that's just because the AEGIS' aren't actually nuclear. More info on that in the next version :)


Russiophile: I agree and the Privateer is a weakened version of the Frigate, but with the upgrate to Frigate if nothing else the Privateer was due for a +1 attack. 1 attack was just too small to be reasonable.

However, I relooked at the unit now that you mentioned it and decided to increase it's cos to 7 from 6. I thought it was more expensive, but I was wrong :)

That should balance things up nicely.

Current changes for the next version, up for debate. I gotta go sleep :cry:

Here they are so far:


-AEGIS Cruiser no longer requires Uranium. Through multiple sources, and especially through the information from [currently held till I get the names they want used] who were extremely helpful, I have found that indeed AEGIS Cruisers are not nuclear powered. They have extremely big gas turbines, but not reactors. I have considered giving it 6 movement as part of an increase in movement I'm thinking of giving modern naval units. Depending on the results of my current experimentation it may be part of a much larger improvement of naval warfare. However I will leave it as-is until new units can be added that ensure balance.

-Radar Artillery now has 2 movement. This unit is surely self-propelled, and should obviously be faster than a catapult.

-Rubber is now back to 120 from my previous change to 130. Rubber is naturally rare and should just be left alone.

-Nuclear Submarine now can carry 2 missles.

-Settlers are back to their default, no longer clearing forests or jungles. It turns out that they automatically clear the tile when a city is built. Go figure. Another reason strategy guides are wastes of money.

-Privateers now cost 7 instead of 6. I had assumed they already were differing in cost, but assuming makes and ass out of u and mi after all. This should ensure they are balanced out with other ships.

-ISSUE: Pottery is currently listed as a prerequisite for Map Making, which allows the Harbor, Galley, Great Lighthouse, and world map trading. Should it really be a prereq? I'd love to hear reasons why it should or shouldn't be.

-WOOHOO!: Thanks to my recently aquired ability to Add various things to the game, I will be doing so now. Now we be havin' some REAL fun!

-Added Unit: The Coracle is now available with no prerequisite, costs 2 to build, has 1/1/2, can carry 1 unit, and upgrades to the Galley.

-The Galley no longer sinks in the Sea. Still goes into the drink in oceans, though.

-The Caravel now has 4 movement, up from 3 previously. With stats like 1/1/4 and carrying 3 units, it's not exactly a Super Unit. (I will be introducing the concept of the Super Unit at a later date. Suffice it to say that now you too can attempt to construct a Bismark/Yamato)

I see that Forgotten Palace changes its requirement to 5 Temples! It is not very good. :(

However, I'm posting this to let everyone know that this next one will be BIG. BIG my friends. Here's a teaser of what is to come:

-Comes with an auto-installer so you don't even have to navigate you're computer's directorys.

-Adds more than 8+ units including the Mercenary unit (think "Privateer on land"), an ancient age warship, a middle-industrial age warship, 3 modern age ships which replace their industrial age ancestors, 2 totally new modern submarines, 1 totally new modern ship, and a new unit called the "Atomic Bomb"! (in the late industrial age, where it should be!) And maybe even more...

-Totally smoothes out, balances, improves, and greatly increases the importance of naval units throughout the entire game. Being able to ignore water units would be a very unwise move.

-At least 1 new non-government technology.

-At least 2 new governments which are not present in ANY other mod (one in the late middle ages, the other in the late industrial ages), along with 2 new technologys to go along with it.

-At least 1 new wonder (in the ancient age).

-At least 2 new city improvements.

-Changes land-based bombardment units to be more useful at certain points in the game.

-1 new ground unit in the ancient age which introduces a totally new concept for new units to the game.

-2 new resources. One is a bonus resource, and the other a special very rare strategic resource.


And that's just the stuff I have thought up today!

Yes my friends, the LWC mod will be the ultimate Civ3 mod.



Note: "Good lord willin' and the creak don't rise" I will update this mod when the patch comes out should it be neccessary, and do it as soon as possible after it so you can take full advantage of anything Firaxis may fix/change.

A small idea...
Maybe making the swormen upgradeable to either musketman or rifleman. Dunno about the musketman because the sworman actually has better attack rating than it, but the rifleman should be a good idea...

SkidiWili: I was going to try doing that today, but then I noticed that the swordsman and longbowman both happen to be Offense units, while the next offensive footsoldier unit is the Marine. It would be a bit screwy for the AI if I had an offensive unit turn into a defensive unit when upgraded, so instead I am considering adding an offensive infantry unit.

I'm strongly considering making it the Partisan :D

i noticed a "bug" in that patch of yours, the patch rawks tho.

when you made palace/forbidden palace(?) work as aqueduct you cant build those in the cities you have aqueduct. So you need to make those in size <6 towns so it really is a major pain in the ass if you'd wanna move your capital from, lets say, ocean side to deeper into the continent to eliminate some corruption. This might be just some weird bug the game generated in that specific game, havent tried it in other games tho.

for that offencive infantry, maybe introduce the infamous ski-squads? :D would rawk for blitzing..

skaut: Yup, that was a bug I noticed in the first version of the mod. The current one is the third version, which fixes that particular little bug.

It's an annoying "feature" that, for instance, automatically removes Aqueduct from the possible building lists in citys that already have access to fresh water. Ah well, it was a good idea while it lasted...even though it did only last through 1 version :)

Here are some suggested changes to upgrade paths that I am unhappy with in base game.

Swordsman should be able to be upgraded to Infantry.
Longbowman should be able to be upgraded to Infantry.
Cavalry should be able to be upgraded to Mechanized Infantry.
Ironclads should be able to be upgraded to Destroyers.


Also, in your suggested patch, a Manufacturing Facility should create "less" pollution than a Factory. I work for a Manufacturing Company and modern ones today, certainly create less pollution than factories from the 40s, 50s & 60s. Especially with all of the new EPA laws that have to be followed now.

Otherwise, I like many of your changes.

Shouldn't cavalry upgrade to tanks? (offensive unit to offensive unit)

My ideas:
Add men-at-arms. Available with chivalry, require iron and are 4/2/1 (upgrade of swordsmen), costs 50 production.

Add Crossbowmen. Available with invention, are 3/2/1 (like swordmen but require no strategic resource), costs 30 production.

The_Newbie: The crossbowman might be a bit redundant with the longbow having 4/1/1. However I may just add it at a future time, and it's a good idea. I hadn't realised the crossbow wasn't represented in the game.

But I REALLY like the Man-At-Arms. It may make it into the upcoming version (I'm hoping to release it either late monday or tuesday). I had kind of noticed that offensive infantry was oddly not available in the middle ages other than the longbowman, but hadn't thought about fixing it. But adding it to chivalry is perfect!

My new unit will allow the upgrade of the longbowman in the early industrial age along with the Man-At-Arms.

Excellant :D


Oh, and on the Cavalry. I'm trying to keep a relative theme with what can and can't be upgraded, and here's the thing with Cavalry. In what way would making a tank from an existing cavalry unit be beneficial? A tank crew needs entirely different training than Cavalrymen would.

The horses are obviously not useful either.

Also tanks are very strong and it's prefered that they must be built from scratch rather than upgraded.

So the rule of thumb I'm using is that any unit which marks a major advancement or breakthrough in warfare or when the two units are otherwise fundamentally different (like cavalry and tanks), then the units cannot be upgraded in that way.

The same principle is at work with frigates not upgrading to ironclads, or ironclads to destroyers, or destroyers to AEGIS Cruisers.

Historicaly speaking many Frigates (and other military ships) were refit as ironclads. The image used in the game of the Monitor is indeed the most revolutionary design for the ironclads but it's most famos battle was with the Merrimac a confederate refit of a standard sailing ship.

I also forgot to mention that I _had_ given frigates the ability to upgrade to ironclads, but with my changes to the ironclad that would not have been a good idea. Ironclads now sink in the ocean (if I recall both the Monitor and the Virginia both sunk for non-combat reasons), and when you choose Upgrade To that means that unit cannot be built anymore. That would result in there being no ocean-going warships until later in the game, and that wouldn't make any sense.


On a historical note, the confederate ship was not called the Merrimac. The confederates capture a union frigate called the "Merrimac", which they then refitted into an ironclad and re-cristened the "Virginia". So in fact there was never really a battle of "The Monitor vs. the Merrimac", because the Merrimac was no longer an existing ship.


If the upgrade system was handled differently the frigate could be allowed to upgrade into the ironclad, but with the current system such a change would be highly undesirable.

It's DONE! Version 0.5 is released in all it's glory, but it's unfortunately too big for the forum file limit.


Working on finding a place to put it, so it will hopefully be up by the end of the day.

At first I thought of splitting it into seperate files, but then I realised that it would take 42 files to do that. That wouldn't work :D

So I uploaded to an account I had on Hypermart, and we'll just use that for the time being.

So here it is! Enjoy!

LWC for Civ3, v0.5 (http://crazyoddball.hypermart.net/civ3/index.html)

Plutarck, how come your mod is sooooo big (20.8 MB)!?

Didn't the Monitor sink because of a very large storm off of the coast moving with other ships? The only reason I recall that it sunk for was because it is so low to the water, the waves just got all on it.

Oh, and witht eh size thing, could you break it down to like pcitures, text, stuff like that. Being a 56 k'er it is a lot better to take little bites instead of the entire 20.8 mB all at once. Oh, and it looks quite good.

It's almost entirely because of the unit animations. I added it up and with JUST the unit pictures the zip'd size is 18+ megs! When the installer swallows everything together the size is 20 megs, and that's without even having it wrap-in the VM with the thing!


What I'm going to do in the coming day(s) is spread it out a bit or maybe with someone's help I could instead use a .bat file since all the animations actually already come with Civ3, they just aren't in the right spot.

Don't you just hate having to have unit animations?


Anyway, there is a problem with the mod. I failed to include ONE single folder, which is the folder for the Pioneer. And just it weighs in at 535,000 bytes, which explains why the blasted thing is so large.


I'm going to have to get really creative here, but I'm confident I can complain about it...err, fix it.



I reccommend using the download manager GetRight, which allows you to resume the file if it gets cut off.

Regardless, just go to the page listed in the first post and download the patch linked there.

*sigh*

Installed the big mod, looked nice, however, several turns into the game, I got this:

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 015f:00403046.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=015f EIP=00403046 EFLGS=00010202
EBX=005c5818 SS=0167 ESP=00abfc30 EBP=01570eb0
ECX=0ad9877c DS=0167 ESI=0ad9877c FS=3fe7
EDX=00001894 ES=0167 EDI=00000000 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 80 3c 01 00 00 83 c1 58 8b 50 04 52 e8 38 71
Stack dump:
00000000 004063e3 00000000 00874438 0ad9877c 00000002 0ad98610 00000000 01f35ca0 005c5818 bff52d9d 0ad983f0 00abfc9c 00592afb ffffffff 004eab20


I tried again, same result. My folder is called civ3 instead of civilization III, so I copied the files after they were installed... would this mess anything up, since it's just the root directory? Anyway, I really like the mod....

EDIT: I uninstalled/ reinstalled Civ3 to make the folder name correspond with the mod, no change. It's usually around 2800-2750 bc when the crash occurs. I usually have two cities, a few warriors, a settler, a few workers, building barracks/coracle/warrior.

Got it. After reading the changelo(n)g, I am very astounded as to how much time you have put into this. It looks very good. But my question is, "Can you load a new set of rules into a game that you are playing that is saved?" I am curious about this because I never researched Printing press (which is now a required era turning advance). Also, I have almost no resources and with the massive requirement on steel, I shall have trouble bringing my units from one continent to the other to beat my enemy as I have no oil so my most advanced naval unit for now is a galleon, and I am in the modern era. While I'm thinking of it, did you change oil's appearance rate as there is only one source on my map (that I know of) and it is deep in my enemies homeland. It would be impossible to take it, because my most advanced units that I can build are rifelmen and artillery. SO I couldn't build any armor (including modern which I have the tech for) or any advanced naval units except nuclear subs and AEGIS which is a good way away.
If you could answer those two questions I would be thankful. And great mod once again.

jcarkeys: Thanks, I have put a lot of time and thought into it :)

1) There are some changes which can be applied to already existing save games, but with the changes in the LWC .bic you will be unable to play old saved games. When you try and load a saved game Civ3 will inform you of the rules conflict, and it will put you back to the main menu without loading the game.

So to play with the mod you'll need to start a new game.

2) I've left all the appearance/disappearance ratios of Oil alone. The only thing I've changed is what units require Oil.

Note: In the current version the new unit Transport Submarine requires Oil to build, which is an error. It will not require Oil in the next version.


Starkist: I believe you're suffering from the Pioneer error. Download the patch on the download page listed in the first post in the thread, and that will probably cure you're problem.

If not be sure to let me know so I can try to track it down.

i downloaded the mod but when i try and install it i get an error message say it cant find a suitable java machine or something do i have to download one or is there another way to fix this?

I had the feeling this might pop up if I didn't just include the java VM, but it adds 5 megs to the file size.

However, there's a simple solution. Just go here: Java 2 Virtual Machine (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/jre/)

Download and install that and you'll not only be able to use the mod, but also you'll be able to run just about every Java application and applet there is.

Plutarck:

couple of comments for you. However, I will start by saying your mod looks excellent, i have yet to try it, but based on the thread, it would seem to make the game much more playable. I am looking forward to downloading it. Keep up the good work!

First comment: Jet fuel is by no means mainly synthetic as you state in your readme.txt, it very much relies on a hydrocarbon base, which in this case, is commonly known as oil. Jet fuel contains more than 90 percent kerosene, which is a petroleum distallate i.e. oil. Apache helicopters, stealth bombers, and M1 Abrams tanks all use jet fuel. Anyways, the point of this is that any sort of flying since the dawn of air travel until the far future will require oil and lots of it. Obviously you can do what you will with your mod, but i would recommend changing it accordingly.

Secondly: Cavalry and Tanks are very closely related. Being that my original branch was armor (I currently serve in an air assault infantry battalion), my glorious branch of accession (armor/tanks) has its roots in the 'cav'. Actually, many modern armor units are often called 'cav'. While the technical training is obviously very different, the usage and tactics for quick moving, lethal units have not changed very much for the past 2-300 years. Horse calvalry units were and modern armor is used for shock and speed and cannot hold ground worth a damn. That's what us infantrymen are far. In fact, I would say the difference between a musketman and a modern infantryman is far greater in spirit than that between a tanker and a calvaryman.

Anyways, the point of this is to recommend that you have an upgrade path from cavalry to armor. I would make it very expensive, but there just the same.

finally, i would say add that all modern military units would require a new resource called 'paper' which could only be found in forests. Believe me, if the US Army ran out of paper, we would cease to function!!! ;)

thanks for your hard work and keep it up!

-k

:sniper:

Originally posted by Plutarck
Starkist: I believe you're suffering from the Pioneer error. Download the patch on the download page listed in the first post in the thread, and that will probably cure you're problem.[/B]

I got the patch and eerything is fixed. :) I've been playing for a while, that's why I haven't responded until now. Anyway, the problem must have been that the Americans or Zulus or somebody built a pioneer, even though my own civ didn't. Thanks for all your work!

Good God, Plutarck! I'm reading your changelog file, and I can't believe how much you have changed! I think I'll email Firaxis and tell them not only to include your modpack in the upcoming patch, but to take the game out of the shelves, repack them with a new updated manual, then release it again as Civ4 :) And, of course, I'll tell them to hire you. ;)

There were two things I didn't like, though. Colonialism and Imperialism as forms of government. Civilization has always used as a criterion of different governments different forms of choosing the leaders. Anarchy, despotism, monarchy, republic, communism, democracy, and fundamentalism are different mainly because the leaders are chosen differently (I know this is arguable for Republic/Democracy). Colonialism and Imperialism are not government forms - they are policies a government, be it a Monarchy, a Republic or a Democracy, may choose to follow.

Perhaps a Small Wonder with some of their characteristics would be more appropriate, something that would decrease war weariness and add some free units. I don't know what wonder that might be. Frankly, coming from a colonized nation myself (Brazil), I fail to see good things about colonialism/imperialism. Perhaps something like the East India Company. But that should have an economical effect as well, and I'm not sure what that might be.

Tell me what you think ;)

Oh yeah, I'm only talking about my gripes because I absolutely love the rest :)

I'm not sure if this is bad or whatever, but bear with me. I extracted the files to a temporary location to view the .bic. I was going through it and was looking at the different units. THen I got to one (can't remember) but it had unit icon number 84. I tried moving to a different unit, but it was asking for an integer from 1 to 83. It wouldn't let me move without changing it. Now my question is, does that work correctly in the game, or does it screw up? I haven't had time to check since I haven't finished my other game, but I figured I should ask before I install it. When is the new version you have hinted at coming out?

Just released version 0.6! Mostly bug fixes, so check the first post in this thread for details.

NOTE: You won't need a virtual machine them from now on. Due to some odd errors and possible compatability concerns I've just had the installer package the VM right along with it.


jcarkeys: Just now, but no real "additions" for now. Making sure everything is in fully working order as-is first.

The reason for that error is because the editor is looking at the default units_32.pcx file, which has only so many slots. Using PSP I added more slots to the image, so unless you go ahead and install that particular file the editor's use if icons will be screwy.

That at least works fine after it's installed :)


Faldrath:

Thanks! :love: :p


That is a very interesting point you make about the governments, and I hadn't ever heard that before. Hmm...I like the role the two governments fill, but perhaps finding a different name wouldn't be a bad idea.

I suppose an Imperialist government is kind of like having a Capitalist government. It makes sense historically (1500 to 1700 AD is often called the Imperial Age), but they do deviate from the government form of Civ3 itself. I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing, however :)

But it's good to have it in mind. I'd like to hear some more opinions about that also, so if anyone has something to say feel free to jump in. The more the merrier ;)

Btw: Colonialism/Imperialism was far better for the host empire than for the colonised one, hehe.

I'm glad you like the changes, and thanks for the compliments :o


Starkist: Great! Glad it's working smoothly and that you're enjoying it :D


kincyc:

Thanks!

I'll definately take the bit about oil under advisement and at least change that bit on oil. However, I will most likely leave the requirements for oil off the post synthetic units due mostly to game balance. Also, while oil is clearly used in nearly all vehicles of any sort now adays, it doesn't have to be; oil is just cheaper than the alternatives, among other reasons.


On cavalry, that does concur with what I've been hearing lately. However, the problem is that there is no way to alter the cost for upgrading. The only factor seems to be the cost difference in the 2 units (at least, that's the main one).

The main reason I leave cavalry as the end of the line is otherwise you could put together a significant army, discover the appropriate tech, then next turn you have a full invasion force full of tanks that came out of no where.

If the upgrade cost was more editable I'd probably be in favor of it, but as-is it just wouldn't seem quite right and could allow a "Tank Rush" tactic where an opponent builds up a full force of cavalry, saves up cash throughout the game, then suddenly explodes out with a full invasion force worth of tanks.

It is also nice for historical accuracy that Cavalry will probably end up fighting alongside Tanks on the battlefield. If Cavs could be upgraded that would happen only if you were short on gold.

And lastly, being forced to create certain "landmark" units from scratch rather than upgrading them does nicely to prevent a "race to [strong unit here]" scenario from occurring. Then again, so does the flaky combat system, but that's neither here nor there ;)


Paper is a good idea for a resource though. "Allows creation of: Post Office, Politician, Paper Cuts"

Plutarck,

Can't get to your download page.

Runestar

I had the same problem as Starkist. Before I saw v.06 I reinstalled CivIII. Now I see his bug & your correction. Use refer to v.05 on the link. Is that correct? I assumed you just didnt change the name. In any case, when I try to download it it tells me I lack access prvileges. What gives?

I've had a chance to play v.5. Very nice. I have downloaded v.6 but haven't installed it yet. One thing about the new resources. One, cotton appeared WAY too often. It was pretty much a cotton world. I think that bonuses should be more frequent than strategic or luxury, but that was absurd. Second, the new horse resource (can't remember the exact name), it was not as rare as you hoped it would be and how early I got it I would have easily been able to swing the balance of the game. SO far, it has only disappeared once, and then it moved into the square directly adjacent to it. Also on the note of resources, would you be able to change how much coal appears? In the aformentioned game I only found one source of coal and that dried up after a few turns of use. Coal is very common in the "real" world. And in the game, without coal means without railroads which is a very big problem even for very advanced civs. Thanks once again as I love this mod, take this advice positively, not negatively. Thanks

Sonunfarightmogon!!

Here's something I just found in my email:

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We regret to inform you that your account
crazyoddball will be deleted from our servers
within the next 48 hours because it violates our
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Reason: Excessive bandwidth usage


It is for the above reason that we have been forced to
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It hasn't even been 10 hours since I put the thing up! Bastards! Bastards all of 'em!


But on an extremely funny note, just those files caused me to snap the 500MB bandwidth transfer cap in like 7 hours :D :D :D

Lost a few things of minor importance (including the stat file, grrr), but damn. I guess I know how popular it was now, hehe.

Of course this is pretty much extortion, largely caused by warez sites but mostly it's just plain extortion. It doesn't stop it from being funny though.



Ah well, I guess it's back to the freakin' drawing board. I think what I'm going to do is learn Batch File (.bat) programming and use it to copy/create the unit animations and files. That should allow me to keep the version updates down to less than 2-3MB in size, which can probably just be stored here on the site.


It might be a day or two to actually learn how to do that (never done it before, but I'm confident that my ability to overestimate my abililty is not illplaced *EG*), but I'll try to have a makeshift update solution available by tommarrow.


Don't you just hate it when this happens?


[edit]Oh, about the above post.

The thing is, I can't freakin' control how much cotton appears. The appearance ratio is totally greyed out on bonus resources, if you can believe it. It's only available on Plains, and I think the problem is the game trys to balance things out by trying to make cotton as common as all the other resources.

Not sure what to do about that.


And for the new resource, you might be right. I might have to make it even more rare, and I'll definately test that more thoroughly as soon as I get these hitches cleared up so people can actually download the thing :(

:cry:

The news on the front page and this whole thread compelled me to download the mod.

Please, for the love of your god, someone host it somewhere!!

i'll put up an FTP when i get home, if someone could upload it then other peepz can DL it (got a 2 GB up limit or so from my ISP ) it does have a pretty slow up (5-10 kbyte/sec) but at least we can distribute it.

Where do i get this modpac?

it was DLable from a site the maker put up, but his max data traffic was exceeded, so i am gonna put up an FTP or upload to my ISP in a few hours or so (somone will have to upload it for me first though), but that one will have to go down after about 1 GB (not so much data traffic allowed as i thought

Well first of all great mod, adds alot more interest to the game. Frankly i look for mods just to enhance Firax's sh!ty job on gameplay, so i think you did great almost everything within some exception (not that important)

About the bugs well i found out the PARTISAN unit and MERCENARY dont work first off all game crashes (because obviously their is no folder with files for them - i guess your forgot about it or something not sure) well i tried to fix it so i disabbled the new comming in 1772 tech Corporation i dissabled the mercenary but the game still crashes cant figure out why just seems its starts really to mess up on later stages of game.

Peace

Hey there,

I'm in the middle of my first couple of (unmodded) games at the moment, but I have a question for Plutarck about the mod.

Have you introduced any changes into the zone of control rules in this mod? If so, what have the changes been from the original Civ3 rules?

I'm interested, because having read other posts about ZOC within these forums, I think the whole issue is much more subtle than just a on or off decision... I was wondering whether you'd taken any of it as input.

I'm sure I saw something about this in a post earlier, but I have been unable to find it... I'd RTFM but I can't download it yet :D

Looking forward to getting hold of this mod when you get some bandwidth...

Cheers, :goodjob:
N.

vodka1983:

...at first I thought you were full of it, but I checked to make sure...and it turns out that you're right. I can't believe no one reported it as missing before!

I counted the unit folders and it was exactly right, so I figured it would work just fine. But it turns out I somehow accidentally selected Mounted Warrior and Nuclear Submarine folders instead of Mercenary and Partisan unit folders.

This explains the crash that had been experienced when trying to upgrade to the Partisan.


So we'll be skipping straight up to version 0.7 full installation to be totally sure all the animations get done properly so the game won't crash like that.


KloePoek: I'll upload it for you if someone that offered (name will be released once they've totally accepted so I don't prematurely force them into doing it if they change their mind :D ) can't get it put more perminately online.


nedski: I've kept the current use of Zone of Control in the game intact as it seems reasonable for the ones that have it. It's possible that not all units that should have it actually have it or not all that do have it should, but I don't know of any such cases at this moment.

Can't D/L the mod, which is unfortunate 'cause I want to see the new unit rules. (can SpecOps disguise their nationality? That would kick butt!) However, I can comment from the readme, so here goes...

"...having Scientists who can't read doesn't seem very sensible."

On the contrary, most early science comes from religious guides and mystics, many of whom can't read. It seems perfectly reasonable to discover currency before reading and writing.

I'd argue against increasing the tax collector effectiveness. Tax collectors get the improvements counted in their bonuses, so I'd stick to that. But the Scientist increase is much needed. (Why did they decide a Scientist doesn't generate more output with a University and Research Lab available?)

"Forest value in shields changed from 10 to 15."

This will increase the use of IFE. Do you have a counter for that? Perhaps increasing the time required to plant?

Love the Palace changes.

Perhaps instead of having the library reduce corruption, you should have a bank reduce it? That's my preferred model. Administration of finances makes cheating on them much harder. Plus, I think banks should increase luxury. People tend to underestimate just how important a bank is, but reliable transport of major capital resources, and the opportunity to earn interest is a big deal. The Medici banks were heavily responsible for the Renaissance, but they're trivialized in the game.

Police station reducing corruption -- yeah, I get the joke. But it's still the right thing to do. They *do* reduce crime, and that's certainly a big part of what corruption represents.

Amen on the changes to Leonardo's. In fact, I tend to think the Workshop should be even *more* culture. Bach's Cathedral is 5. Surely the greatest figure of the Renaissance should be comparable.

Wall Street -- how about adding a +50% to luxury or tax output? It's no secret that cities with major exchanges (New York, London, Tokyo, Toronto, Hong Kong) all have massive influx of capital based on trading activity. If I had my way, I'd add *both* tax and luxury from Wall Street. Building a financial trading center for your empire should be critical as of the Industrial age. You could offset the new powers of it by making it require The Corporation. (How do you have a stock exchange without a concept of public companies?)

While on the topic of improvements, I read elsewhere about Factories and Manufacturing Centers having a negative impact on culture. I very much don't like this idea. The game has few enough ways to increase culture as it is. To take away culture based on making a city more capable of producing it is strongly counter-intuitive to me. New York used to be a major manufacturing center, but it's cultural heritage is very strong. What about London? Tokyo? San Francisco? I understand what you're trying to express here -- but the game itself doesn't allow enough cross-city support for this to make sense. You *must* build factories and manufacturing centers in your major cities in late game if you want to build wonders. How can a cultural mecca keep up with out them?

Resources in general -- there's a lot of pushback on this site about resource wars. Personally, I *like* the limitations of the resources and the fact that you can be forced to go to war over them. I think that's a major new dimension to Civ 3. What might make sense, though, is to allow for earlier reveals on some resources, so that you can make decisions about what you'll need later. For example, instead of Steam Power revealing coal on the map, maybe Chemistry should (would make that research more useful, too) and perhaps Steam Power should reveal oil. That way, you can find the resources before they become quite so crucial to unit development. Personally, I *hate* the fact that I can discover Steam Power, then can't build railroads until I've found some coal, too. It's not like people didn't know what coal was before railroads. It simply wasn't important to have it until then.

I think if you made those adjustments, you could refrain from a lot of the other resource changes you've made, because people could plan better. The trade, diplomacy and expansion aspects of Civ 3 are an exciting new aspect of gameplay. Let's not immediately undermine them by reversing the strategic resource concept completely. Let's just allow for better planning by revealing the resources before you actually *need* them.

I like Jungles at 1/1/0 rather than 1/2/0. You should be encouraged to clear and replant them for maximum productivity. Otherwise, they're just forests with disease risks. Real jungles have a lot of unharvestable stuff in them that gets in the way.

Thank you for the civ-specific upgrade fix. That was needed in a big way. The current behavior is very frustrating.

Infantry rubber requirement: shoes. That's what drives it. Ask an infantryman how important shoes are. Don't fight the resource requirements for modern armies -- it's a crucial aspect of the new game. A civ *must* get those resources to keep up militarily. Just make it so you can see rubber sooner. Like, say, with Industrialization or Refining. That will give the resource deprived the opportunity to secure it before it becomes crucial to military upkeep.

I do *NOT* like the approach of making late weaponry available without Oil. You can run a modern mechanized force of any kind without Oil. Not a navy, not an air force, not tanks, not artillery. You just *can't*. Oil is absolutely vital to modern warfare. If you've gotten that far and don't have it, then pick a non-military victory path. Again, if your concern is that you can't see oil until it's too late, then make it visible sooner in the tech-tree. That way you can use cavalry and infantry to secure oil supplies in advance of being able to build tanks. That, I think, offers better game balance.

Transport unit change -- yuck. Put it back, please. *OR* make it possible to airlift settlers and workers. Personally, I'd prefer the latter. The basic problem is that transoceanic expansion requires manually carting settlers and workers across. Sending a transport with 2 less of those makes for a lot more transPacific voyages. And modern transport ships can cart 5000 troops -- that doesn't make 8 game units seem unreasonable.

But really, I'd prefer to airlift settlers and workers. Build a beachhead city in a faraway land, rush an airport, then airlift your further expansion units. Much better approach.

Tangent -- have you considered creating a C-130 unit? Aerial transport unit that you could load up, then rebase far away? That would be awesome. You could make it low capacity for balance issues. The real thing can only carry two tanks anyway. Just give it a capacity of 1. It can carry a single worker crew, or a single tank unit, or a group of marines. But that's it.

Cruise Missles -- the Tomahawk is actually a long-range cruise missle. Earlier models were much shorter range, though obviously much more than an artillery shell. I'd be a fan of 4 or 5 here. They don't have the reach of an F-15. (The part that sucks here is Stealh Bombers -- they should have a range of 16 at least. The stealths over Afghanistan now are staged out of Missouri! Let's hear it for mid-air refueling.)

on Government Types -- I'd love to see a government that increased production, but discouraged war, even more than Democracy. Sort of a Libertarian model, starting with Democracy, but adding 3/unit support cost, a worker rate of 4, very high assimilation and resistance, and no drafting allowed. I'd make diplomats Elite, but Spies conscripts as well. You can investigate cities and steal tech like nobody's business, but you are utterly incompetant at destroying a rival's supplies. Give it some thought.

Was that enough feedback for you? :) And I haven't even downloaded the actual mod yet!

How about, after the discovery of the Corporation, if you could produce a new unit, very expensive, called the "Corporate President." That unit could be set to have leader attributes, and thus could rush wonders.

I'm thinking, maybe, a shield cost of 60 and a population cost of 4. Something you shouldn't want to build a stockpile, but something to help non-militaristic civilizations get access to Wonder-rushing. It's so freaking hard to get a great leader when you aren't out fighting all the time!

Just a thought.

Ooohhhh... Corporate President. Oooohhh aaaahhhh. Well, I agree that that would be nice. But why would you want to build somehting that costs as much as some wonders, and cost population? You should make it like 11 population points and cost oh, about the same as a I don't know. But something that is average for the time frame that it is discovered in. The high population cost would create a slowdown in production afterwards that would prevent it from building at all after. It would also be only capable for cities over 12. Having that little population also leaves you more vulnerable to attacks (since no Metropolis bonus). My thoughts.

Flynn: First of all, I really appreciate all the feedback. It resulted in some consideration that made me change quite a many different things and unearthed some other bugs and errors.


I'm going to go ahead and upload the changelog at the end of this post, so check that for what I've come up with so far. But to the points I didn't mention in the changelog:


Scientists: I'm going to try and add new specialist types soon and the first scientist will be made a Mystic, later the researcher, etc.

Tax Collectors: Do they really get a bonus that the Scientists don't get? I'm pretty sure all the entertainers get treated the same way...but I'm not 100% sure.

Factorys etc: The main reason for negative culture is to show that those are the opposite of desirable and tend to suppress the currently used definition of "culture" (which is only desirable culture, not undesirable). New York use to/still does have alot of industry, true, but is that really considered a positive aspect of their culture? Most people want to go to NY for reasons unrelated to factorys, and tend to prefer the areas where there aren't factorys.

Even with Factory, M. Plant, and Coal Plant in a major city you should still get positive culture, but it will of course be noticably reduced. With the many other culture boosts that are available a culture victory may become too easy, and it fits that people don't move to Pittsburg because of the impressive smoke stacks.

The only real use for that culture will be for a culture victory as the places you build them in probably won't actually increase your borders in a useful manor, and I believe that culture reversion has more to do with citys bordering your city and not the citys culture itself.

In other words, there is a reason not to build them, just like there is in real life. Adding an unhappy face to some more wouldn't be out of the question, but I think it's ok for now.


Special Ops Team: It's stats in v0.7 will be 14 cost (the highest of any land unit), 18/10/1, Amphibious, All Squares As Roads, and can Airdrop, but made available with Smart Weapons. It's powerful, but does come quite late in the game. A sickly excellant combo with Transport Submarine for clandestine but effective invasions.


Jungles: That is a good point about jungles, but I'm not quite sure whether or not to change them. Hm...I'd like to hear some more debate on them before I change it, so I'll leave it alone in this version.


Resources: I too like the idea of resource wars (it adds a little excitement to the game), but the problem is with "do or die" resources where you have basically lost the game if you don't have them. The only two that really fit that are Aluminum and Oil, and I think I've trimmed that trouble a little while increasing the importance of some other resources.

In the next version I'd like to make Spaceship parts that require rubber require rubber OR oil (synthetic rubber is derived from oil, I believe), but I dunno. I think I'll just leave it as is since the spaceship victory is easy enough as it is. I actually want to make it a little harder with a future update, mainly by adding another resource.


Here's a question: Titanium. How rare is it compared to things like oil and rubber? I think I'll add it soon, but I want to get some idea of it's rarity in real life first.


Shoes: I just can't quite buy that without rubber boots that you can't field Infantry. Are leather boots really that inferior? But I do also hear it's for things like seals and containers for ammo, while before they used Tin which would rust. Which makes me think it wouldn't be a bad candidate for copying but making weaker/more expensive if you don't have rubber.


Transport: Actually, I fix both in 0.5 I believe. Units are now airliftable and the new Modern Transport fills the missing role of large capacity transports.

And does colonization still even happen towards the end of the industrial age? Heck, the AI manages to fill 90%+ of the available land on the Huge setting before I can even make it out of the middle ages. But I imagine military invasions is the main use that would be reduced.


Government: Good idea for a government, actually. I'll probably add it when I finally get back into an Adding position and not just Fixing, hehe.


Non-shop transports: I really like the idea of a transport plane and I'd thought of it back before I could actually add units as well as a Transport Truck, but there's one problem I recently thought of and that's why I didn't add them in 0.5

Won't the AI be unable to figure out how to use them? There is a Naval Transport tactic, but none for land.

But yeah, there IS an Air Transport strategy...probably will be the next unit I add, but I actually I'd like to wait until Air Superiority actually works.


Buildable Leader: Leeia Coca (wrong spelling, surely) sound good? Hehe.

However, I do like the idea of a buildable leader. However it would probably need even higher cost, perhaps 60 cost but maybe as much as 6 pop points. The leader is able to build the 100 cost wonders (1000 shields) for only 60, so a 400 shield savings would need a rather steep cost. Would be good to hear some more about this.

Personally I'd like a Unique Unit to be possible, or an even Build Once Per Civ unit. Of course that is yet another thing that ain't possible :mad:



Thanks again for all the input! Just imagine when you'll be able to actually play the thing :D

Just my 2 cents on a buildable leader....

Someone mentioned what would be the point of a buildable leader equal to the value of a wonder.

Well, you can build multiple leaders ahead of the discovery of the wonder. If I had been a bully to everyone else in the game I'd be a little concerned about the UN wonder if I hadn't disabled it. I'd want to make sure I have a leader available just for that one.

As far as reality goes....well, I havn't experienced more than one great leader (been holding on to mine for over 20 years of war just to see and I'm waiting for the UN wonder in 2 turns). In reality, you could have more than one great leader per civ. Most of the Leader's names in the game had other Leaders mentioned living at the same time. Weren't Patton and MacArthur around at about the same time? Eisenhower too.

Just a couple of thoughts. I've been watching this thread quite closely. Keep up the great work Plutarck. I think you're the only one who is going to save us over the next while until "They" the unmentionables, get thier act together and get a patch out. But that has been discussed elsewhere.
:goodjob:

I really love the idea all along since you started the mod in the very beginning:)

In fact I have been modifying my own game ever since and in time I hope I can post one here myself (I am trying out with new units and new graphic stuff....an hour a turn on late game stages doesn't help the testing on my own mod:( )

I have made certain noteable change in my own game as in: Almost everyunit need iron once its discovered. Same goes for Oil. The only trouble is it then become like what was mentioned in the last post, a do or die resources. It would be good if resources can be accumulated once you connect it with a road just like gold and used as you produce the units. This will reflect the true world where cutting you off from an iron mine today does not mean you can no longer make sword tomorrow:rolleyes: This is very much true for gold as even if the AI kill all you road your amount in the bank is not affected.

I know this is just an idea (I can't find anything in the editor to allow this), what I would love to see is not only unit need resources to make, they need it to run :D One way of representing this is all unit that requires Oil will get their strenght halved or movement point halved if you run out of Oil (I guess only Firaxis can fix this). In fact, I thing Oil should affect the movement (German would have fare better in their last counter offensive in WWII if they have more Oil!!) while other resources like Iron or Rubber could drop the strenght to half or at least the unit cannot recover to full if damaged (representing a lack of replacement part or use of inferior parts)

In fact, if Firaxis is willing, it can even throw in the supply line thing where a unit with no link to a home city can never recover (a unit within says 2 tiles of a friendly unit is considered to be supplied? just a thought). I know I am getting closer to a military simulation but then again most part of Civ history are WAR. Its either you or the AI.

Now that you have whetted our appitites, I am hoping that you get the file download issues resolved SOON. For the first time since I started playing CivIII, I have been able to somewhat keep up with the AI at Prince level, and then crashed when I tried top build partisan.

Love the work you have done, can't wait till v0.7 is actually available for download.

I only read this thread around 3 days ago. I'm dieing to get my hands on this MOD. Please for the love of all things Civ, someone put it up on Kazaa. It will be quick to DL once a few of us get it.

Just post the name of the file so it is easy to find.

I can't find where to download the file.

Read the changelog. Thanks for the nod. :)

What do I have to do to convince you that making the strat resources earlier is the way to go? It maintains the interesting element of resource wars, but allows resource stranded civs to have lead time.

Here's where I think the problem lies: When you play the earth map(s), you get an advantage in that its fairly common knowledge where a lot of the major resources are. Oil is obviously in the middle east, in Texas, in Mexico, in central Russia. Iron is obviously in most of the major European and American mountain ranges. And so on.

The problem is random maps, where you might end up stranded without access to a late-game-critical resource.

Now, there's two lines of thought on this: 1) make those resources less critical by adjusting the unit requirements, etc.; or 2) tough luck, it's the nature of the game and forces you to hedge your strategies for victory.

Well, I'm saying that I think there's a compromise. By revealing the resources earlier than the associated units, you give random map players the opportunity to plan ahead and ensure access to the resources they need for whatever strat they've planned. It doesn't have to be *way* early... just enough so that you see the resource, can deploy units to secure it, because a neck-and-neck civ already has units based on it deployed.

It's not unrealistic and it satisfies both basic objectives.

Some ideas for timelines...

Iron: visible with Bronze Working
Horses: visible with Warrior Code
Coal: visible with Chemistry (or Metallurgy, which would make this relatively low-value tech much better)
Oil: visible with Industrialization
Saltpeter: hmmmm... not sure here. Perhaps Feudalism? Maybe Engineering?
Aluminum: Refining
Uranium: Atomic Theory

Think about it. Let's discuss it. I'm really convinced that this is the best way to go and I want to convince you. :) The LWC mod is shaping up to be the most promising mod coming out.

The LWC Mod v0.7 if FINALLY AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD! Woohoo!

Many praises to Kolyana as listed in the first post in this thread :D


Gotta do some other stuff but I'll respond to other post later. Just wanted to get this out there ASAP!

Downloading now, :goodjob:

Thanks to the host Kolyana , and to Plutarck for making this marvelous mod. I almost hate dropping my current game but I will just to start fresh with these mods.

Runestar

i already have 0.5 version and i want to upgrade to o.7 but how do i do that with out downloadin the hole thing again u say to use the upgrade thing but i guess im a completer
how do i upgrade!!

About time to rest for the day, but here is what I've come up with so far for version 0.8.

As you can see Flynn, you've convinced me to try out moving the resources earlier :D

We'll see how it goes, hehe. I've also played alot with the Modern Age tech tree and changed the Spaceship Victory so it should be more difficult, require more research, and take longer to complete.


Here's what I have. It's a whole mess of changes, and I think it's a major step forward for the game:

11/27/01:

-Space Ship Victory: The SS Victory seems to be too easy and end too quickly. I believe I have rectified this with the following changes. I had a much better and longer explanation but my freakin' computer crashed before I saved...grrrr. They should be mostly self-explanatory.

-All SS pieces: Cost 4 more to build.

-SS Cockpit: Buildable with Robotics, not Space Flight. Everyone should be in stasis, and even with "common" space shuttle missions everything is almost totally controlled by computers. If you're going to Alpha Centauri you aren't going to be driving the thing with a stick or using a calculator to figure out which way you should go. Thus, Robotics is required.

-SS Stasis Chamber: Buildable with Genetics, not Synthetic Materials. Genetics is a kind of "Advanced Medical Research" tech, and putting someone in stasis requires such understanding.

-SS Storage/Supply: Buildable with Superconductor, not Synthetic Materials. Part of what is stored is Project ARK, a collection of more than 150 samples of lifeforms to be used in terraforming a planet and bringing it to early norms. These "samples" are most likely embryos and genetic information, which probably require both Synthetic Materials and Genetics to properly manipulate and store, thus SS Storage/Supply should probably require both techs to actually build it, so while it doesn't require a Superconductor to build the thing I think it's the best place to put it.

-Modern Tech Tree: I am changing the modern tech tree to further balance the Space Ship victory, improve real-world accuracy, and make it more enjoyable too. I'm also moving around some Modern units for similar reasons and to reflect the change in the tech tree.

-Superconductor: Formerly requiring Space Flight and Fission to research, it now requires Synthetic Materials and Miniaturization. SM is needed to conduct the testing and manufacture of superconductors and Miniaturization is required for the powerful computers and advanced electronics which are needed to even want to look for a superconductor, much less actually develop one.

Space Flight and Fission simply make no real-world sense as requirements, and in game-play the modern tech tree is very screwy. The Recycling path is totally unconnected to any other technologys...suffice it to say that it's just a big mess. This change improves real world accuracy and many elements of gameplay.

-Synthetic Materials: Now requires Computers to research in addition to Recycling.

-Nuclear Power: Now requires Computers in addition to Fission.

-Advanced Naval Warfare: Now requires Rocketry and Nuclear Power.

-The Laser: Now requires Miniaturization instead of Computers to research, in addition to it's Nuclear Power requirement.

-Robotics: Now requires only The Laser to research. Because The Laser now requires Miniaturization, Robotics no longer needs it as a requirement.

-Nuclear Submarine: Becomes available with Nuclear Power, not Fission.

-Modern Destroyer: Becomes available with Nuclear Power, not Fission.

-Modern Transport: Becomes available with Computers, not Miniaturization.

-Coracle: Now has 0 attack. I didn't think of it till Smazza brought up that it might be too good and annoys other civs when it's there (he had the idea for a raft unit, but I prefer the Coracle). I forgot that I could give it 0 attack, and it makes sense anyhow. The only way to attack in a Coracle is to get out and swim over to the other boat, so it makes sense to me. This also means Barbarian Galleys can attack you and you can't attack back, hehe. That's what you get for puddlin around on a twig.

-Resource Discovery: Due to the arguments from Flynn I have decided to give the idea of making resources visible earlier a chance. Due to some of his reccommended placements I feel better that it will work, and I also thought of something.

The placement of resources is now more based upon when people began to think a resource could be useful somehow, but hadn't quite decided what to do with the stuff. For instance with iron it had already been discovered and experimented with Bronze Working, but bronze was the prefered use. It wasn't until techniques improved and more smiths starting playing around with iron that it started being used to create anything, so now you can see the resource Iron with the advent of Bronze Working.

I have also changed Wine and Incense, which are luxury resources, to not being visible immediatly. But they are soon discovered...more on that below.

-Iron: Visible with Bronze Working instead of Iron Working.

-Saltpeter: Visible with Invention instead of Gunpowder. This is a hard one...anyone have a better idea for it?

-Coal: Visible with Metallurgy instead of Steam Power. This is mostly to make Metallurgy more important to research, but coal is really a charcoal like substance which surely must have been experimented with in the process of metallurgy, even if they never did find the stuff very important.

-Oil: Available with Industrialization instead of Refining. Just reading the Description in the civilopedia makes this one make sense. Crude oil had it's uses and was experimented with as a fuel during Steam Power and Industrialization, but coal was clearly the prefered fuel of choice. After refining this began to change of course, and it makes best all-around sense to give it with Industrialization.

-Rubber: Available with Electricity instead of Replacable Parts. Rubber was useful for a very long time, but it makes a really great insulator for electrical cords and wires. Makes sense to me!

-Aluminum: Available with Mass Production instead of Rocketry. I'm trying to make it coincide with when the most effective method for producing aluminum was discovered in the late 1800s, and Mass Production seems to fit in with other uses of it also. The world supply of tin didn't cause aluminum to be heavily developed until quite a while later, so it shouldn't be needed for units earlier. This method of making aluminum requires electricity, but that would be too early for it to be found MP seems like the perfect place to me.

Any better ideas?

-Uranium: Available with Atomic Theory instead of Fission. Discovered in the late 1700s, uranium is one of the most valuable metals in the world...at least now adays. Seems a perfect fit with Atomic Theory when people started spending a lot of time playing with glowing rocks and trying to figure out what they could use them for.

On a sepperate note, isn't uranium used for the manufacture of advanced conventional weapons? Hm...

-Wines: Now available with Pottery. It makes sense even though animal skins were the main container for wines, beer in fact was stored in pots in ancient egypt. I still want improvements to produce resources so I could make a Brewery which turned Barley (strategic resource would be best) into the luxury resource of Beer. So many possibilitys...maybe in Civilization 4? Riiiight...sure, let's just keep telling ourselves that.

-Incense: Now available with Mysticism. Probable the best fit with Ceremonail Burial, this still makes sense in that the primary use of incense is religious/spiritual based and I wanted to have another reason to research Mysticism.

-The Oracle: Now availabie with Polytheism instead of Mysticism.

The main reason is to make it available a little later and help give more value to Polytheism. I think an Elephant Rider kind of unit should really go in Polytheism too and perhaps change Ivory to being Elephants. I'm not sure if you can just leave it as a luxury resource or not...would be nice though, and I could set the appearance ratio of it too. It's an idea, but we'll leave it till a later date for more consideration.

Anyhow, the real-world reason for this is that The Oracle became used because of the more widespread polytheistic belief systems of Rome/Greece. Polytheism really was just an advancement on the original "mysticism" (note: common day defiinition of "mystic" and "mysticism" is most often totally different than this historical definition. The currently used definition is: Mysticism, noun - 1. Immediate consciousness of the transcendent or ultimate reality or God. The experience of such communion as described by mystics. 2. A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience.), and thus The Oracle best fits into Polytheism.

ok no worries i found it maybe theres hope for me yet and thx for what looks like an awesome mod:egypt: :scan: :crazyeyes :confused: :eek: :p :( :) :goodjob: :cry:

Woohoo!

Now I can go to bed! :)

I'll download and try it out tomorrow Plutarck. Glad I could be convincing.

Aluminum -- Mass Production works for me. Plus you can throw the whole Aluminum can thing in with it. :) (I thought about suggesting Aluminum with Recycling, just for kicks.)

And thanks for the effort to make the SS win harder. It's really kinda my eternal fallback in the game. "Oh no! I'm going to get my ass kicked! Quick, build a space ship!" :)

Hi,
Plutarck, where is the link to download your mod?

Hi,

Got an error message when I tried to install it.

" The magic number did not match "

" Please get another copy of the installer and try again. "

My Civ 3 game path is

D:\program files\inforgrames interactive\civilization 3

Would the D drive be messing it up?

Batch files are nice......I'm just not a windoze guy....

Thanks for the mod though. Both my wife and I are excited to try it. :goodjob:

No idea what that means...but don't select the Civ3 folder itself, just the Infogrames Interactive folder, which is one level above the Civilization III folder.

So just use the default path but change the letter from C: to D:.

Hopefully that'll work.

I'm still having the same problem after moving it into the infogrames folder. :(
I can't change the path as it locks up into that error message right after I double-click on it to run it.:eek:
The program runs like .3 seconds then errors. (Yes, I've timed it :p )
Any suggestions?
I used to be a computer "geek" but then I left civilization, the real one, for 4 years and when I got back, changed majors because I was sooooo far behind.
So any advice just treat me like I know nothing about computers. :(

I'm still looking forward to the mod though....

Hm...I really haven't a clue what's wrong there, and the ZeroG.com site doesn't list it or anything else. Hmf.

Here's something to try. Pick a folder, any folder, on your hard drive. Doesn't matter which, and just try to "install" the mod into that directory. Play around with different ones, including just picking a totally new one, and see if it will actually do it for you.

If so you can then just copy out the Civilization III folder and drop the files onto the ones you already have in your game's actual directory.


Screwy, certainly, but it might just work.

Why not add a "clean" factory or a famous one, that adds culture, there are alot of factory visits and people are proud to work at the clean advanced ones. I would suggest, that from factory there should be "modern or clean factory" similar to changing powerplants from waste to less waste. I think this would be really good, up to you how to decide on how to put it in the game.

Hey I noticed special forces don't use rail even when they got a chance to. This slows them down somewhat. I don't know if this was designed or if it was for other reasons?

Runestar

I believe that's a dumb bug in the game, because Special Ops Team has the "all terrain as road" flag. I wasn't aware that it would mean "even railroad squares".

I suppose the Partisan, Scout, and Explorer are all the same way. Is that correct?

Hmm...definately annoying.

Great job on the modpack!!! Im playing it now and love it so far. Dont know if I found a minor glitch or not being its my 1st game with the new mod.. but my resource distribution really sucks (which I know can happen sometimes), but what was interesting is that I was swamped with cotton and thats it! It was like the computer distributed it as if it was a tradable resource (i.e. groupd of 3 or 4 all close together) and put nothing else in the area...

Again... may have just been one of those games.... but has anyone else seen any cotton side effects like this in any other games?

Other than that I havent found any glitches yet!! Great mod!

Another unit idea:

Enviornmentalist:
workers that can only clean up pollution, plant trees, and pillage (i.e. greenpeace getting pissed) and possible even giving them stealth ability (to represent differebt enviromental groups that have no true national affiliation but are radicals all over the world.

Keep up the good work!! Firaxis should hire you or commisson you!!!

Hey Plutarck,

I must admit that I still haven't played 0.7... My girlfriend said "No way you'll install that thing before I finish my civ", so... I'm waiting :D

I don't know if I'll like the earlier resource discovery, though. I think it might remove one very important (and fun) factor of the game, if you are able to plan ahead on resources. I don't even like the fact that we are able to view the whole tech tree from the start... I like the cold chill you get when, after discovering Steam Power, and being anxious to build railroads, you find out that you have no coal... :) (yeah, call me a masochist, I don't care :b)

Another thing: don't put elephants, or you'll kill the Indians :) But if you're changing the Oracle to Polytheism, then you'd better put its expiring date a bit ahead as well (or have you already done this? I can't remember...)

Last but not least, are you still considering changing imperialism/colonialism from governments to a small wonder? Think about this:

The East (or West) India Company:
- less war weariness (10%?)
- one (two?) more units for free
- 20 gold per turn (maybe a bit more)
- Available with Colonialism

I think it's more accurate to have a government, be it what it will, that decides to go into a colonialist spree, then builds this wonder, than a whole government geared towards colonialism/imperialism. No one says that Portugal or England had a colonialist government. Portugal had an absolute monarchy with a colonialist policy, England had a constitutional monarchy with an imperialist policy.

*checks if his girlfriend has finished her civ*

Darn...

I got to the point of building a Nuclear submarine in v0.7 of the mod and crashed. Could this be another possible missing graphics folder problem?

In general though, I really like the changes in this version. It is much more playable than the as-shipped version of the game. I do still see a problem in distribution of strategic resources. In my current game, I share a standard size map with 4 other nations and fully occupy the largest continent. There is NO oil on this continent and the other Civs (especially Babylon, which has at least 3 of the available oil resources) are too backwards to even know they have a resoource so I cannot trade with them. I am trying to win with a scientific, diplomatic or cultural victory, so going to war over it is not an option.

Could the instance of oil be a bit more random, like your mighty stallion -- in reality, oil fields are discovered and then depleted over time. Making them more random in their appearance and dissapearance would make the game more realistic and probable balance the situation out better -- just a thought

Plu, great mod, playing it as I speak..err write. I was wondering if it's possible to incorporate another map with this mod? Basically I want to use an earth map with your mod; is that possible? Point me in the right direction.

Ol'Lincoln:

That was actually a version conflict. I'm guessing you uninstalled v0.6, or something to that effect, and that caused the Nuclear Submarine folder to be uninstalled along with it. It's because I accidentally included the Nuclear Submarine folder in that installation, but that's fixed in v0.7


The easiest way to fix it is uninstall/reinstall Civ3, then reinstall the mod again. Or you could copy the Nuclear Attack Sub folder, rename it to Nuclear Submarine, then rename the .ini file inside to Nuclear Submarine, then the game should work fine.

Nuclear Submarine is actually a default unit in the game, so the folder is included with the Civ3 game either way.


Unfortunately I can't control how spaced out resources are. I really dislike it, but unfortunately I can't control how the game clumps resources together. I can only effect how many of them there are.

However, I like the idea of making Oil be depleted alot more. Oil wells dry up all the time causing new wells to need drilling. After all, if oil didn't get used up then they wouldn't be after ANWAR :)

I think i'll try making it deplete alot more and see how that goes. That way if you don't have access to oil there's a reasonable chance that you might "discover" some in your own backyard.


Faldrath:

Haha, there's always a downside to not being the only one that plays Civ3 :D

I'm still testing out the resource discovery, but I'm trying to make it so that you'll only reveal the resource a little before you need it. Not always so easy, but we'll see how it works.



Gotta go, will answer rest later.

Originally posted by Plutarck
I believe that's a dumb bug in the game, because Special Ops Team has the "all terrain as road" flag. I wasn't aware that it would mean "even railroad squares".

I suppose the Partisan, Scout, and Explorer are all the same way. Is that correct?

Hmm...definately annoying.

Noticed something else with special forces, their dropzone area is 0. Not good if your trying to get them to a specific area quickly if they can only drop in their own base. :) Simple mod you might want to put into .8. They need a high area of operation. It would be nice if they could drop anywhere on the globe that'd be sweet but since I think only ICBMs can do that...


Runestar

Someone mentioned beer as a discovery. Really cool idea!

2 new resources
Hops and Barley
(might have to trade for 1 or both)

discover beer, allows brewery. Only bulidable to cities with clean water access. (irrigation, lake, anything non ocean.)

Brewery makes 1 happy citizen in city, and reduce curruption by 1.

Hey just a thought! Your mod rocks. Keep it up. What do you think about this?

esnyper: I believe the Civ3CopyTool by Gramphos supports importing/exporting maps into a .bic file. So you'd just use LWC's .bic file, then Import the map.

That _should_ work, but I've never tried it. Another thing Firaxis should add support for ;)


homer: I have heard that problem, and it seems that it's just a crazy problem with the way the game distributes resources. As it's a bonus resource I can only control what terrain it appears on, but I have heard that is shows up in rediculously large amounts.

The only solution I know for now is to open the .bic with the editor, go to the Terrain tab, and unselect Cotton from the Plains tile. That would mean it wouldn't appear anywhere.

The other idea is to choose the Wet map option, which means there will be less Plains tiles and thus less Cotton.


I wonder, should Cotton appear on Grasslands? That would probably actually decrease the amount it shows up, but I'm not certain about that. Ah well, I might have to revise my use of it.


Note on Imperialism/Colonialism: Governments and "Government Wonders" (such as the ideas for Constitution, etc) will be addressed in a future patch. The current governments will probably nearly all be replaced, and special Small Wonders added like "Constitution" (which are expensive but buildable by any government, or at least that one will be).

It's not a small undertaking and I'll definately be posting about it before I make it into a release version. I'll be needing plenty of input and discussion on it as it will be a major change in an aspect I personally haven't spent alot of time considering, but it should be really excellant when it's put out.

Probably will be my next project, as soon as I can friggin' get everything with the installer and current game bugs worked out. It will also be post-patch, so we'll see what the patch does before I get started on it.


Resource Disappearance issue: I'm thinking of making Horses, Coal, and Oil a whole lot more likely to "move" around. Dunno about the other resources, but I think the strategic resources are just far too "static" as it is.

Things should be a lot more dynamic, especially since it's over the course of 6000 years of history.

I'd only like if Bonus Resources could be controlled more, but making them Strategic seems overkill.


Runestar: That was an "oopsy", as I added airdrop late and failed to realise I needed to give them a range of operation, hehe. It can only be a maximum of 8, however.


gorilladf: I didn't think of making a resource allow the production of a city improvement, but you're right. That is definately an idea!

Even if only Barley was used...but if used Barley and Hops you could make the brewery considerably more powerful.

But how about this idea:

If you have Barley and Hops you can build a Small Wonder, "Grand Brewery", which makes a few people happy and adds culture, but it also allows the creation of some kind of improvement which adds happyness that can be built in citys.

It represents the discovery of Beer, thus allowing all citys with access to Beer and Hops to build something like a Distillery/Brewery/whatever.

Another idea would be to do something like change Wine to the strategic resource of Grapes and allow the creation of the an improvement called something like "Vinyard", where the grapes are imported and used to plant grapes and produce wine, which adds happyness and culture.


Just an idea, but I think we can all agree that there is alot of things that can be done with the idea of Resources and that the current implementation has only scratched the surface of what is possible.

Yeah that would be cool! Is it harder to create a city improvment? You need the graphic for the cityview as well as regular menu graphic.

Hell you could make brewerys, bars, discos, mini malls, and maybe even an AA meeting place :)

I love how all the new units are coming. I just would like to see some cool new city improvements. I thought having to have 2 resources would make it more difficult. Your right, it should be worth a little more.

Does anyone know what the old mead was made from? Just hops?

Mead was made by fermenting honey or water. Ooh, that's a good idea for a resource. "Honey"

Hops is used for flavoring with a bitter taste (characteristic of beer) and for preventing bacterial action.

I believe in ancient egypt they brewed beer with just barley, having no access to hops. There was a thing a while back where they discovered a recipe for beer made in ancient egypt and actually produced some of it for modern consumption.

Now according to http://www.history-of-beer.com/html/story_of_beer.html, it wasn't until the monasteries in the middle ages that the monks (they were the scientists of the middle ages, really) boiled brewing down to an art and institutionalized Hops for use as a preservative and flavoring.

So perhaps the advance would go best around the time of Monotheism...but then again, isn't it kind of odd that Monasteries aren't represented in the game? Hmm...

Anyway, I'm not totaly sure, but I believe I could make Barley a luxury resource appearing in the begining, but Hops would be strategic and be revealed in the middle ages.

I've already added 3 city improvements into the game by just copying the current graphics available in the game, so adding more wouldn't be hard.


I think that resource-dependent buildings of all sorts are far too limited in their representation.


Note: I also think that Domestication, based on some other suggestions, should probably be better represented, perhaps best replacing The Wheel. The Chariot unit could be moved, and perhaps Horseback Riding be played around with.

It seems that the Warrior Code/Wheel/Horseback section of the ancient tech tree could use some kind of change, but I just don't know what.

WOW is all I can say about your Mod- what a Herculean effort! I'm speaking for many when I say, we're in your debt. Thank you, Sir!

A few odd thoughts about it all, as I've read through your readme.txt and changelog.txt.

1) Modern warships that would fit into the catagory of Nuclear Sub, AEGIS cruser (and even the Battleship) all can and ususally do carry cruse missles. These can even be nuclear armed, although I think I saw that you had the ICBM flag adjusted to Tactical Missle flag allowing them to be carried by ships capable of carrying tatical missles. OK good for Nuc Subs, does this mean by carry, they can lauch ICBM's now? And, last I looked, AEGIS cruser couldn't carry tactical missles so they cannot carry cruse missles? Ditto for battleships? BB, SSB/SSN and AEGIS can definitely fire cruise missles, as Iraq and Taliban have learned.

2) Airlift: you stated that Mech Inf.'s vehicles are more like SUV then tanks. Not so. APC's may not be as heavely armoured as tanks, but they are no SUV. A modern APC weighs more then the early tanks by a considerable margin. So Mech Inf. being airlifted is I think a stretch. This is an important one due to the MI being such an important unit. Radar Artillery would be about the same, they are BIG and Bulky. Not sure where it fell in on your mod, I havve'nt gotten to the modern era with it yet. Oh your right on about these type of units not being able to get into Jungles or Mts. , but I really think Mech Inf. should also be banned from that terrain. Of course they can move through on roads, which will usuallly be there, so I don't think the effect on game balance will be as bad as you thought. (Of course if someone pillaged the road ...)

Anyway, I really liked many, many of your changes. A few I think I might go into the editor and change (in some cases back), but all in all what you've done is GRRRREEEAT! Great job, and keep it up! Now, if I can just figure out how to use the CivCopyTool myself ... I'm no computer whiz and I'm a bit confused by this stuff about the VBruntimes ... downloaded those 4 disks Grampellon uploaded, but a little unsure how to make it all work- wish he'd do a tutorial like YOU sit up!

Thanks for the work on your great Mod! Outstanding!

Hehehehe I like the beer idea..

How about a new late modern major wonder. That being Ceasars Palace? It could add to tax money from the city and increase the happiness of the entire continent, along with add a bit of corruption to a city to balance it out.

As for other ideas I've been thinking of as I complete a domination game. Large transport planes, That can hold 5 (An Elite Army) and travel from airport to airport or to a dropzone? Maybe something along the lines of a C-5?

Pioneers that can cross shallow water?

Combat engineers. Workers that can fight, for mid period introduction. Being on a 5billion year old planet with lots of high mountains, getting a road across is important, and sending in just a worker, to be captured by an enemy.

I finally got it to work by re-installing, re-downloading and running from the remote site instead of saving to disk.
I'm not sure if any of it made the "one" difference, but IT WORKS!
I'm very happy with the mod. It was worht the wait.
Add another satisfyed customer to your invoice to firaxis :D

this is probably just wishful thinking, but does the lwc mod fix the air unit problems?

Ok, help out a computer-challenged civfanatic. When I download it, where do I put it? Do I just save it as a scenario, under the scenario folder?

Originally posted by Magellan
Ok, help out a computer-challenged civfanatic. When I download it, where do I put it? Do I just save it as a scenario, under the scenario folder?

Save it to a temporary directory, and then run it. You could save it to your desk top or even just let your operating system run it when it completes the download. It has a self installer.:D

Runestar

Runestar, I must say that I don't like your "Caesar Palace" idea. If we want a new modern wonder, let it be something like the genome project, not a lowly casino (come on, do you want to compare a casino with the pyramids? :eek: )

And I don't like the combat engineers idea as well. If you are worried about their safety, escort them :)

I'm saying this because I fear that LWC, as great a mod as it is, may get too cramped if we keep on adding and adding stuff. We need to detect what is necessary and what is superfluous. :D

i cant find a place on the editor that came with the game that allows me add new units or new techs or wonders? I can rename and change current ones but i cant add new ones in..I can add governments.... am i being dumb or is the editor crappy? BE SPECIFIC AND DETAILED PLZ!

Here is a strategy I came up with while reading your posts: You are at the age where most of the attack units are tanks and other mech things. You plant jungles (although I forget, can you plant jungles? maybe you should add it =]), then you could pillage all your jungle squares and they won't be able to get through because there are no roads! Of course, land units will still be able to get through... but you would cut off a main part of their army.

Plus, you need to change it so you can choose the directory you installed into... it is annoying if you installed to Civ 3 instead of Civilization III.

Yes please do make a zip version instead of a automatic executable...

Ever Since i installed LWC mod civ has been crashing after a short while of play. Since noone else has been complaining... i wasnt sure if it was the mod or not. Im going to reinstall civ 3, and then the mod again. But does anyone have any other potential solutions.

BUG: I automated a scout and whenever another units tries to kill it it wins without taking any damage, I'm suprised it isn't a leader yet rofl

how about dope as a resource.
it adds to commerce, corruption and happiness
and when its no longer present, it makes the citizens unhappy:):)

Enforcer

I agree that the casino shouldn't be a wonder, but maybe a city improvment.

Honey would be a cool luxury.

How about a medic unit! Would heal units in same tile quicker! That might be too powerful :)

Wouldn't the international space station be a new wonder?

I get the feeling that including medics as their own unit wouldn't be too realistic...
It's too fine grained; after all, each unit represents an entire platoon/squadron/army whatever of real life people, and they would have their own 'medics' internally to their unit (which I guess is why they can heal in the first place ;))

An alternative however could be a 'field hospital' tile improvement, which would allow units to be healed in enemy territory, a la MASH :) That could be quite cool.

N.

In the update log you asked about having Nuclear power stations needing water to work.

Yes, they do need it. Nuclera power stations need lots of water. If you ever visit one, there will be a massive lake near by

Originally posted by nedski

An alternative however could be a 'field hospital' tile improvement, which would allow units to be healed in enemy territory, a la MASH :) That could be quite cool.

N. [/B]

I agree kind of like the fortress, it would be really helpful. But maybe make it a little more general, like a "field base" or "base of operations" so you can repair machine units as well?

Originally posted by justicemongoose
this is probably just wishful thinking, but does the lwc mod fix the air unit problems?

I noticed no one answered this so Ill just tell you, the answer is no it wont. No one can fix that im afraid but Fraxis, and from what I am hearing all over that the update (official) is comming out this weekend, and I would imagine that the air unit problems would be fixed in this update. :) Hopefully along with alot of other bugs? :confused:

Hey I also was thinking, and how bout as a resource or more a luxury you add Cocoa beans? :goodjob: You know to make chocolate, I mean everyone likes that, especially women heh.
I dont know just a thought, I do also agree beer might be a good one to. :D

Actually nuclear power plants dont need a river. Its cheaper and more convenient if they use a river for cooling but cooling towers work just as well. Cooling towers use regular city water for cooling.

Version 0.8 is now available! Check the first post for details!


It does a whole bunch of stuff, as you can clearly see from the changelog.

Would love to play this mod... but no chance to download it... i get an error everytime...

One issue I would like to adress is military unit vs population. I feel that military units should cost population. Look at the Soviet Union, its losses in WWII greatly affected its population size and post war growth. I am going to expriment with this idea. It would limit the size of computer armies and make army size and empire size relative.

Originally posted by olebooya
One issue I would like to adress is military unit vs population. I feel that military units should cost population. Look at the Soviet Union, its losses in WWII greatly affected its population size and post war growth. I am going to expriment with this idea. It would limit the size of computer armies and make army size and empire size relative.

Theres one problem with that, and that is that Worker (1 unit)units and Settlers already cost citizens (2 units for settler)armies also cost money to support. Making all of this almost impossible to play, not to mention the fact it would make it slow to expand the empire your building. Not to mention making it even SLOWER to progress on the Tech tree:eek:, so all in all it was a good thought but prolly not to fun for everyone.

having problem with .8....did the upgrade from .7 rather than the full download.

Keep getting a program fault....anyone else having this problem

I like the idea of units costing population but i think reducing it size by 1/2 or whatever in one shot is excessive. I think a better way to cap population while not adversly affecting it is having units cost Food in Storage. By doing this you can induce starvation if you produce to many units or merly halt growth by rationed production. Of course you could always increase your food production but this will effect your shield production so everything is balanced :) in theory.

Originally posted by Bismarckey
Would love to play this mod... but no chance to download it... i get an error everytime...


Now it works! Tried it with MS Explorer... not working with Netscape!!!

please please please give me a zip file with the changes...

Hey Lord Roy I know Plutarck is sick at the moment so why not try the main web page?
http://207.191.20.18/civ3/index.html
Hope this helps you out.

I am looking for a zip file with everything, it is not on the main page.... I dont like auto-installer executibles... I want to see the files that are being put onto my HD and where...


RoY

I think thats a tall order to be asking for, I think you need to try and get ahold of Plutarck by email and perhaps ask? Asking on the boards might be pointless, considering its no one elses project but his. :king: By the way you sound like you have a phobia with executables :lol:

no, no phobia with .exe... but it would be helpful if I knew how he was modding the game I bought... without having to search thru it all..

In fact.. the .exe that he has released is in .zip form (partially...) and I have looked at it... but I didnt even see the .bic file...

I just like a little more control... especially when it comes to executing a file... that I do not know the person or company it came from... for all any of us know... it could be a nasty virus and he could shut his page down... and you would never know what hit you...

phobia... no... just extra careful...

RoY

Well to tell you the truth I haven't gotten a chance to try out your mod yet Plutarck but it looks very nice. One thing I'd love to see are maps such as The World Map, Europe, or others included with your mod. I have these maps but unfortunalty they wont work with your mod and I cna't edit them to do so. If I ever find the patience I may make one myself but until that time comes, you feel like making us all any? For some reason I relaly enjoy playing on a replica of Earth.

No matter, i'm sure i'll have some thoughts on your mod (as I always have something I think can make it better) but until then I have to say your mod looks like it is a miracle in disguise which can give you the powers of all the heavens and dieties alike, plus it can make toast. Mmmmm buttery jelly topped toaaastttt.

---------------------------------------------------------------
"It is within the very depths of our, HEY! hey that kid just stole our dildo. WERE MAKING A FILM HERE!"

Lesson? dont ever shoot a film in the phillipines.

Originally posted by lordroy
no, no phobia with .exe... but it would be helpful if I knew how he was modding the game I bought... without having to search thru it all..

In fact.. the .exe that he has released is in .zip form (partially...) and I have looked at it... but I didnt even see the .bic file...

I just like a little more control... especially when it comes to executing a file... that I do not know the person or company it came from... for all any of us know... it could be a nasty virus and he could shut his page down... and you would never know what hit you...

phobia... no... just extra careful...

RoY

:lol: I think I would call that a bit of a phobia. I mean come on I dont think he would ever try that, let alone shut the page down. I think you've either been mislead in your past or you mislead others which makes you think everyone might? I mean you never know right? :lol: So come on Lordroy i think your being a tad to suspicious. Not to mention your only one person wanting it zipped, and about 99.999% like it as an exe since it takes about only 2 minutes to install. I hate to break it to you but he isnt a major company so he doesnt need to make it your way cause you dont feel safe with it. I mean the files already 23 MBs as its and I doubt his server would like another one up just cause you ask for it. Basically if you dont like it or trust it then dont download it and stop complaining. ;)

While I'm mostly better with sickness, unfortunately I'm half-asleep as I right this.

But the only thing I've managed to think is the problem is with the Civilopedia, so I'm uploading a fixed version.

There "shouldn't" have been a problem with it, but the problem seems to be that Civ3 deals with wonders in a non-uniform way as compared to other types of entrys.


I didn't do as much testing as I should have, clearly, but I made the crazy assumption that just adding buildings wouldn't cause any trouble. After all, I've done it all before in the same way...LOL

Though it was also because I had just gotten board with the game/mod as a whole that day and wanted to spur on some more advancement.


This will probably be the last update before the patch, as I may end up having to "remake" the mod entirely.

No use spending too much time and effort on it as that is the case, anyway, and everyone will be busy messing around with the patch for the first few days anyhow :)


But this should hopefully fix many of the problems. Just put it in your Civilization III/Text directory and overwrite what's there.


Will deal with other posts whenever I actually wake up.


Patch is available from website. Just get that...

Originally posted by KALIROB2k2


:lol: I think I would call that a bit of a phobia. I mean come on I dont think he would ever try that, let alone shut the page down. I think you've either been mislead in your past or you mislead others which makes you think everyone might? I mean you never know right? :lol: So come on Lordroy i think your being a tad to suspicious. Not to mention your only one person wanting it zipped, and about 99.999% like it as an exe since it takes about only 2 minutes to install. I hate to break it to you but he isnt a major company so he doesnt need to make it your way cause you dont feel safe with it. I mean the files already 23 MBs as its and I doubt his server would like another one up just cause you ask for it. Basically if you dont like it or trust it then dont download it and stop complaining. ;)

Actually, it is not a phobia... according to THIS WEBPAGE (http://www.phobialist.com/) and dictionary.com, a phobia is:

*********************

pho·bi·a (fb-)
n.
1. A persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels one to avoid it, despite the awareness and reassurance that it is not dangerous.
2. A strong fear, dislike, or aversion.

*********************

I, probably like most people here, am a computer geek. I work at an internet call center, fixing other people's problems. One of the main problems that I see is when someone installs a patch to a program and, without knowing what it does, tries to "fix" it... well that never works as both you and I know...

Oh, and that he is not a major company means that he can just up a quit working on this, if he wanted... and lets just say he was a "freaker" or "hacker" or whatever else you want to call them these days... wanted to screw all of us and put some sub7 virus in it... therefor being able to then control and use our computers from his computer...

Now before I go off on some tangents... I am not saying Plutarck is any of these things... all I was asking was a zip file with all of the files/where they are supposed to go and what they do... take his .exe for example. Rename it to a .zip and then open it... there are some weird java installer stuff in there that I have no idea does... and coming from a game player, I would want to know where and what is installed to my pristine machine, that I built.

I have checked out the readme and I have incorperated some of the things that he has put into his mod into my mod, but I was wondering what else he did, and how he did it, so I asked, not once, but twice if he could make a zip file and put it where I could d/l it..

oh... and the reason most people like executible files... is that they are lazy and dont want to do the work themselves... or dont know how to...

My request is neither ABNORMAL nor IRRATIONAL, therefor my fear (if you must call it that) is not considered a PHOBIA...

/steps down from soapbox...

RoY

I don't think the .zip file with all the files is an unreasonable request, but as I already have to upload 50megs each time I change them I have decided to just wait until my post-official patch version.

Version 1.0 will probably handle installation quite a bit differently, and the unit animations will move over to an add-on pack, thus never having to be downloaded another time again.

And if you look at the webpage you will note that I mentioned that I had a "manual installer" planned for those who have a problem with the installer. Been there since 0.8 was added.


However for those of you who want a .zip immediately, there's a simple solution.

On the installer, rename the file extension of .exe to .zip. Now open the file, then open up the Installer.zip file inside that.

There you have the file which the installer actually installs, including all units, text files, and graphics files. The whole thing there right for you.

This will also be the instructions for people the installer doesn't work for, and that should also allow me to only up to upload a single version (just the installer for windows, not needing the .jar).

Well, I see where your comming from Lordroy, then perhaps you have a reason to be more alert. Just figuring the file is very large, and making a new version of file might be alot to ask at the moment (Plus might take away from future versions). It might not mean to much, but I can assure you he isnt trying to trick you. I apologize for my jumpyness earlier, I am a bit on edge at the moment with a wedding/school/angry fiancee :lol: She said I should apologize to anyone I might have offended while I was stressing once again.

Once again I'll have to respond to other posts later...but I think I've finally fixed all the stuff that needs fixing.


A patch is now available from the website, so just follow the directions there (just unzipping) and the only bugs remaining _should_ be in the game itself, not the mod.

*wipes brow*

Shwew!

An odd crash still exists where if you start a new game within a game the game will crash and crash until you reboot, but that seems to be a problem with the game itself.

In my opinion LordRoy, based upon the definition you gave us, you are suffering from a phobia. Sure the FIRST definition may not have been fitting but the second one did describe your behavior.


2. A strong fear, dislike, or aversion.


You do have a fear of exe files because a fear is defined as

1. A painful emotion or passion excited by the expectation of evil, or the apprehension of impending danger; apprehension; anxiety; solicitude; alarm; dread.

The key words being "apprehension of impending danger." which you do have.


Second you do have a dislike of .exe files, that is not disputed.


Thirdly you do have an aversion for exe files.

2. Opposition or repugnance of mind; fixed dislike; antipathy; disinclination; reluctance.

You are reluctent.

Incase you want to further discuss the use of words and thier proper meaning im more then open, but don't get into a pissing contest because someone said phobia. Its not a terrible word and it wasn't unduly used, it was simply the best way to describe your behavior. Like I said thats not terrible just a fact.

ahh ummm ... ok:rolleyes:

In RL aluminium is a vital resource (or rather bauxite is), but there is a way out if you don't have access to aluminium.

Magnesium is probaly a good substitute, it is not as common today due to costs, but all you need to produce magnesium is electrical power and sea water.

So building a (highly expensive) magnesium plant in a coastal city could be a way out. But I'm not sure if this is a good thing for the gameplay.

A few seconds after I trade for Masonry from another country (ie, when it is seeding the Stone resource) I get a crash to desktop. It doesn't crash when I discover it on my own, only when I trade for it.

Any ideas?

[Update: It is now crashing when I discover it on my own, too :( ]

Plutarck...

I still haven't played it (I'm waiting for the patch, so I halted all Civ3 activity), but I must criticize some things. Mainly your new wonders, because I don't like them at all. I think wonders should be really one-of-a-kind things, and neither of the 4 are.

Great Winery - Too general, and not too creative either. Furthermore, people might complain because it's related to alcohol consumption (although that doesn't bother me).

National Unionization - Again, too general, even though I like its effects and explanations.

Global Security Agency - Actually, on second thought, this isn't that bad. But since I said I would comment on all 4... :) But why 10 culture? IMO, this shouldn't give a lot of culture at all... what has security to do with culture?

Orwellian Thought Police - I know this is the most original, but come on. It's almost like creating Nazist Concentration Camps as a wonder. It's surely an evil thing, and shouldn't be a wonder (let alone part of the game) at all.

I guess that my point is that we need no fictional wonders - there are plenty of existing things that could be wonders, like the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, the Genome Project, Karl Marx's "Capital" (come to think of it, that might be a good replacement for National Unionization), Angkor Wat, the Taj Mahal, the Guggenheim Museum, the Parthenon, Stonehenge, heck, even Disneyland :)

Other than that, the mod is still fantastic. Can't wait to play it :)

I agree with Faldrath.

Originally posted by Faldrath
Plutarck...

I guess that my point is that we need no fictional wonders - there are plenty of existing things that could be wonders, like the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, the Genome Project, Karl Marx's "Capital" (come to think of it, that might be a good replacement for National Unionization), Angkor Wat, the Taj Mahal, the Guggenheim Museum, the Parthenon, Stonehenge, heck, even Disneyland :)


God those are some good wonders :goodjob: why dont you just write Plutarck and see what he thinks. Jesh you just named alot of wonders I never came up with.
But the Global Security Agency is a good one, and I can see how it has to do with culture, I mean it protects all the people and gives them time to be happy, basically like avoiding wars in the game, hell it just allows people to live happy without fear.
The Genome Project is a good one as well, real future tech sound to it makes it sound modern, some Wonders dont do that late in the game.:king:

Hey I was thinking and Il Mafioso's Civ3 Usability Pack 1.0 (Its on these boards) would be kind of cool to incorporate into yours, I mean I had his patch on until I started using yours and now those helpful icons are gone. :confused: Maybe you to could work together to get that added into your own mod here and make it even better? Just an idea perhaps? :D

Originally posted by KALIROB2k2
Hey I was thinking and Il Mafioso's Civ3 Usability Pack 1.0 (Its on these boards) would be kind of cool to incorporate into yours, I mean I had his patch on until I started using yours and now those helpful icons are gone. :confused: Maybe you to could work together to get that added into your own mod here and make it even better? Just an idea perhaps? :D

agreed


Enforcer

I have same problem as AuraPSI; game crashes shortly after discovering Masonry. Changed the enabling tech to Construction; restarted from a save and played right through Masonry but the game crashed at Construction. I have had problems with the added icons disappearing but the patch seems to have sorted that out.

Love your mods and appreciate all the effort you have put in and shared. I had fewer problems with ver 0.7 although it did crash relatively often at the first turn change, but was then stable if it made it past that hurdle.

I have that manifeso mod too! I don't want to loose that! It helps a ton. It would be great to combine these. Hopefully after the patch.

I like the idea of disneyland as a wonder :)

I played a game of the .8 version for quite sometime without a problem..looks great!! but I then tried to start a new game tonite.. and now it crashes everytime within 10-20 turns.. tried the ol magic reboot.. even reinstalled it.. but still crashes.. after reading the above posts.. Im wondering if the AI reaches Masonry and thats whats causing it to crash..

Moot point anyway until the patch comes out.. but thought id post the problem anyways

Yea I already emailed Il Mafioso's seeing if he might be up for it before i posted the question (so hopefully i might not offend him)so hopefully he might be up for it, and so might Plutarck. :) I think that combined that would be a real good addition, plus Il Mafioso's patch will live on in the LWC mod. So everyone else cross your fingers along with me :D

Well I learned I think should be used to warn others, so this post is more of a warning of what I and a few others have found a BAD thing about the new patch. DONT install that patch if you have WinXP and from what I would guess that same might go for Win2k. :mad:
For some reason with the patch it cant find Civ3 in one of your drives, and will only work if you switch the drives, I guess if you dont have 2 drives well your out of luck? :confused:

I have Win2k, and it works :)

Originally posted by Faldrath
I have Win2k, and it works :)

Well, at least one got lucky :lol: But with the patch now done I think we are all okay. :)

:goodjob: greetings this is my first post!

So where's this patch of yours plutarck? I painstakingly donwloaded version 0.8 and i hoping to fully play it for real! Damn those Illegal Operations!!

So now that theres a patch for the update (that sounded kinda silly :crazyeyes:) What about your mod Plutarck? I am guessing your going to have to get used to the games changes, cause i noticed the patch changed alot of the files in your mod :(
I guess we might be seeing a version 0.8a? :lol:

Originally posted by KALIROB2k2
Yea I already emailed Il Mafioso's seeing if he might be up for it before i posted the question (so hopefully i might not offend him)so hopefully he might be up for it, and so might Plutarck. :) I think that combined that would be a real good addition, plus Il Mafioso's patch will live on in the LWC mod. So everyone else cross your fingers along with me :D

I'm up for it.

...BUT...

I've got 2 things:

1. I don't think I can realistically put any significant effort into it before end of year.

2. I think we should take at least that long to see how the LWC mod adapts to Firaxis' patch.

I've only read the end of this thread so far (and it's 1:40Am and I gotta go to work manana) so if anyone reads this, please let the developer of this mod know that I'm game if they are, and to get in touch with me :-)

... I only wish I'd kept the mod files in my "photoshop templateish" mode.... oh well, you live you learn.

Alessandro.

P.S. Thanks for the Email heads up... would have missed it otherwise... very busy with work and PalmOS development. No... not PalmCiv. Not yet anyway ... but that would be cool!

Sorry for the delay in replying to all the posts I've had to skip over, but I'm instead spending the time on remaking the mod.


I've updated the first post in the thread, so take a look at that for more information :)


I'll just let the full list of changes speak for itself once I release it ;)


Il Mafioso:

Due to popular demand I do definately want to have an optional graphic add-on of your graphic mod. If you could provide a layer/template kind of thing, or just some of the graphics as a kind of "do-it-yourself-kit" I could probably do some work on it myself.

Between the stuff I'm doing though I might not get it done before the end of the year either (can't be sure), as most of my time will be in improving the LWC mod itself.

Due to all the changes I'm making I'll actually have to play the game through to the end (haha, imagine that) a few times and just generally do more playtesting than with anything else, because it's much more of a far-sweeping change (90% of the units will probably have different attributes, even if their relative powers remain similar).


However I'd also like to have your improved wonder screens available for my mod, so I'm hoping you kept the templatish stuff for those :D

Oh hell yea! :lol: This is sounding good already, this mod was the best (to me at least heh) and this should easily put it on the top.:goodjob: Thanks to both Plutarck and Il Mafioso for agreeing to colaborate on this project. :king:

I quiver with anticip.............ation.

Just wanted to give everyone an update on my progress so they don't have to guess :)

I have most of the actual changes completed except for the Units, and I have most of the land unit changes and bombard unit changes done. But they aren't complete and do need more changes still.

I haven't done much adding, but I've added 5 ground units at this time. They are Man At Arms, Musket Infantry, Shock Troops, Rifle Infantry, and Assault Troops (in order of their appearance in the game, more or less). (All units subject to change, but that's what I have so far.)

I've also added 4 technologys so far, and they are Sattle (who's name might change...just not sure what to call it), Hullmaking, Squirearchy, and Volunteerism. All are also subject to change, of course.

With the completed download I will also include a modified .html file which calculates combat statistics to make it easy to see what the changes to the units mean. I'm using 2 that are already available, but I changed them to make them easier to use and will also be updated for all the new units/changes.

With exception to Horseman (which will come later in the ancient age, but be more a little more powerful and probably more expensive) and Chariot (which now is alot like the former Horseman) most of the Ancient Age units are currently unchanged. Only defensive units haven't currently changed in the Middle Ages while all other units there have changed alot (they have had their attack increased, mostly). The Industrial age pretty much changes completely, and the Modern Age changes quite a bit too.


As an idea of unit changes, we'll take the Cavalry for instance. Formerly against a Pikeman fortified in a walled town/city it had a 53% chance of winning; with the pikeman fortified in the open the Cav had a 67% chance of victory (that means that the Cavalry wins only slightly over half the time in the first instance, and a little over 3 out of 5 times in the latter instance). However the Cavalry cost 80 shields to build in the game while Pikeman take only 30, meaning you can build 2 pikeman for each Cavalry and STILL have 20 shields left over. And the Cavalry comes at the tail end of the Middle Ages, while the Pikeman comes at the very begining!

Now the Cav have a 69% chance of victory in the former instance, and an 82% chance of winning in the latter instance. This may increase, but I'm still thoroughly testing it. Seems good on paper, but remember the Musketman is available much earlier in the age than Cavalry.

Just as an idea of what percentages mean, in my game I had a 4hp warrior fortified on a hill be killed by a barbarian 3hp warrior that was attacking (on Monarchy level, so no bonus against barbarians). The bariarian had a 13% chance of success.

That's how probability works, after all :rolleyes:

So it's not a gigantic change in probability, but still a significant one and may still be altered upon more testing.


I'm also experimenting with tweaking unit hitpoints a little, and am liking the results. Only a minor change but it does seem to smooth out combat results nicely. Changing the "Normal" hitpoints by 1 seems to swing the probabilitys about 3-5% in the favor of what victory was most likely anyhow. So a Tank is less likely to loose to a Pikeman, while a Pikeman is more likely to win against an attacking Swordsman (when fortified, that is).


The changes.txt file currently lists the changing of 100 different item in the game (changing a technologys cost and requirements would only be counted as 1 change, for instance), and I haven't added any unit info yet :D

At this rate there will probably be over 150 changes/additions in this release version, :lol: . I also haven't done the governments yet either :D


So it's probably going to be at least into next week before a release version is ready, though I might put out a late-beta version to make sure all the kinks are worked out and give you all something to play with :D

This will definately spice up and improve the game _alot_ in my humble opinion.

One last note: I found corruption totally mangabable as-is, so the addition of the corruption reducing improvements might be all that's needed to keep things going smoothly throughout the game. But this could just be my new strat which builds less citys than normal and gets the capital up to max size so early...dunno ;)

How long does it take you to do ONE turn? My goodness! If you figure out every combat for all your units, it must take you a year to finish a game! :crazyeyes

I can only begin to tell you how much we all appreciate your efforts! You (and fellow modders) make the game even more fun!

I can only hope that when you catch up on your own stuff, you can incorporate other Modders add ons. If I have to have only one mod, no question....it is LWC! :goodjob:

PS: Don't forget the beer! :D

How about a Nationalised team? Like the USA hockey team? Would help fight corruption. (Maybe not a soccer team. Those fans are nutz :jump: )

I think raise both the "Normal" and "Vetran" units hitpoints by one. Let the "Elite" have the same hitpoints as a "Veteran", but of course, you can only get a Leader from an "Elite Win". I have been playing around with this and it works very well, much better than just raising all of them, and it does not screw up the hit-point graphics.

RoY

Originally posted by lordroy
I think raise both the "Normal" and "Vetran" units hitpoints by one. Let the "Elite" have the same hitpoints as a "Veteran", but of course, you can only get a Leader from an "Elite Win". I have been playing around with this and it works very well, much better than just raising all of them, and it does not screw up the hit-point graphics.

RoY

Hey good idea lordroy, I do that with my maps rules to, so that the battles are a bit longer and stands a chance of a pikeman loosing to a tank or at least get more damage done to them. Well it just seems that once I did that it stopped the incidents of tanks loosing by about 65 percent. :) Might be a bit more interesting to, glad your thinking what I am thinking.

I'm sure you may have seen this Mod plutarck:
thread here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10950&pagenumber=1)
I like some of the techs and city improvments. I know you said you were working on making your mod work with others, this is one I would like to see.
:goodjob:

The maker of the LWC mod seems to be the one to talk to about this. Could you put in a land mine unit? As I see it, the ideal attributes would be:
A D M
0 0 1 unfortified
0 10 0 fortified
*no vet or elite with victory (mines don't gain experience; or start as elite and charge accordingly)
*no healing (if 1/3 of the mines were detonated/disarmed in an attack of an area they won't heal)
*mobile at speed 1 until fortified or "built" then immobile
*0 defense like workers/catapult until fortified (captureable)
*movement through tile with mines like mountain.
*fortified in city -3 happy faces discourage use in urban areas

anti-mine engineering unit (helpful be not needed)
40 5 1 vs land mines
3 5 1 vs other units

I haven't figured out costs yet, but they would depend on how many of the strengths/attributes above are actually doable.

Thanks for feedback

SW:)

Hey might be a good idea with some work, but the game sounds pretty hard to mess with this early.
I dont know adding stealth to the mines might be good, just because the fact you usually dont see mines until you hit em heh. Not sure how that would work, not to mention make those anti-mine engineering units like an aegis sub able to see the mines.
I dont know the mine idea just might be real complicated. :confused: Still really original maybe Plutarck might be interested. :goodjob:

quick suggestion, Plutarck - change French musketeers so they are +1M rather than +1A compared to other Musketmen. If you read the histroy books, you'll notice that they weren't actually any better than other nations, they just used more artillery support.
Heck, we brits took them down during the Napoleonic Wars, under the guidance of Sir Arthur Wellsey (later Duke of Wellington).

As for the suggestion about Magnesium (Mg) - just one small point - why make a military vehicle out of something which catches fire easily? Mg is used to make flares - it burns at a high temperature, with a bright light and requires very little energy for it to ignite due to its high reactivity. AL has a very low reactivity which is why it's used as a strategic resource.

Depleted Uranium makes a nice penetrating material for anti-armour purposes :)

I'm actually still finishing up my christmas card (done within the hour), LOL. Think it's a bit late? ;)


Time really flys I suppose, and I haven't had much chance to do alot of work on the mod. Can't say for certain when I can knock out an alpha early-release version, but I think it can _actually_ be by mid-week this time (now that the paying-work related junk is out of the way).

It won't have the government changes, some of the tech tree updates, only a few of the unit additions, and almost none of the improvement additions. However, most of the changes and alterations will probably be in. The Civilopedia entrys won't be properly updated either, but hey, that's why it's called alpha/early-release :D


This isn't firm, of course, because I don't want to spend extra time on an early "clearly not done" version when I could be spending it on finishing the full release version.

Also, the mod will be sepperated into two files, at least. One will be the big file, which is all the unit animations, and the other is just the little graphics files (like for the various icons), text files, and the .bic file itself.

Translation: Smaller files to download, and to update you just have to download a file that's less than 1MB (maybe even less than 500KB). Far more user-friendly, and easier for me too.


Just wanted to drop in an update, and I gotta get back to finishing up my work.

Good job man keep up the good work! I was wondering where do you go to download your mod packs? Thanks for all replys!:D

Originally posted by Yankee1489
Good job man keep up the good work! I was wondering where do you go to download your mod packs? Thanks for all replys!:D

Hey yankee check this out heres the site http://207.191.20.18/civ3/index.html , I know Plutarck is rather busy heh.

I went to that website and i couldn't figure out where to go once I went to that website? Thanks for all replys!:crazyeyes

Originally posted by Yankee1489
I went to that website and i couldn't figure out where to go once I went to that website? Thanks for all replys!:crazyeyes

Oh whoops :lol: sorry Yankee I forgot myself even that he is revising the mod (so it will work with the 1.16 version of the game) so its not for downloading at the moment. Its more for safety reasons so no one will install it and ruin anything on accident.
It should be done soon and hes putting some hard work into it so it should be a damn good mod :goodjob:

Plutark, we haven't heard from you since last year! :)

Any new news? I hope you all had great holidays!

INTERNET as a new Great Wonder? Help science and happiness?

About magnesium:
Yes it is flammable and corrosive, but it is only used in alloys.

About land mines:
Many have thought of implementing land mines in a good way. I am going to post a thread about the challenge.

About latex and "natural rubber":
They are the same.

Translated:
Die MÃnner, die Rahmen vor der Schokolade laden, speichern, bitten die SpeichermÃdchen um einen Tanz.

Weird signature :crazyeyes

Originally posted by gorilladf
Translated:
Die MÃnner, die Rahmen vor der Schokolade laden, speichern, bitten die SpeichermÃdchen um einen Tanz.

Weird signature :crazyeyes

I have to agree:lol: Odd signature. Never would have thought to translate it so thanks gorilladf. Even more fun for me trying to say that out loud heh. ((My fiancee thinks im nuts now :lol: ))

sure Mg is used in alloys. it's properties are dampened, but the "Sparkler" firework uses Mg as a key component in the stick, the sparks being generated by Fe (that's how hot it gets).

Thinking more, though, wouldn't Manganese be a better resource? i seem to remember that it is almost essential for Aircraft construction.

currently playing with the following in my mod:
Casino (improvement): needs Electricity, generates 2 happiness and +50% tax, costs 14

AA guns (improvement): needs Flight, half as effective as SAM Battery, half cost.

Heavy Bomber (air unit):needs Advanced Flight D7, OR7; B16, R0, RoF3. Currently limited to Americans, English and Russians; changing to All Nations on grounds of balance.

Jet Super Heavy Bomber (air unit): needs rocketry; D8,OR8; B32,R0,RoF4. limitations as above, also changing to All Nations for balance.

Next project is to change Panzer to Me262 fighter (i think it gives a better example of Germany's advances - the Panzers weren't really much cop)

Thats a good point Agent Roo. I think Manganese might be an over looked resource. Oh also I like the Casino idea, makes the game seem more true to real life. :goodjob:

About resources:
Yes, manganese is used a lot, especially in heavy duty machinery like drills, ploughs and excavators. I do not know about any military applications, though.

To qualify as strategic, I think that a resource should have played a great role in political history. The eight ones in original Civ 3 have, but are there any else?

About the translation of my signature (off-topic):
Do you seriously believe that these auto-translators work? English and German are not that compatible. Another formulation would be: "The men, who load boxes in front of the chocolate-shop, ask shop-girls for a dance."

I disagree with you Agent Roo concerning the lack of formidability of the Panzers. The Panzers had much more of an impact for the Germans in WWII than the ME 262. Moreover, the Tiger and King Tiger were nearly unstoppable during the late part of the war. Jet aircraft were not really necessary considering the Blond Knight of Germany, Adolf Galland, shot down 352 Allied aircraft in a propeller-driven ME 109.
I met a Tiger tank commander a few years ago and he said that tank kill ratios for the Germans when fighting the Russians (who clearly had heavier tanks) were nearly 8 or 10 to 1. One encounter, he destroyed 21 tanks in one afternoon.
When we look at the German war machine, the tank comes to mind. Without it, the term blitzkrieg would never exist.

Lots of good ideas here in your mod. I think you also come up with the idea of negative culture for some sturctures which made me think of another idea that someone brighter than me might be able to implement.
I think it would be interesting if the production of more (after a certain point - say around 8) roads or railroads or mines would start to produce a negative culture for the city. This way the computer and human player may start to think twice before putting these sturctures everywhere. Most people seem to find every available space filled with this stuff sort of ugly-so it makes some sence that a low culture rating might develop. It does make the end-game map very ugly. It also might force you to choose which areas to development and which to leave off. This would bring more strategy into the late-game-if every square is not carpeted by railroads, those that are take on a more stratigic significanse- for both protection, transport, and offensive strikes. These negative values could perhaps also be modified by goverment types.
Interested to hear what you, or anyone, thinks about this.

Negative culture for terrain improvements?
I don't see how that could be done. It would be easier to make the railroad graphics more discrete.

More about manganese and magnesium:
I come to think of that I have got a periodic table which tells the usage of all elements.

Manganese alloys: Railroad points, ploughs, safes, rock-crushers
Compounds: Batteries, glass and china dyes

Magnesium: flashes, fireworks
Alloys: solar cells, racing bicycles
Compounds: monitors, computer memories, talcum powder, lasers

About my signature:
It should be shutters, not crates. It was a Swedish-German false friend.

Plutark is MIA here an Apolyton. Anyone know where he is? Has Civ3 taken over his life and he is no longer able to step away from the game to post :)

I just really want to play his updated MOD!

Yeah i have been talking to Plutarck, and he is just busy with the mod and trying to work everything he can out as we speak. He is trying to refine the mod into one that is as perfect as possible (by his standards heh), and trying some newer add ins. So I guess you can say he is playing Civ all day :lol: The update is comming soon, just be patient heh.

:cry: Y cant i play with the old version of the patch???? Plutark should have one of the old "fixes" available...i read almost the entire post...i really want this f** patch!!!!:soldier:


THis is a desperate plee to Plutark to post one of his old fixes so i can use itt!!!

I have to point out that aluminium is not a naturally occuring metal, it involces treating other metals with electicity, I reccomend changing name and rarity, ore replace it with the metal that it is derived from. I know that it is not you who created the error, ut i do think that it would be nice to have that tossed in with the other changes you have made. http://images.neopets.com/help/help_battle.gif (c)Neopets.com:egypt:

I belive the metal is called Bauxite.

Bauxite (aluminum) is the third most-common mineral in the earth's crust. It's not rare at all, FYI, it just took science awhile to figure out how to refine it profitably and easily.

If you really want to learn more... http://www.world-aluminium.org/history/index.html

Good point Psychlone, I mean look at aluminum cans. I doubt Coke or Pepsi would use cans if aluminum was so rare, I mean there have to be over a billion cans of Coke alone out there right now, not counting Pepsi, all the Beer cans(damn there has to be alot of those heh), Ect. Ect. The list goes on and on. :eek:

Perfectly said, Psychlone, and thanks for the link. Bauxite is relatively easy to obtain naturally. There was a long time, however, when science could not turn bauxite into aluminum. This made aluminum a very rare semi-precious metal. This is why (besides the fact that it serves as a good lightning rod) that the top of the Washington Monument is aluminum. Since then however, aluminum has become easy to produce and I only get a five cent refund when i return my aluminum cans. :)

Isnt that ironic... the top of the Washington monument is only worth a few dollars heh.
I do think once scientist discovered how to make aluminum it was rare at first, just due to it was something new. But I would guess Bauxite is not rare?(I am guessing its fairly common, sorry if im off heh) I mean if you could produce platinum or gold it would be worthless as well right? I mean rarity is what judges somethings value usually. I mean if there was always alot of gold, and instead Bauxite was rare we might have gold cans and Aluminum rings instead heh.:crazyeyes

Well it's certainly seems like a long time since I last gave an update, eh? Time to fix that!


Here's what's up. I haven't spent a lot of time between the holidays and now playing Civ III (I've been writing, reflecting, meditating, contemplating, working, etc), but I've been tweaking some things in LWC in the mean time. So it hasn't been constant work, but plenty has gotten done :)

While I'm not done and there's still more I want to do before I call it version 1.0 (which will be the next version :D ), such as I haven't implemented the government change and there's plenty more tweaking to be done, I think it will take too long to do it while in the meantime there is no playable version available.

Thus I am now in the process of wrapping everything up (such as adding pediaicon entrys so the tech tree doesn't look all screwy, putting little text things on the unit icons so you can tell them apart, etc), and I hope it shall be done _very_ soon! In the next few days, even!

This will be called LWC_ERP1, which stands for: Long Winded Changes, Early Release Preview 1. It's an amazingly small download compared to the other versions because of the improved way Gramphos' CopyTool now does unit .ini's (illiminating duplicate unit animation downloads).

As I finish up what I already know I want done (finish balancing the units out, change the government system) I will release "Release Candidates", such as LWC_RC1, LWC_RC2, et al, until a stable reasonably-bugless version is available. Then a full version will be released, incrementing the version number of the LWC mod.

Thus each version update will be far more reliably stable, and fully worth loosing your old saved games to update to the new version :D

This way people who want a stable version can just download the 'main' version, while people who don't mind running into a bug in exchange for "the newest thing" can help test out the changes to LWC.



I'll save the complete details till I post it, but here's a teaser of new additions:

Civilization Advances:

Saddle: Yes, it's a Saddle. No, not that kind of Saddle...although...

Anyway, it goes along with a changing of the power of the Horseman units in that I want them available later than they are now. You'll see...muahahaha!

No Stirrup advance needed for now.

Hullmaking: Sailing, sailing, over the bounding Coracle!

...doesn't have quite the right ring to it, does it? Anyhow, a post Map Making advance which allows the first real wars on the water.

Squirearchy: SCHULTZ! SCHUUUULTZ!

...oh, sorry, that's not available till way later. But this is available in the early Middle Ages after Chivarly.

Volunteerism: "Wait a second...you mean, you want me to volunteer to join the Army? Hahaha, hahaha, HAHAHAHA!

...alright."

Advanced Naval Warfare: "Ah, it's just a nice day for a cruise, isn't it honey?

...honey?!"


Buildings:

Coastal Gun Placements: Now take the place of Coastal Fortress.

Coastal Fortress: Modernized version of Coastal Gun Placements (more powerful, doesn't need Saltpeter, more expensive).

Mill: The first "Power Plant", available in the Middle Ages.

Guild Hall: Reduces corruption in the Middle Ages, requires Courthouse be in the city to be built.

FBI Office: Police Station for the Modern Age, requires a Police Station be in the city to be built.

Sewer Sytem: Pollution reducing improvement, available thanks to the wonderful invention that is Sanitation. Can't hurt happiness, either.

City Dump: When oceans and rivers just aren't enough, why not dig a great big hole in the ground and put your toxic waste there? Pollution reducing improvement which isn't a boon for happiness.

National Constitution: Ok, it's not the most logical fit to become available with Scientific Method, but are you really going to complain about having a 2nd Forbidden Palace (more or less)?

Computerized Oversight: Kind of hard to fudge a few mathematical statements in a proposal when you have a supercomputer capable of 250,000,000,000 computations a second evaluating every aspect of it, ya know? The science abusing charalatons won't be happy to be exposed for being the lying bastards that they are (http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/number%20watch.htm), but it'll put a grin on just about everyone else's face, and you can't complain about a 3rd Forbidden Palace in the modern age (more or less).

AI Governing Prototype: "I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave." Gives ya the heebejeebeez, doesn't it? But a 4th Forbidden Palace available at the end of the game isn't all that bad. Besides, this thing is just a small prototype...but, of what?


Units (Name: type, age available):

Land Units

Barbarian: Basic Barbarian unit (rather than Warrior, stronger).
Raider: Advanced Barbarian unit (rather than Horseman, as strong as changed Horseman).
Pioneer: Expansionist only Settler, early-middle Ancient Age (Map Making).
Mounted Scout: Not-as-good Scout for non-expansionists, early Ancient Age.
Man At Arms: Offensive footsoldier, early Middle Age.
Musket Infantry: Offensive footsoldier, late Middle.
Shock Troops (requires population): Offensive footsoldier, early-middle Industrial.
Machine Gunner: Offensive footsoldier, late Industrial.
Modern Infantry: Defensive footsoldier, early Modern.
Assault Troops: Offensive footsoldier, middle Modern.
Special Ops Team: Offensive footsoldier, late Modern.

Naval Units

Coracle: Transport, available from begining.
Warship: Power/Bombard, middle-late Ancient.
Corporate Privateer: Power/Bombard (no national markings), earlyish Industrial.
Steel Warship: Power/Bombard, middle Industrial.
Modern Transport: Transport, early Modern.
Modern Destroyer: Power/Bombard, early Modern.
Nuclear Battleship: Power/Bombard, middle Modern.
Nuclear Carrier: Air Transport, middle Modern.
Diesel Submarine: Power, middle Modern.
Nuclear Attack Sub: Power, middle Modern.

Air Units

Transport Plane: Transport, end of Industrial.
Modern Bomber: Bombard, middle Modern.


And currently over 100 entrys to the changes file, with each entry being a change for a certain entry in the editor. For instance changing the cost, available time, maintananence, and effect of a Wonder counts as 1 change; changing the amount of resources given by forests and the shields required to get 1 gold through wealth count as 2.

Tweaks during the development are not counted, so all 100 have a current effect in the game.



All things subject to change, no guarantee I didn't make an error here, yadda yadda yadda.


Still need to finish balancing of the late-modern naval units, then I can wrap it all up and post it. Hope to have it done by Wednesday, but regardless it should be done before the end of the week, barring only something happening in real life that stops me from doing so.



Enjoy the enticipation, and try not to slobber too much :cute:

I have stopped playing while I've been waiting for it

:D

As stated by others, Aluminum comes from Bauxite, which is common. However, it's not so much how common it is, but how common it appears in large enough deposits to make it worth the time it takes to pull it out of the ground. Kind of like how gold, in a way.

The main reason for the value of Aluminum was that we knew of no good way to produce it, and until the 1808 we didn't even know it existed as a metal at all!

It wasn't until 1869 that a process was developed that made it go from costing $545 dollars a pound, to $17 dollars a pound, which was the same price as silver at that time. (source: http://www.alcoa.com/site/company/history/aluminum.asp)

It wasn't until 1886 that the process became available to make it cheap enough to use in mass quantitys, and with the shortages and downsides of tin, aluminum became the metal of choice.

Now adays the stuff is used in just about everything. We take it's value for granted because we have so much of it, but that's mostly due to the big aluminum production industrys.


The problem with Civ III is these things just aren't handled as well as they should be. Once again I say that they absolutely, positively, HAVE to allow buildings to 'produce' at least strategic resources.

Thus real, vastly more accurate Iron, Steel, Oil, and Aluminum industrys could be simulated (as well as many others, like Uranium/Plutonium). After all, just because you have Oil doesn't mean you have gasoline.

Guess it's something to wait until Civ IV for...*shakes fist*


Short of that, the reason for having Aluminum in the game is one entirely of function. Another possibility, which I might flesh out in a future version, is to add a modern resource such as Titanium.

Thus Aluminum could be used for late-industrial and up to the early-middle modern era, but then Titanium would be required for things like the spaceship.


But until then, aluminum seems to fill it's place the best of any resource I can think of, though I'm certainly open to ideas for future versions.

I agree with the subject that city improvements should be required for some resources and others should become completly available after building so many improvements. What about textiles, electronic components, synthetic fibers (it takes a whole lot of machinery to produce these fantastic works, just not the know how :)), hell even cherry pies. Okay maybe not cherry pies, but I think say 5 factories hsould be required in your Civ so that say Textiles become available to you as a industrial luxary resource. It would be a great divider for more modern nations with less resources over nations less developed with a whole lot more. Maybe if we all bombard requests to Firaxis for them to include this in a patch or expansion pack we won't have to wait for CivIV,. Then again dogs could fall out of the sky and my rabbid monkey I found in my back yard would maul then ones that land nearby to their deaths, but its worth a try I suppose. Otherwise I like a lot of your additions and would also like to say I liked that *shakes fist* thing, hehe. Sorry all I have is powdered donuts.

Heh Hey Plutarck, just letting ya know that when you updated the first page you entered the date as 1/7/2001, but its 2002. :lol: Its hard to get used to a new year once you get used to signing one.:crazyeyes

I can't wait to play this mod, sounds very cool. I have just 1 request, to put the crossbowmen in it too, I really like it.

Originally posted by joost1110
I can't wait to play this mod, sounds very cool. I have just 1 request, to put the crossbowmen in it too, I really like it.

Well I have seen that unit and that would be cool joost1110, but before Plutarck can put the unit in his mod he needs the okay first from the creator of the unit. :) Email and ask if he minds his unit being added into this mod, ya never know til ya ask heh.

where in the hell do you get the actual mod at i'm seeing all these good things about this mod and i can't find where you download it at!

Very very nice work!

No how about the internet as a great wonder :)

Originally posted by Realm
where in the hell do you get the actual mod at i'm seeing all these good things about this mod and i can't find where you download it at!

It's supposed to be available again tomorrow

Former download spot...


ERP1 removed after 199 downloads.
ERP2 removed after 256 downloads.
ERP3 removed after 1566 downloads.
ERP4 removed after 602 downloads.

Note: I've changed the unit animation add-on pack (and edited the first post) to include new animations for the Special Ops Team, created by MazterJo.

Since not many people have downloaded it I figured I'd just repack it together. Not that big a download :)

I have it!! only 1 thing. I cant download the unitgraphics from your site. I can download the resources file though :confused:.
Well, I'll just play with the old images, it will take a while anyway before I get those units.

I've been looking forward to this mod since the patch came out. I had the first mod and liked to changes it made, and am sure that this one will be just as good.

Thanks for all the time and effort you take to make our playing experience better.

I have installed the new mod, including the resource.pcx and also the modern detroyer. But at about 1885 the game crashes.... Im not 100% sure thats its not my installation so I have included a copy of my save game.

Can someone else please try ending turn and seeing if it crashes.

The changes so far (im in the industrial age) and very good.. the game feels so much more balanced than before..... combat is actually fun now, with a good variety of USEFUL units.....


Cheers Plutarck, this mod rocks so far.....

No Hockey practice tonight, wife is working, can't wait to get out of work! Looking forward to this one for a while.

Have you seen Dark Sheer's Army truck unit? I never thought of having a land transport vehicle, but it would make unit moving so much easier. However I'm not sure he can limit it to foot units only. Can't really load a tank in a truck :) But great idea!

Let me know when you want a list of great and small wonders!:lol:

Most Excellent Dude. Thanks for all the work

Very great work Plutarck, can it get any better? heh Prolly not!
I do miss the installer though, no thought needed on my part there :lol: (Feeling a little lazy lately, schools back in :crazyeyes: ) .
But hey this is actually real simple, just drop a few files here and there and bam its done. Not to mention its nice to have a small download. :king:

Your mod is great, but I have a problem with your stance on resources.

1. Uranium is necessary for AEGIS Cruisers not because they do in reality (as they don't), but to make them exclusive to high-technology navies.

2. Aircraft DO need oil, or more specifically, petroleum. Jet fuel is a petroleum-based substance, and synthetic petroleum has NEVER been produced in sufficient quantites to use regularly; it is far to costly. If you don't have oil your planes won't fly. Also, Oil is THE resource of the modern ages (in both reality and civ3) and for gameplay should be required for a modern air force.

3. Infantry require rubber for a gameplay reason: a civ without access to rubber will build riflemen instead, as riflemen require no resources. This is also realistic.

Announcement: Unit Animation Add-On fixed! Didn't type the link right :)


skywalker:

For now, there are few resource requirements (if any) that have been changed. I'm thinking that the moving resources should help balance out the problems with do-or-die resources anyway.

The only one changed in the current incarnation of the LWC Mod is the AEGIS, which requires Aluminum and Oil but no Uranium. All aircraft require oil at this time, as does Modern Armor.

The AEGIS changed was done for real-world accuracy, but I don't think it will really be needed for the problem you mentioned, and here's why.

While AEGIS' probably won't be all that great in their current incarnation (may need tweaking later, but I guess someone will need to get to the late modern age to figure that out...hehe), their main limiting factor is the technology of Robotics, which requires 5 modern techs to have access to research - nearly all of which are more expensive now.

In comparison, Stealth requires only 3 to become available, Space Flight takes 2, and Advanced Naval Warfare takes 4 while itself being 60 cheaper to research than Robotics.

In short, the limiting factor is how late in the game it comes, so only high-technology civs will be able to build it. Requiring Uranium on game-balance reasons seems unneccesary.


However, it seems to me that AEGIS is actually underpowered at this time, and will be addressed in the future once people get a chance to test out it's Air abilitys. If I need to remove them I'll have to rethink what AEGIS will be used for at all...

So when AEGIS gets 'fixed' we can revisit it as an issue and see what should be done to balance it out.



KALIROB2k2:

Glad it's not too hard to use, because - while I liked the installer - it was alot more work and added about 2-7 megs of size to the mod, which would nearly be an order of magnitude at this point :)

This way is definately the easiest. The updater is a sad casualty, but the crappy people at PowerUpdate have no limited the free version to 20 end users! So I'd have to toss that anyway.



gorilladf:

I have, and I had plans for a land transport unit for quite a long while. However, I am reasonably sure that the AI will be completely unable to use the blasted thing because there is no AI Strategy option for "Land Transport", only for Naval and Air units :(

Oh, and I thought about adding the Internet at the last minute, but I couldn't think of what the heck it would actually DO. Doubling research in the city seems ok, but giving it a Great Library effect would probably make it too strong because of the nature of modern age techs (nearly every one now has a major effect, and with the Great Library it's effect ends in the middle of the middle ages, giving everyone a chance to catch up to you, but that wouldn't work in the modern age unless another age was added), not to mention that the GL also has the limiting factor of you probably not being in contact with all the Civs, while in the modern age it's about guaranteed.


However, feel free to have a list of wonder ideas (and suggestion for currently implementable effects :D ), and I'd definately consider adding them. It seems the Industrial and Modern Ages needs them the most, even though I can think of so many that could be added to the first two ages.

That's another feature I want - to be able to assign Small Wonder effects to Great Wonders and Great Wonder effects to Small Wonders. Oh imagine the possibilitys...*siiigh*



daithos:

Checking it out now. I've heard from other mod-makers about a crash when the game transitions into the modern age in their mod too, but I don't (yet) understand the cause.

Let you know as soon as I test it.



joost1110:

Sorry about that, now fixed. I had named it with a 01 on the end, but forgot and put only a 1 in the link.

daithos:

I played the save and ended turn (but I changed alot of stuff), and it went fine. I got about 15 or so turns into it, then the game crashed.

HOWEVER, I think I know the problem! You were building Battlefield Medicine and had 1 turn until it's completion, but I switched it over to Theory of Evolution instead (sucks that it randomly picks techs for you, but that's another matter).

But when the game crashed I had Intelligence Agency and Battlefield Medicine being 1 turn from completion.

I'm thinking it's a problem with the wonder splashes, so I'm going to check that out now.

Plutarck,

First off great mod makes the game way more playable. I have a problem and I hope that you can help me with it. I have just entered the middle ages and no matter what I research the game crashes. Could you please point me in the right direction? I will attach my save game so you can see if you have the same problem.

Thanks and keep up the great work!

John:)

File attachment was to big sorry about that here is the re post in zip

John

Many, many thanks to daithos and Igbe for reporting the crashes and sending me a saved game, because they've allowed me to fix all known crash bugs (including the modern-era crash that's plagued LWC for quite ahwhile, even version 0.6 - 0.8!)

The website is updated, as well as the first post, and the download, so here's the short form:

-NEW VERSION (at almost exactly midnight!): LWC ERP2. Fixes all known crash bugs, adds a new unit, tweaks land unit costs, increases bombardment unit strengths (including some aircraft), changes a few tech costs, and some other changes too.

All users should (and frankly, must) upgrade to this new version. Don't worry, you won't loose your saved games! The crash bugs will be fixed, but the new units and unit changes will _not_ be present, so you'll have to start a New Game to get the changes.

Note: This copies over the current add-on packs, so reinstall those after upgrading. There is also no need to uninstall/reinstall Civ3 :)


So no reason not to upgrade :)


And a request:

-REQUEST: EMAIL ME YOUR LWC SAVED GAMES! Zip 'em up, tell me what version of the LWC mod it is, and make them an attachment to an email to aemuli@yahoo.com

This goes for ALL versions, well into the future until I tell people to stop doing it!

Throughout the course of the game, if you wouldn't mind, save the games at the begining, middle, and end of each age. Exclude only the early and middle ancient age, as I have no need for those. I most desire saves from the late Middle Ages on, and personally prefer those from the difficulty levels of Regent or Monarch. However, I want the other ones too :)

This may also turn into a unique feature of the LWC mod later on, because when I get a good solid version of the LWC that everyone can play for multiple days/weeks I will request people send in some saves, which I can play around with and turn into a special kind of Scenario!

I'm not sure exactly why, but playing a game someone else has already started is really quite enjoyable, and I find I can learn alot from it (and I'm sure others can too). I have many, many, many ideas for this, but for now I want the saves strictly for testing. Most of the LWC changes take effect towards the end of the middle ages, and I don't want to have to play all the way from the begining just to get there and decide something should be tweaked :P

Oh, and you don't have to be a really good player either, or even have been playing Civ3 that long! Behind or ahead, good or bad strategies, it doesn't matter to me!



Enjoy!

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA :goodjob:

Very sweet! What ever you did it did the trick. I can now go on. It was great that I did not have to start over either ;) Thanks for a kick ass mod because this game is way more playable with it.

Thanks again!

John

Wow it can get better! heh I mean I hate those crashes :mad: But you got them fixed, you are once again my hero :)
Any details on what to expect in the future versions of the mod? (New ideas you want to impliment?) Somethings to look forward to heh.

yeah, i was in the modern ages and didn't know why the game would keep crashing, fot a little fustrated and then finally uninstalled and reinstalled civ three :(

i didn't know this was a bug in the mod but the new one is supposed to fix this cool.

and also, whats the website that the mod is at?

cheers for the updated mod plutarck. Ive compeleted my game and won by conquest in the early modern era. (tiny map, emporer)

Im going to try on a large map on deity now, with this fantastic mod you have produced. Hopefully i will actually be able to get to the late middle ages so I can send these save games in... havent been having much luck with deity so far.

Your mod does a nice job of balancing out combat, paratroopers are actually useful now, and no more useless swordman in the modern age.

Im not sure how I feel about the way luxury resources disappear, makes things a pain to manage with your cities happiness if your playing without the governor (might disable there disappearance for now)

Something funny was happening with mills though, once I had built a factory, the mill was replaced (and put back in the build queue). If I rebuilt the mill I my production increaded.

Look forward to the next updates.

By the way everyone, I forgot to mention: Caravels no longer sink in the ocean in ERP2!

So be sure to take that into account, and don't think you have to leave them in the seas and coasts.

The reason being that waiting till the very end of the middle ages to cross the ocean seemed unreasonable (Columbus did it, and if I recall correctly it was before Magnetism came into use. The game even mentions on the Coracle that Columbus chanced the ocean waters, but the games chance to sink seems about 90% higher than it should be :) )

Trade over oceans still won't open until Navigation or Magnetism, though, just like with Hullmaking (the galleys/warships can travel the seas, but trade doesn't open until Astronomy).

Should make things a lot more interesting in the middle ages (Astronomy is about as valuable now as it was originally, if not more so), so be sure to note that in deciding how you'll progress through the age.


Note: I realized I didn't mention it anywhere but in the mod, but the new unit is the Trebuchet! It comes available with Feudalism, and is nearly as powerful as the Canon use to be. But the Canon is now stronger too.

Originally the problem was that the 1dt bombard unit came available in the early ancient, but the 2nd one came nearly at the end of the Middle Ages! It just didn't seem right, and I'm hoping now that the bombard line of units will now be powerful and useful enough for people to build them (especially with Canon, now that it has 3 rate of fire). If they're overly strong I may increase their cost more, but we'll figure that out with testing.


Realm: Well it is linked in the first post (towards the bottom), but here it is again :D http://207.191.20.18/civ3/index.html



Igbe: Excellant, glad it's working again! And I'm glad you like it :D



KALIROB2k2: Well, for now I want to further smooth out all the units (make sure they're all properly inline, especially to properly increase their costs so modern armor isn't so easily built in 2-4 turns in 10+ citys), make sure the technology costs are properly inline and working to my satisfaction, and ensure the way I played with resources is for the best. Especially with the disappearing luxurys, as daithos mentioned :)

In the future I expect to add a few wonders great and small, more city improvements, and things of that nature.

But as soon as I get the game working fully (worked out all the bugs and major tweaks)...well, or almost fully, I want to go ahead and rip out the government system and totally redo it, even with the limited features available.

There are just so many reasons, and it's quickly becoming the most obvious negative point in the entire game.



daithos: Excellant, excellant, and excellant! :D

Yeah, the luxurys are probably the most questionable change to resources, but they should still clump together alot, so as long as you've been sure to connect them all to your roads it's rare that you suddenly loose access.

Also, I personally set the governer to manage citizen moods in all citys. It really, REALLY cuts down on micro-management, and you get to avoid riots 90%+ of the time. So that can help smooth things out a bit.


But with Mill, that definately is odd. I definately don't know why factory replaces it (btw, did you notice if mill was still listed as being in the city after you built factory?), because only power plants should effect the mill by replacing it. :confused:

Trebuchet unit errors fixed in ERP3, no need for this post now...

I think it was actually when I build the hover damn that the mill was replaced, sorry wasnt paying as much attention as I should have been.

But I could definately rebuild it and get extra production, I will try and take better note this game, although I doubt I will be able to get the hoverf damn on deity, but hey, ill look into this and get back to u.

As for the govenor, well on a tiny map (which is what I play the most) I prefer to manage the citizens, maximise the production of cities properly in there early days, I switch them to govenor once they are about 15+

Im going to take a good note of things in this game, and try and give you some better feedback.

I loaded the erp2 w/ unit icon mod on the 10th, tried out a chieten game as Germans to putz around a map and get the feel for things... Crashed @ 50bc invalid page fault. sent save to plutarc. Anyone else havin trouble:(

From the changelog:

-NEW VERSION: LWC ERP3. This version fixes bugs (like a missing unit folder, among others), adds some customized cilvilopedia graphics, contains many updates of the civilopedia (as well as fixes some errors it contained originally), and tweaks quite a many different settings and unit stats.

All users should upgrade to this new version, because you won't loose your saved games! In short, there's no reason not to upgrade. And remember: Send in those saved games!



Pushing the file size now, lol, but it still just fits :D

i looked around for a link to get the erp3 pack and like i can't find one :confused:

never mind i didn't see that link on the first post :p

JC Woodman: When i first got the mod I acidentaly dumped the units into the "Art" main folder insead of 'Art/Units' that resulted in crashes after a couple dozen turns in the games i tried. check to make shure ya got all the stuff in the right folders.

Plutarck: Here is some stuff...a couple ideas and my thoughts on some of the issues you asked about in Changelog.txt.
I emailed a version of this to ya but im posting it here to see if anyone has any thoughts on it.

Quote from changelog.txt: "Multiple Units: From the late Middle Ages on, units are now more expensive to
build (will be tweaked more as I get more information
and more debate occurs). In the early Industrial Age it's not unusual for Cavalry to take 1-3 turns to
build in medium sized cities (12-15), which isn't
desirable. I want to hear what everyone thinks about this. Should units be more expensive later on? Less? Tell me what you think!"

IMHO 1-3 turns seems a bit short for construction of a fairly powerful unit like Cavalry, it gives yet another advantage to defenders. 2-4 turns might be more desirable and make ppl have to be more strategic and careful with their units.

*************************
Quote from changelog.txt: "ISSUE: With bombard units no longer being capturable because of their non-0 defense value (except missles), will the increased movement (and thus the ability to flee) be a bad combination? I'm thinking it will be fine, but we'll see."

I personally think that capturable artillery is a cool idea. catapults, cannons and other things that are pieces of equipment you carry around with you should be stealable. (they have operators that could theoretically defend them but artillery teams are small and in some cases not even armed) However Artillery that is a self contained armored vehicle should perhaps have a def value.
Catapults and Trebs should not have movement increased for purely realistic reasons. the are massive, heavy, unwieldy objects. Cannon and Artillery should perhaps move faster since they are often horse or jeep drawn. (light artillery like mortars are sometimes small enough to be carried in a soldiers backpack...) Units like Radar artillery since they are mounted on vehicals should have good movement rates.

BTW i aprove highly of powering up artilary.
IMHO Civ3 artilary is only about 2/3 as strong as it should be, 1-2 hp off one unit in a crowd isnt exactly stellar. My problem with Civ3 artillary is not dmg but shots taken. In Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire artillary takes a shot at every unit in the target square(even if it didn't hurt them, the artillary in that game was terrible unless you MODed it)
Im not sure I understand the 'rate of fire' stat since i havent had much need or oportunity to use the arty later in the game(the ones with a Rof of 2) but perhaps a way to fix artillary would be not to increase its Attack power dramatically but to jack up its RoF?
********************


I do have another question however: Have you writen Civlopedia entrys for the new units and techs?
If you havent i would be happy to write some of those for you.
I have some knoledge of Trebuchtes so ill post this as an example.

"The Trebucehte, while identical in purpose differs markedly from the catapult; it is essentially a large free-swinging lever. A heavy weight, generally lead or sand, is attached to one end. A sling arangement is attached to the other-generally longer-end. The projectile is fixed in the sling and the weighted end is hoisted up. When the weight is released the lighter end is whiped upward with startling force The projectile is released from the sling a little past the apex of the lever's swing sending it hurtling tward its target. Historically a wide variety of projectiles were used including stone balls, lead shot, weighted burning rags and even dead horses. Trebuchets were easily capable of throwing 300 pound stone balls hundreds of yards with enough power to breach castle walls. They were a greatly feared siege weapon for many years until the advent of cannon."
*********************

Why does the wheel lead to "Horseback Riding"?
they seem semi unrelated to me. If your thinking horsedraw carts your uh...
puting the cart before the horse ;-) ...maybe it was just a matter of neccesety.
Is there a limit to the number of first lvl techs?
Also about the Saddle tech...IRL do you need saddles to ride horses efectivly?
I thought the American Idians rode bareback and they had some of the best mounted soldiers ever.
**********************

Idea for another anient age tech: Animal Husbandry:
This would make Game(?), Cattle, and Horses apear on the map(why game you ask? because with this knoledge man would have such things as dogs which would make hunting small game easyer)(rename ivory to elaphants and they could go on the list too, esp since india and a few other places use them for domestic work as well as war). It should be cheap since its origins are almost gaurntyed to happen by acident(camp following dogs for example). It would prob lead to Horseback Riding. Domesticating amimals is just as much a learned skill as any of the other basic skills represented by the early techs.


Thats it for now. Im a bit longwinded too :-)

Hello,,I just downloaded your LWC mod and started my first game .. I don`t know if its because of your maod as i havent read all the read all the changes other than whats been posted in this thread.
But,,the year is only 3000bc ,Im playing as the russians (i use random civ to make it interesting) ..The game has just been started and already i`ve lost 2 pop points due to disease..I only have 5 jungle tiles in my city radius which doesnt seem like alot since i`ve played other games where the whole city was jungle and didnt have any disease for the just about the whole game.
Well my point is i`m wondering if this is because of your mod or if its just bad luck..it seemed out of the ordinary so thats why i`m asking.
thanks
Also some of the techs on the tech tree were overlapping and the faces on the techs are floating all over..

Wishlist:

If you have a big army but don't use it and have a low approval rating, there should be a military coup, and your government goes into anarchy.

Likewise, there should be riots and such if you don't play peacefully enough.

Also, a kind of helicopter that has a decent attack rating would be cool. As of now, we have a Fighter that is primarily anti-air and a Bomber that is primarily anti-ground, but we should have a copter that is = in both.

Also, barbarians are trouble early in the game, but later there is no threat of non-political interference. There should be terrorists that spring up within low-culture countries after the discovery of Rocketry. The terrorists would attack powerful nations and nations with representative governments. They wouldn't have units - Their work would be undercover. They would destroy improvements and small wonders, steal money and kill people like barbarians do, but they could strike from afar. If you are the victim of terrorist attacks, you could try to convince their harbor nation to destroy their camp, or get a RoP and do it yourself. This may lead to war if the harboring nation doesn't want to take out the camps.

Also, there should be options for things like Genocide: You have a decrease in population and suffering world opinion in exchange for money and happy citizens.

There should be a way to take hostages in a war. If you defeat a foot soldier unit (not horse or wheeled/treaded) you should be able to take a few soldiers hostage. They could then be:

a) Interrogated: Bring the hostage(s) back to a city. If you have a barracks in that city, you could get information about the country you got the hostage from (similar to espionage.)

b)Released: Release the hostage to improve your opponent's likelihood of negotiating for a treaty.

c)Held: Use the hostage as a bartering chip in peace negotiations.

d)Sacrificed: Available only under a religious civ: Bring the hostage back to a city with a temple for an increase in overall happiness. (This would become less useful later in the game because the happiness bonus would be a flat number, not a percentage.)

You should probably change "sattle" to "stirrup". The invention of the stirrup was one of the most important developments in mounted warfare, as it provided a stable platfom from which lances could be effectively hurled for the first time.

I don't know if its just mine or what but i made a mounted scout and like it wasn't on a horse or anything and like it could sort of defend it self but when something would try to attack it, the mounted scout would just stand there and like the attacker would get hurt and die :confused:

I have been playing with this mod since I first found it a couple of months ago, and I have to say, without it, Civ3 is much less fun...

Thank you for the excellent work!!

Now if only we could add more civs...

I have finally taken the time to say thanks

THANKS!!

Realm: I see that too... must be something about not being able to attack - can't use attck animation and no animation for defending? I don't mind though - I seem to have better success defending with scouts than warriors...

Plutarck: one question - how do you have the patience? Glad you do, because I wouldn't :lol:
Any other ideas for changes?

Plutarck, do you know how long it will be before you overhaul the governments? Cos' I think government inbalances is number one on my Things To Hate About Civ (tm) list. I mean, republic and democracy are unusable, since their economic advantages are far outweighed by the lack of unit support. I think you should be able to support a small number of units (say 1,1,1 (town,city,metro) for republic and 1,2,3 for democracy). Also, cos' you don't have military police, people tend to be more unhappy under rep/dem than anything else, when if anything they should be happier. I think that under these governments you should get extra 'free' content people over and above what your difficulty allows. Anyway, the changes you've made so far are great, and the game is sooo much more playable. I'll shut up now ;)

.

Great mod, but I've come accross a few bugs which you might want to know about. First one - 2049, then the game dies. I assumme this is the mod playing up. Second - The saved game editor I have crashes when trying to open up my saved games from the mod - Not your fault but is a bit annoying (since I can't contine playing after 2049 cos it dies)

Very good work tho m8.

James Wilkinson

Once again Plutarck great work! :goodjob: Any plans to incorprate others units into your mod? I know s3d does some really good work with units.

.

I tried some version of your mod and it was very good.
Still...I am personally looking something else in overall but we all have our own taste for all things, don't we?

I'm impressed someone has made mod as big as you have done. It takes lot of time as the editor is like it is.

I wish Firaxis could make better editor for patch/expansion...

I got plenty of ideas from your mod to my own which I think won't really interest anyone and I have hardly started making it...

Thank you Plutarck.
Keep up the good job.

I'll do all the replying later (tiired...been working on the mod all day), but here are the things I've come up with so far. Some still are left to be implemented, so I've got plenty of work left to do for ERP4, but I wanted to get this out for discussion:


-Error: Forgot to add the change to World Sizes in changes.txt, and clarified the change in pillaging there too (archer-type units can't pillage).

-Many Units: Many units have had their bombard strength changed, and some have had their rate of fire increased. All changes are decreases, because most had already had their rate of fire increased. The result was too high a chance of destroying buildings/citizens while the early bombard units were nearly useless. Along with other changes bombard units should now be highly useful units (even the early ones), but not over-powered.

-ISSUE: I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but land bombard units can no longer be captured. After playing with the changes, would you prefer it if they were capturable?

-QUESTION: When bombarding units, do the defending units defense values get modified as if they were being attacked by any other unit (like for being fortified, terrain, city defenses, etc)? I would really think they were, and am acting as if that's true.

Also, do Citizens and Buildings get any bonus from terrain or city improvements (like Walls)?

-Defense Bonus: Citizens and Buildings now have 18 and 14 defense, respectively. With the increased effectiveness of bombard units the chance of devastating a city is far too high, far too early, for far too little of a production requirement.

-Multiple Resources: The resources with the highest disappearance probability have now had that amount decreased, so they are a bit more stable now. They seemed to move a bit too much as before, but they'll be tweaked more in the future if need be.

-Tech Cost: Squirearchy(-2).

-Many Units: I've made a bunch of changes to units, from changing their stats to changing the technology they become available with. Quite the bucket'o'changes. Let me know what you think!

-Difficulty Levels: I've majorly reduced the barbarian combat bonuses on the low difficultly levels and raised the Optimum City Amount by 5% per difficulty level. The reason being that, for instance, on Chieftain the barbarian bonus was 800%. That means that a Warrior (1 attack originally, but it would be given an 8 attack after the bonus) attacking a Barbarian (2 defense) that's fortified on a mountain would have a 74% chance of victory if they were both Conscripts, a 78% of both were Regulars, or a 87% chance when it's Regular vs Conscript (which is almost always the case)! 1 lone Regular Warrior fortified on a flood plain could stand up to 3 Raiders (which have 3 attack) 77% of the time, and 6 of them (one after another) more than 28% of the time!

Chieftain should be pretty easy, but it makes barbarians totally irrelevant (that is, just free sources of gold). Basically all levels have been moved "up" one, so while Chieftain/Warlord/Regent/Monarchy/Emperor/Diety was 800/400/200/100/50/0, it is now 400/200/100/50/25/0. The other levels have also been tweaked, so barbarians should finally be reasonably dangerous! Muahahaha!

-Military Academy: Now costs 50 to build instead of 60.

-Archer-type units: Now have a 0 range bombard ability (heard the idea in the forums, and want to see if it works like I hope it will), giving them one free "bombard" against an attacking unit. I hope it'll be as good as useful as I think it will be, but testing will show if I'm right. I may also have to give them Zone of Control, but we'll see.

-Chemistry: Chemistry has basically been removed, with it's position now filled by Metallurgy (the exact explanation is that Chemistry and Metallurgy have now been rolled in together as one tech). Other than having both Chemistry and Physics (both useless techs, in that they serve no function on their own) often coming one after the other, this also serves to solve the problem of the naval units equipped with cannons becoming available before canons were invented!

There will still be a problem with the "new" naval unit that comes available with astronomy, in that it requires saltpeter to build yet comes available before the gunpowder advance. You win some, you loose some. If a tech tree overhaul is done then this is something that can be addressed, but otherwise we'll just...well, ignore it, like everyone else has to ignore Frigates becoming available before Metallurgy.

-Longbowman: England's Unique Unit is now the Longbowman, rather than the Man-O-War. The Longbowman is now no longer available to other civilizations, and it's now functionally replaced by the new Crossbowman unit. The other idea for England is the Red Coat, but this will work for now.

-Crossbowman: New unit, taking the functional place of the Longbowman unit for all but England.

-Man-O-War: Now renamed to the Ship of the Line, and made available to all civs. It is functionally the same now as the Frigate/Man-O-War.

-Frigate: Now renamed to War Caravel, made available with Astronomy, and is available to all civs. It's current function is replaced by the Ship of the Line.

-ISSUE: I wish to change the American UU to some ground unit, but I don't know what it should be. The prime candidates I can think of is the Minuteman (available in the industrial age, like an improved Rifleman?) and the M1-A1/Abrams Tank (upgrade to Modern Armor, perhaps?). For now I'm going to try out making it the Minuteman, and we'll see how it goes (I don't know what I'm going to do with the F-15...might just leave it out for now).

The reason for these 2 UU changes is because you cannot trigger a Golden Age without the unit winning a battle. The Americans have it the worst, but the English suffer from it to a lesser degree. The other is that ground units are useful on all maps in every situation, while naval units really are only useful on more land-filled (especially Pangea) maps.

However, I believe that all civs should have 2 UUs, for more reasons than I want to even get into. Depending on the results of ERP4, I think this would be a good thing to implement reasonably soon. However, I want plenty of feedback and debate as to what the 2nd UU should be for each civ. I also believe that overhauling the governments is a more pressing issue, which should be done first.

With a smoothed out unit system, smoothed out tech tree (not over-hauled or largely changed, just smoothed out a bit in terms of cost, because I think I've fixed the major other problems already), added UUs, and an overhauled government system, I think I will be ready to call it LWC version 2.0!



I especially want to hear about the change of England's unit to the Longbowman, adding the Crossbowman to replace it for other civs, and changing the American unit to the Minuteman (and currently leaving the f-15 out of the game until a use for it comes up).

camaro04005:

In response to your question on jungles and disease, check to see if you built your city on a flood plain. If so, your city will be subject to quite a bit of disease until you discover medicine.

Stalin:

I would have to disagree with you about the usefulness of republic and democracy. Quite to the contrary, I find that the economic advantages of republic and democracy allow one to build a much larger military than any of the either despotism or monarchy. In my experience, I usually switch to republic with not very much gold to spare; but after a little while, I can crank out anywhere from +50 to +100 gold per turn and still support the largest military in the game.

Plutarck, in response to your last post:

ISSUE - Land Bombard units: IMHO, I think that land bombard units should remain capturable. It adds another dimension to the game that didn't exist before. You have to think twice about sending a horde of catapults into enemy territory, when there is a possibility of them being captured and used against you. It is a facet of combat that is seen even today. You never want to let your most powerful weapons fall into the wrong hands, do you?

QUESTION on Bombarding Defenders: Again, IMHO, I believe that defenders should get their defensive bonuses when defending against bombardment. If a unit has had a chance to fortify and has chosen its position wisely, than one would assume that they have considered the possibility of defending against bombardment as well. I think that citizens and buildings should also benefit from defensive bonuses, since its their position or the presence of the wall that gives the bonus; the fact that the defender is a military unit, building, or a citizen shouldn't matter in that regard.

Conversely, should bombard units get a bonus if they are attacking from higher ground (i.e. hills, mountains -vs- grassland, plains, etc.)?

UU's: I with you in that each civ should have more than one UU (preferably well-dispersed throughout each of the age). One thought did occur to me though ... would it be too much to ask that each civ have a UU for each of the historical periods (ancient, middle, industrial, etc.)?

As for the English UU, I think the longbowman is a good choice. As far as crossbowmen to replace the longbowman for all other civs, hmmm ... I don't think that crossbow were quite as widespread as archers were. Perhaps a more specialized form of longbowmen for the English UU??

I have to disagree with the minuteman as the American UU ... weren't the minutemen used more for defensive purposes? I think the Americans would still be at somewhat of a disadvantage if you're trying to reach a golden age by attacking your enemy with a defensive unit. I think the M-1 Abrams is a good choice, but I think that a beefed up cavalry unit would be a better choice. Cavalry was used quite a bit in the civil war and against the American Indians. Just my .02!

I just discovered your mod today ... can't wait to go home and try it out!!! I'll have more feedback for you after a couple of games ... stay tuned!

EM

Plutark,

There is 1 little detail that doesnt really affect the game, but it messes w\ your mind:crazyeyes WHen you discover a tech, the "picture" of the tech is the wrong one, (i think its the one for the one before or after it) for example, when you discover Alphebet, it might show the picture for Advanced flight! NOt a real problem, but just an annoyance.... :rolleyes: Thanx 4 a great mod pack...

Some ideas for american units would be Rangers (enhanced paratroopers/marines), super carriers (6 or 8 planes, not particularly useful by normal rules though), or Air Cavalry (movement 4 infantry?). These are the most unique of US forces I can think of - the abrams is nice, but not significantly better than german or british tanks.

Very long range artillery (like 12 tiles) might be interesting too.

The bombarding attacks need to be changed. Wouldn't a Catapult on Grasslands have a difficult time hitting a unit on a mountain? And why can't a bombard attack destroy settlers/workers?

Also, if a settler take two points out the population of the city that builds it, shouldn't the new city have two people to begin with?

One more thing, WHERE DO I DOWNLOAD THE MOD PACK???!!!!:confused:

I agree to a point about the capturing of bombard units, but at the same time units have self destruct orders on immenent capture. Maybe they should be capturable beyond cultural border?
Is there a way to do that? Or maybe 50/50 chance of capture or destruction?
I agree that they should get a bonus from higher terrain...

I like the American minuteman idea - maybe take the French Musketman (is that right) - the French UU and decrease Attack / defense by one and add to they're movement, or maybe quick to build
always there in a minute
maybe all this has been suggested....
more unique units would be very cool, IMHO

Again, thanks

Ok, sorry, I have the zip file. How do I make it work?

I think that the Minuteman would be a great UU. Make it have a +1 defence and +1 movement over the musketman because the americans mostly fought from hiding places where they were difficult to shoot at , plus the guys were quick, hence the name.

I think you should add the swedish civilization with the UU Carolines (Karoliner). There should be a thread in the mod forum about this. I also have tis idea about a defensive sattelite (immobile bombardement unit) with the possibility to bombard anywhere. Is this possbile, in the editor the max bombard range is 8?!

Oh, and the minuteman is a great idea. great work on this mod.

Plutarck,

If you want to time America's golden age correctly, I would recommend the Citizen Soldier of WWII. Basically, a very cheap marine, other civilizations represent this soldier by having him recruited from the general population as a conscript level riflemen. Americans could then create the same type of soldier as the same A/D of a marine, at an insanely cheap price, without the conscript level, and without the unhappiness effects. Just a thought.

I can`t play civ3 with this modpack. It never wants to start. How I get the game running with the modpack?

I start a game as the Americans. I get into the game, found my first city and when I go into the city screen to change my production to pioneer. The second I click on the pioneer in the drop-down list. The game crashes?! Don't know what this means? I unzipped all the files to my civ3 dir...am I missing something here?

Update: It seems as though ANYTHING related with the pioneer crashes the game. Example: I got to the tech that allowed the building of pioneers, all my cities switched from settler to pioneers, I click to go into a city building a pioneer and the second i click on the city the game crashes!

Hey,
I got a question about loading LWC mode. If I've got a game I am playing on Marla's map can I still load LWC with out messing up my game I'm currently playing or do I have to start all over?

I have been playing on this current game for like three weeks now and I'm only at 390ad. It's taken so long to get where I'm at that I don't wont to start over, but want to get all the fun of playing LWC. Please let me know if there is a simple solution before i try this. Thanks abunch!

TRACE

Hey TRACE sorry but when you load this mod you will have to start over :( So dont ad on the mod until your done with the games your playing at the moment. I dont think there is a way to avoid it thats just how it goes, sorry.

My first military unit request!

http://www.wheco.com/No_Frames/amphib.htm

This would be VERY cool, but I'm not sure the game will allow it to work.

If you are looking for ideas for newer MIL units, there is always

Jane's (http://www.janes.com)

Def bonuses for Arty....make sence that they would aply...

UU: how about 1 per age for every Civ? of course IRL some of the Civs in the game never made it past the acient of middle ages so you would have to extrapolate what their culture would likely have become had they continued to survive.

:D Really diggin this mod, Have ERP-3 loaded, and just started a game as Germs. No crashin so far but I have not tried some o the new units, ect. so we will see this eve... Anybody heard from Plutarck re, ERP-4? Anyhow, UU's. I like the 2 per civ idea and the UU each age idea is also good. Each civ deserves a close look, but to address the comments on America and England... I like the Longbow/England/early combo. I also agree that the Man o War is trivial, Soooo, to give historic credit to the Royal Navy how's about (brainstormin here) a beefed up Ironclad, it could be faster, or tougher, cheaper, Ideas anyone? Also really like the "Redcoat" idea, a more offensive type of Inf. or some such. The discipline of the Brit. line Infantry in the 19th cent. is to be noted, it was the deciding factor for decades, ask Frenchy!:D The Americans... I like the MinMan idea. higher-D w/ greater movement. Then maybe just leave the F-15? Or perhaps that Sherman tank notion I've seen, Cheap/quick to build but lower -D than others. Though I am more attracted to the idea of a Naval Air UU for USA. Also I would put the T-34 up as a slam dunk Russian UU, (Like the Sherman ...except, well... not half-assed:rolleyes: ) Not to turn this into an armor game, but the Tank has been rather big for a number o nations for close to 100 yrs. These are just my quick notes, but am eager to hear what u-all think on late uu's for the others, Bab's, Persian's, Aztec, :egypt: ect.

I have been playing your mod and it's cool. The new units are very nice to play with, especially the naval units. But just some things I have noticed:
- I had on my map 16 silks on a 10 by 10 square! Dunno if this is the mod, but I haven't seen something like that before.
- In the research screen, it does only show the picture of the research, now what you get with it (buildings etc.)
- I know creating unit graphics is very difficult (I guess), but maybe you can just, for example the trebuchet, put a little T in the corner or something, so there is a difference with the catapult, I guess this is easier to do than make a whole new image.

That is all I can think of now. I like the idea of several UU's per civ too, but there's shouldn't be too much tanks, how about the SEAL's for US, an improved Special Op's unit?

I've learned that when you don't hear from Plutrak, it is a GOOD thing! :goodjob:

I LOVE the idea of special units every age. I think they should still have mech warrioirs in the future age. Along with hydroponic gardens.

great wonder of the Biosphere?

Anyway, An easy solution to creating a new unit icon, is to just change the colors of it to be different from the original. Easy to change the pallette.

:confused:

Hope someone can help me out here as I'm quite new to this whole Mod gig. I downloaded and unzipped the LWC mod from the website but when I run the game the smilies and resource markers appear but (apparently) none of the new units. I was previously running another Mod and did not change back to the regular Civ 3 before installing LWC. Should I be running LWC as a scenario? Help.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by joost1110
[B]I have been playing your mod and it's cool.
- I had on my map 16 silks on a 10 by 10 square! Dunno if this is the mod, but I haven't seen something like that before.

I have seen this a number o times, most recently a very large grouping o Ivory, not a problem really but I was wondering if it is tied to map size or the type of world, warm,wet ect.
Also anybody know what the tie-in is to map type/size and the # of Goodie huts on the map? Also a quick ERP-3 observation... Barbarians (on raging) are a real threat now:goodjob:

2 more things I noticed:

I played a game in which I started on quite a large island, and when it started it had 6 iron, but 4 disappeared and not 1 has appeared. Maybe this is just badluck, because I thaugth that when a resource disappears, it reapears somewhere else, is this so?

another thing is that either the musketman is too expensive, or the musket infantry is too cheap. Because the musketman is 2.4.1 and the musket infantry is 7.4.1, but the musketinfantry is only slightly more expensive (the costs are 6 to 7 I believe)
:shotgun:

if this mod is just a 'regular' thing, I wander how great a 'good thing' must be, gorilladf ;)

Announcement #1: The LWC website now has a domain name, thanks to Realm! Give 'em a big thank you for providing it. It is: lwc.realmofgaming.net (http://lwc.realmofgaming.net). To get directly to the main LWC page just add /civ3 onto the end of it.

Nifty, huh? Now you don't need to remember a whole IP addy :D


Announcement #2: The website is back up, thanks to some quick reinstatement of service by Kolyana. ;)

(inside joke, don't try to figure it out)



Now, about the unique units. I'll be posting a thread about it in the general forum to get lots'o'opinions on what a 2nd UU should be for each civ.

I'm currently decided on 2 UU for each Civ, instead of more (such as one for each age). The reasons for this are many, with the most important being:

- It'll be quite a bit of work to add 16 units to the game anyhow, and have them fit in with their Civ, be worthy of UU status without being unbalancing, and be significantly different from other Civs UUs.

- For each civ to have one for each age I'd have to add 64 units! Um...no.

- Having 2 UU instead of 1 is twice as good, but adding more comes with greatly diminishing returns.

- It won't be hard to come up with 2 units for each civ, as every civ at LEAST somehow existed in 2 eras, even if just the early Middle Ages and the Ancient Age. So Zulu/Persians/Aztec/etc could get one in the ancient and middle, while America could get one in the industrial and modern.

- Each civ will have a greater amount of custom strategy, without becoming too much so.

- How much of a stretch would it have to be to come up with a unit in the industrial and modern age for the ancient civs like the Zulu and Aztects? Or an ancient and middle age unit for america?


So I think just about everyone will agree that 2 UU per civ is the optimal solution. I'll include them as soon as I'm reasonably convinced of what civs should have what UUs, but no earlier than ERP5-6.


Other notes:

-I hope to do the government overhaul by ERP6, at least. It sooo needs doing. It's the number one sore-thumb in the game, or it will be after ERP4.

-No ETA on ERP4, but I'm working on it. Probably will be available next week, as there's no way I can finish it this weekend.

Gotta do plenty of other stuff IRL, so I can't give anything firm. Car troubles, car shopping...ah well, what can ya do.

-I don't know what ERP5 will be about, but probably will be more tweaking and adjusting than anything else.

-Later on, perhaps even after ERP4 (depending...), I'll try to wrap LWC up into some maps and make them available in an add-on pack! So you could play the earth maps with LWC rules and units :D

The only thing required, other than using the CopyTool, to import the maps into LWC, is to place Oasis where they should be and decide if the disappearance ratios should be changed for that map.

Since you can ensure everyone get's a fair shake from the begining, you might just make all disappearance ratios 0, and things like that.

Other than that, I know of no obstacles.



Replys going in reverse order:

joost1110:

On the resources, they probably just reappeared somewhere you couldn't see them. Though there is a possibility that the game doesn't immediately make disappeared resources available, but I'm doubtful of that.

Good point about the musket infantry, and thanks for pointing it out. I'm going through all the units, again, and tweaking their stats along with their costs. The most effected by this will be Naval units, so finally the water should be a fun place to wage war :)

It's definately going to be more fun in the middle ages, without a doubt.


Count Coup:

Yup, you have to load LWC as a scenario (thus requiring version 1.16f of Civ3, or later...whenever that becomes available). It will be "LWC Mod.bic" in your /Scenario[s?] folder.


joost1110:

1) Never seen that much of a clumping occur, but I have had similar things happen. But I recall it happening in Civ3 itself too, so the mod didn't cause it.

2) That happens only occassionally, for some strange reason. Might be when techs overlap each other, but I dunno. Hopefully won't happen in ERP4, since I'm fixing the way techs overlap.

3) All the units will definately be changed somehow so you can tell them apart...I just haven't done that yet. Also as more full-featured unit graphics are done by people I include those, so that could also solve it.


gorilladf:

Oh if only the game allowed such things...as it is, I can't allow anything of the sort. So many possibilitys...*sniffle*

I loved the Fusion Tank from CTP...could turn it into a Hovercraft for Civ3...but no! *crys*


TRACE:

Actually, you _shouldn't_ have to start over. Since ERP1, which is when LWC started being loaded as scenario instead of just choosing new game, you should be able to install LWC while still being able to play all your old saved games!

However, the rules won't take effect on Marla's map.


chosen5:

Open your civ3 directory and go to art\units\Pioneer. Is there a Pioneer.ini file inside it, and when opened does it seem not to be corrupt?

If so, I don't know why the game would crash. I've personally checked on it, and all the needed files are included with ERP3 and the Pioneer doesn't cause my system to crash. :confused:


rapid:

Have you read the instructions in the readme.txt for installation and use instructions, such as using Load Scenario, and you have 1.16f installed (of Civ3)?


Octavian X:

All instructions are in the readme.txt that comes with the mod.


Goat_Guy:

It's hard-coded into Civ3, and not easily fixable. To fix it I'd have to change the names of at least 83 graphic files, then make them available for download, and I'd still have to figure out which techs to rename to what. And that's assuming that would work...

So if it's not fixed in the next few patches by Firaxis, I guess I'll go to the trouble of fixing it :D




Back to grindstone for me :)

Plutark,

My game crashed when i entered a new age!!! I was quite happy w\ this game and wanted to keep playing!! Here's a copy oof it:

If anyone has a problem when switching ages, please open your Civilization III\Text\pediaicons.txt file and go down to the very bottom. The very bottom should be this:

################################################## ##############
#Era splash art begin
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_0
art\erasplash\ancient.pcx
art\erasplash\medival.pcx
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_1
art\erasplash\medival.pcx
art\erasplash\indust.pcx
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_2
art\erasplash\indust.pcx
art\erasplash\modern.pcx
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_3
art\erasplash\modern.pcx
art\erasplash\modern.pcx


If it doesn't then that's what's causing the crash. Delete whatever is below that line of #s, and paste in the above. Save the file, then try playing Civ3.

If your game still crashes, let me know as there could be some other bug. Gotta go run some errands, so I can't check it till later on.


For some strange reason it seems some people are having a problem with the pediaicons.txt file, yet I am completely sure that the file included in ERP3 does not have such problems.

So confusing...