Rise of the Homos(Development Thread)

johny smith said:

Right. No I don't seriously think they will ever release the ability to mod the dll. Maybe me poking them will help. They can prove me wrong then by releasing it.

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Well, they said recently that it would be released "soon"

Besides dll issues...well the game is just horrible to me.

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What do you think is wrong with the game?

Androrc the Orc said:

What do you think is wrong with the game?

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About everything. I really don't remember anymore. Played the demo and hated it. It was too focused on warmongering to me I guess. The combat and 1UP was not working for me. Besides that they manage to dumb down the tech tree even more. Everything basically felt as a dumber version of civilization to me. Just my opinion. I am sure plenty of people disagree with me.

Well I'm a modder that hasn't gone over (and won't) to civ5!

I agree with everything you said about CiV

Androrc the Orc said:

What do you think is wrong with the game?

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Dumb AI kills the whole game for me.
When you can stop a whole battalion with just a few archers at a chokepoint.
1UPT is a nice try, but it totally makes the AI dumber.
Social Policy is the only interesting add-on to me.

Well I am sorry if I sounded like no one still mods Civ 4. I feel as modding this deep into the game though is dead for the Sid Meier's franchise in future games. We probably will be able to tweak small things that I really want to toss completely anyway. I wish someone would write an open source mod that could do the same thing so we would have complete control, but no one would play it then probably.

I am putting this sketch of a tech tree up if anyone needs some ideas, and if I reboot this I will have it for reference.

How much of this did you get done for cIV 4? I would like to see if I might be able to add on a to it and make a smaller version of what you originally intended.

I have to agree with the earlier posts that ciV 5 is not great for modding. I hope cIV 4 modding continues because imo it is a much better game then ciV 5.

civ editor11 said:

How much of this did you get done for cIV 4? I would like to see if I might be able to add on a to it and make a smaller version of what you originally intended.

I have to agree with the earlier posts that ciV 5 is not great for modding. I hope cIV 4 modding continues because imo it is a much better game then ciV 5.

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I got a camp unit from the mongol mod in warlords that acts as a city. You can build units with it. So a unit building units. I posted it, but was not fully functional.

The tech tree stuff I posted I plan to put into the tech tree. I will need to rearrange things with the alternate tech trees, but anyway I have mostly a base. I was going to end this thing about with the birth of Christ for now. If I get there I already will have a huge mod. Then can start thinking about more classic times.

I have been mucking around with this mod and built the first era in the tech tree and trying to make it a bit interesting. Unfortunately I have not been able to get the "production" mission to work so I can have the unit build stuff. Does it work for anyone else "out of the box"? Is there anything need to do to get that part working?

I will post the "Lower paleolithic" part of the tree if and when I get the unit to "build" stuff.

I have been absent finishing my school. Ya, I lost an interest in the game. I have some more confined ideas now though where I would want to take this, and no longer care what is available in the community. If I get the free time, I am thinking of starting small with some real techs and changes to the combat to relate to first tool development. The groups would just be 16 regions spread around the world for civs, and each would have a unique tech tree. And no it would not include mod X because it is cool.

If anything I would want to remove a bunch of garbage, and try to have some accuracy. If I make anything, I do not care about its popularity. Small not a kitchen sink idea of mods that add features that make no sense. No race ideas, and a large part would focus on subsistence practices for food. Anyway I probably will not even get the time, but if someone has any real anthropology/archaeology background then I will listen to suggestions. I am more interested in something somewhat realistic versus a bunch of garbage that shows X nationality as a bad butt.

Johny,

I came late to this thread, but I like the premise of what you are planning to do.

If you're looking for a new way to produce units or equipment for your nomadic people, the mod "Master of Mana" has a unique interface. It is in essense an FfH2 Mod.

Within that mod (besides all the normal civ stuff), they have a way of producing materials; lumber, stone, & metal. They also have a gathering mechanism for culture, mana, and faith.
The lumber was used to help provide experienced units with equipment such as spears & bows. The stone was used to hurry a city production as well as some unit equipment.
Metal was used for swords, axes, and other items as well.
Culture could be accumulated nationwide to help a city support more infrastructure improvements.
Mana and Faith were used for the spell system.

This unique model may help this mod move in a different direction. If the camps cannot produce like a city does, then perhaps leave it up to the units to gather what is need and simply use the camp as a "start point" for new units and a place to store materials.

As an example, a simple unit for this nomadic camp could find a forest tile and work it on a turn by turn basis to gather wood, do simple hunting for food (low gain), or some such.

Find a food resource (wheat, rice), gather food (med gain).

Hills could provide stone so a structure can be built in the camp.

Research could be done by units settled in the camp on a turn. Fortify a unit in the camp, it produces so much research that accumulates like the (culture, mana, faith) example given above. Accumulate enough of it, you could spend it for a tech. If all the units leave the camp, no research.

Hunting animals would give the greatest food yields for a camp and, if you wish to keep the moving, the closer the camp to the animal killed, the higher the food yield.

Now, am I not a modder, but this might give you some ideas to make a nomadic game feasible and workable. If anything, ask the modders of Master of Mana and see if they can lead you in the right direction to do this.

Good Luck and I hope you pick this up again.

Jennvare

I like the ideas. I could use even the mana and faith mechanism. I would want diversify the types of stone and wood though as well because a lot of the weapons would be made from stone and wood. Metal would be the advanced weapons of this time. The food would need to mostly focus on non-agriculture to begin with. I would like to remove all of the standard domesticated resources from the map, and instead have basic wild versions of the domesticated plants. Then have a way of producing different types of farms based on the type of successful domesticated plant. The domesticated animals I would like to keep as actual units that produce food for the population.

Stone, wood, or metal could be used to build things. The mana could be the tech points. The faith could be spiritual and magic points. The culture just culture points. Ill have to look more into the idea, but I think then the techs could use a combination of the three: mana, faith, and culture.

Hunting yields would need to be dependent on the size of the animal, and there would need to be other gains of resources. For example like bone, furs, .... The amount of food that you keep would evolve more and more on how you can preserve the food. I would want to introduce fishing in the same format, and have normal fishing being small yields, but then hunts for large animals from water providing similar large yields. For example a grey whale equals approximately the amount of food as a wooly mammoth.

I would like to refashion the setup based more on a fantasy mod to give the mystic feeling that early people would have with land, and show this some form of special abilities like magic. Each regions would have a different tech tree, and I know how to that already. So each region would have different types of magic, culture, and tools.

Anyway, I need to look at the Master of Mana, but yes you do have some similar ideas. If you like what I am thinking and would like to further develop a model, feel free to post suggestions that could be altered from mods.

wow johny smith? your back in?

havnt seen you around for lots of years.

welcome back you talented modder you

Johny, You have a willing helper in me, even if it is only adding in the game text and such like.

The main problem I see with emulating the early period of human technological development is the scale of the plots on the map. How do you cater for peoples who follow the migrating herds as their main source of resources, when the herds may just move up and down the mountain through the year or 100s of kilometers across vast plains? Or the gatherers, some of whom migrate long distances to get to the right place at the right season compared to those who find themselves in an area of food resources throughout the year?

BtW C2C did take your Nomad unit and try it out but it never got beyond an early prototype. If you have a moving unit you need some way of being able to have building equivalents. I played with promotions while on the move and buildings while settled. So for example the "camp fire" would provide health and the "butcher stone knife" would yield extra and from a kill or resource. It is clumsy.

Hi Keldath,

I am thinking about it yes. I have been rather busy, and will be till July. I am only going to work on some remake of the beginning of the game on what limited time I have. I will have a hiatus it looks from my school in the coming summer. If nothing else pops up then I should have some time, but I really want to alter the game mechanisms completely. Nothing new from me...just depends what I can do on my free time.

I have been studying stuff recently on early tool development, and writing papers on indigenous peoples. So I thought I could perhaps put that in a simple game format. Anyway I think I know some more that can shake things up. I am not so interested in the historical period as the prehistorical period.

Are you modding? I have not looked around the forums.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

Johny, You have a willing helper in me, even if it is only adding in the game text and such like.

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Thanks I would love to get a prototype so you can fill in whatever you see that is needed.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

The main problem I see with emulating the early period of human technological development is the scale of the plots on the map. How do you cater for peoples who follow the migrating herds as their main source of resources, when the herds may just move up and down the mountain through the year or 100s of kilometers across vast plains? Or the gatherers, some of whom migrate long distances to get to the right place at the right season compared to those who find themselves in an area of food resources throughout the year?

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I would like..but I did say like. The wild animals dependent on food and water to survive. Now what AI could be developed for this I do not know. The gatherers would probably just wander for the time being. I mean if there is no near resources then people are going to have to micromanage them to begin with. It should not be that many roaming camps at one time anyway. So in short I am planning to just build a layout for the overall mod like new tech trees, plants, animals, etc, and figure it out later.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

BtW C2C did take your Nomad unit and try it out but it never got beyond an early prototype. If you have a moving unit you need some way of being able to have building equivalents. I played with promotions while on the move and buildings while settled. So for example the "camp fire" would provide health and the "butcher stone knife" would yield extra and from a kill or resource. It is clumsy.

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Thanks for the work on it. No I like the promotions. I mean it is not as sophisticated as buildings, but never was meant to be the equivalent of cities. The new added thing I would like is to make a sorta seasonal city or improvement. The locations could be visited seasonally. For example a giant mound that tribes gather at once a year. So somehow. I would like a city that grows much slower, and their would need to enough excess surplus of food to maintain the abilities of the city.

I am thinking it over more and more, but just thinking at this point. I am suggesting the basic anthropological levels of society.

1.Band
2.Tribe
3.Chiefdom
4.State

Bands would just be a roaming camp. Tribes would have 3 camps and 1 seasonal city. Chiefdoms would have something like 5 camps, 1 permanent city and 3 seasonal cities. States would have around how 5 camps (I think that may be too much), 3 permanent cities and 5 seasonal cities. Anyway just thinking it over it is not exact yet. Just trying to relay my thoughts at this point. I have no clue yet what would be needed to balance them.

Oh if anyone can point me to a gigantic (as big as possible) world map that uses strategic rivers it would help.

The mod is here.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=468148

I want to get the rivers as navigable to begin with and have the entire earth in a large format. I thinking of coding the regions to the map. So anyway if someone knows of something similar I could use it. Rhye's map is too small.

Here is my suggestion of areas if there was a hypothetical first people to spread out threw the game. This goes from one to 32. I doubt if it will ever get there, but anyway if some one wants to have more of my thoughts on it.