A Song of Ice and Fire

erikg88

Warlord
Joined
Nov 15, 2003
Messages
130
Hey everybody - months and months ago, somebody made a topic to gauge the interest on an ASOIAF mod for this lovely game we play. I was one of the interested - very interested. So when it came to nothing, I remembered that the only way to do something is to do it yourself, as they say. So I, armed with a stiff drink, I dove into the modification side of things. After some... initial frustrations, I've gotten down the most basic of things (I've started adding the great Houses and their leaders). So far, I've got Stark and Greyjoy wrapped up - using the great Amoka pictures for leaderheads, I think they look pretty sharp. So here's some pictures of the stuff I've got this moment:

Some of Amoka's portraits

My first run at the map - pictured is the Vale of Arryn, Old Wyk and those islands off the to the left, and right in the middle will be Riverrun.

The heraldry - Greyjoy, Stark, Lannister, Tyrell, Tully...
Anyhoo, once I've got all of the big Houses put in their (I'm thinking Baratheon, Lannister, maybe Dorne, Arryn, and Littlefinger, just because Littlefinger is the money), I'll be at a bit of a loss for what to do.

By the way - SPOILERS FOR AFFC

This mod isn't really out to radically change the way Civ 4 gets played - mostly it's a lot of window-dressing, to really immerse you in Westeros. But I won't be shying away from making some tweaks here and there.

The more I consider it, the less the Civ 4 traits fit the leaders from ASOIAF. So (and this is the first of many questions), what kind of traits do you think I should make? And then there's the question of the tech tree/civics. Since we're looking at a pretty stagnant period in terms of technological advances, I want to keep it tight and focused, and somehow I'll have to figure out how to balance out costs and rewards and all of that. I was thinking that Any idea for techs? Any idea for civics?

Of course, I'll have to make a map of Westeros (I shiver at the prospect, however) - I think it'd be pretty damn cool to have the Vale of Arryn sealed off by mountains from the rest of the continent, the rich lands of Highgarden, the Wildling attacks in the great North... all very exciting stuff.

Anyway, here are some random things I've been mulling over:
Religion - Off the top of my head, there are 4 religions that spring to mind. You've got the Old Gods, Ass'hai, Drowned God, and the Seven. Are there any I'm missing?

Changing names - I'd rename the Library to the Maester's tower, maybe change the Great Library into the Citadel at Oldtown, and have Oxford University be the vaults that Samwell reads underneath Castle Black. Jails -> Dungeons. Spies would be faceless men, which means Scotland Yard would be the House of White and Black, or wherever it is that Arya finds herself in AFFC.

Defense - I'd want to remove cultural defense and have a series of fortification buildings upgrade your defense values (i.e. wooden palisade adds +20% defense, and then a moat adds another +15%, or what have you.) Have some national wonders like "Winterfell - Add +200% to city defense", something like that. Later on in the tech tree I think trebuchets could be introduced so bombardments could occur and save you a lot of men in a siege - it's just that for most of the game (as it is in the books), sieges are done with a great deal of human life lost.

Victory Conditions - Rename the diplomatic victory to something like the Kingsmoot. Change the Space Race so that instead of gunning for the first spaceship, maybe you're building things that can bring Dany and her dragons to your side (for instance, you need 3 ships/thrusters, 5 chests of gold/casings, etc.).

Unique Units - What do you think? For the Greyjoys I can definitely see having some sort of Amphibious Raider and a Longboat to carry said raider, but what about for the Starks and all the rest?

Hell, regular units, too - Ideas for skins/stats/everything?

Wonders - There is that Colossus in Braavos, which would be nice and easy. After that, I'm quickly lost. Maybe I could use the Wall itself as a wonder... hmmm... anyways, any input here would be really great.

City names - I need 'em (except for Stark, I've got enough Starks).

A general thing - is there anyway I can set up another Civ4 shortcut that will take me straight to my mod, without me having to load up regular civ and then loading the mod?

Anyway, that's all I've got - as you can see, it isn't much. So please, give me some ideas/comments/what have you so I can figure out where I'm going from here!

All the best,
Erik
 
I'm not sure how well these books translate into a mod since like you said the first four books on span 3-4 years, right? Maybe a scenario. Hard to find any techs worth putting in. Plus it seems like if you follow the books you'll have a heckuva time keeping everyone in their places. And the books are mostly political and I'm not sure how that translates into a mod either.

I loved the first 2 books, but beyond that he seemed to be reaching to add more and more people who aren't nearly as important as the ones he killed off in the earlier books.

On the plus side there is deep history and tons of information from Martin in the books, but I'm not sure where you could go with it. If you start with just the Families and give them each a colonist then you have a mod, but if you start with a preset map right at the beginning of book 1 you'll have a narrow scoped scenario.

I guess I'm interested in what you might pull off here since I have the books and really enjoyed the first 2, but I'm not sure where you can go with it. Of course, we have a Harry Potter mod in the works so anything is possible. ;)

Right now the map is your highest priority IMO.

And your teaser pic is fabulous.
 
Yeah, but how do rationalize allowing the Starks to research the Red Witch? She'd be a tech for just 1 family. I like the idea of Dany and her Dragons being a Wonder. I suppose you could have a lot of the knights be mercs or heroes like in FfH, heroes would be better.

I guess my problem is that I'd want the mod to not follow the books since they began to disappoint me with the direction he took. The whole concept of Winter Coming in a mod would be interesting and I'd want to be Mance!

I'm still interested to hear what eric is planning. Stop sleeping eric, or working, or going to school! ;)
 
I would be willing to help out with this...I agree with Woodelf though, it would be a good as a scenerio. PM if there are some specific things that I could do that would help. I'm no good at Python, but I could help with a map or XML stuff.

Patricius
 
Ummm...Here are some random ideas...most of these are bad ideas, just find the good ones out of the bad...:king:

Civs: Maybe have the original seven kingdoms before they were united
(1) The King in the North (Ned Stark…Just(new Trait), Industrious?, Brandon the Builder…Organized, Creative)
(2) The King of Mountain and Vale
(3) The King of the Rock…aka Lannisters (Tywin Lannister...Financial)
(4) The King of the Reach
(5) The Storm King (Robert Baretheon…aggressive)
(6) The King of the Iron Islands, who also ruled the riverlands (Balon Grejoy, Aggressive,Spritual)
(7) The Kingdom of Dorne, which was ruled by a prince. (Nymeria Expansive,
(8) “The First Men” (Tristifer IV,
(9) The Targaryens (Aegon…Aggressive, Expansive, Baelor the Blessed…Spiritual, Philosophical) Daynareas
(10) Night’s Watch
Free Cities:Lys, Myr, Pentos, Braavos, Lorath, Norvos, Qohor, Volantis, Tyrosh.

Or…if you want this to be more civilization-like rather than a scenario, have the First men, scattered all over, with the Green Men as barbarians…you could go through the whole history of Westeros up till “now” but not much technological advancement has been made, so it could be boring.

Religions: Maybe have specific temples for each god of the seven, with different benefits…only one can be built in each city

Civics: Labor: slavery(not on Westeros, in the East)
Legal: Man’s Justice(Execution carried out by the Lord) Trial of Seven (the trial by combat), Blood Price( Payments of gold to relatives of the murdered one) King’s Justice (Royal Executioner), Taking the Black
Fortification?: Holdfast, Bailey…Keep,Castle etc.
Heirs: Patrilineal, Matrilineal, Eldest

Winter and Summer: Somehow show the long years of summer and the long years of winter by lowering food output of cities, production..etc. Kind of like Golden Ages/Normal Times, except that Golden Ages happen every few years and Normal times would be coded to be worse

Specialists: Change the Scientist to Maester or Alchemist, Artist to Mummers, Merchant stays, Priest is Septon, and Citizen is Peasant, Engineer to Mason?

Cities: King's Landing, Oldtown, Lannisport, Gulltown, and White Harbor

Dragons: Maybe somehow make it so Dragons appear like Great People…and you get Dragons Points from building a certain wonder or something there was a castle called the Dragonpit in King’s Landing where the royal dragons were kept…there is a list of dragon names in the books somewhere
Or
Have High Septons. Great Maesters, Great Alchemist

Wonders:
(1) Baelor's Sept is a painted marble plinth with a statue of Baelor the Blessed, the septon king, at its peak
(2) The Wall
(3) Royal Tournaments? Could be some sort of national Wonder
(4) Iron Throne
(5) Street of Silk (brothels in every city?)
(6) Kingsguard

Units: Maybe classify units by their material:
Have Obsidian units that do well against Others
Steel against Obsidian
Dragonbone against most things
Valyrian Steel: Very good

Or Perhaps have the dirrent levels of knighthood as different XP upgrades for example
Page, Squire, Knight, …Kingsguard
Other levels perhaps include Sellswords, Freeriders, Hedge Knights, Outlaws

Maybe upgrade at tourneys?

Possible Ages: Dawn Age, Age of Heroes, The Long Night, The Seven Kingdoms

Improvments: arbors, granaries, manses, storehouses, inns, graveyards, brothels, taverns, merchant stalls, fish market, septs, City Watch?, forge, bakeries, pigsties, stables, tanneries, and winesinks, guildhall, harbor, weirwood(godswood), royal kennels

Good site for info: http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/Concordance/
 
Thanks for the interest guys - by the way, I love what you guys have been doing on your mod, Belizan and Woodelf.

Patricius - Thanks for the ideas... the obsidian/valyrian steel are both fantastic ideas I didn't consider. Also, the civics names are right on. And I shall certainly be renaming the specialists as per your suggestion. Thanks very much, and please post anymore ideas if you get them.

Anyway, you guys have asked about whether or not this would be a scenario or a mod. My intention is for it to be both.

Your first option will to play the great big Game of Thrones, with all the major houses and such.

Then I'll make a series of scenarios - some ones I will be doing:
The Wolf and The Kraken, which would depict the Greyjoys assault on the north.
Blood Fruit, which imagines what would happen if Dorne marshalled against the Lannisters
Dog Fight, which would be Gregor v. Sandor fighting to the death, perhaps featuring the newly pacifistic Hound trying to protect small villages from the Mountain's raiders.
And I'm sure I can come up with more.

And as for the, "Yeah, but how do rationalize allowing the Starks to research the Red Witch?" I think regular Civ has this same problem. How do the Spanish found Buddhism? It's a reimagining, so I guess you just have to shrug and roll with it. And let's face it - it'd be pretty goddamn cool if Melisandre joined up with the Starks :)

I've been thinking about some traits, and I came up with one I'm pretty sure I want to do: Popular (Or Charismatic, whichever). This would be for leaders like Renly and Margaery, and it would give them +2 happy faces per city, to reflect how beloved they are.

And for the Blackfish, I want to give him a modified Aggressive trait: all his units get a 10 percent withdrawal chance. The Blackfish is slippery indeed.
 
Hi erik
First of all Wow, those flags are beautiful!
Second that map is looking good…at least the shape, I don’t know about resources and specific terrain yet. Do you think that you might include the lands across the sea, like the free cities? They could just barely be on the edge.But they might not be important enough.

Religion-I think you got them all.

Victory Conditions: Would the Kingsmoot be kind of like the UN where they vote you into office? At least in terms of the code.

UU’s.
Stark could have a direwolf? ;)

Traits: What if you used the sort of names that were tacked on to the names of important ancestors.
For Example: Possibles; Brandon the Builder, Aegon the Conqueror, King Jaehaerys the Concilliator, Baelor the Blessed, …others with no history that I know of, the Just, the Wise,
Not so likely: Benjen the Sweet:) , and Benjen the Bitter:p , Brandon the Bad:cool: , Harren the Black:scan: , Aegon the Unlikely:king: , Aegon the Unworthy:sad: , Daeron the Good:goodjob: , Maegor the Cruel:mad: , Barristan the Bold;) , Aerys the Mad:crazyeye:


Anyway, just some more random ideas
Patricius
 
Thanks for the comment. ;)

Nice flags and a nice run at the map.

I think you need to look at how Kael did Heroes and use them as well. The Mountain, the Dog, the Knight of Flowers, ect. Not Leaders, but fighting units. There are hundreds of major and minor warriors to choose from.

Notzart has been making some fantastic skins for TAM so you'll have new units other than just Vanilla. Kael has a cool fireball effect for the pyromancer's Wildfire.

I withdrawal my earlier pessimism, I think you've got a good start going especially if Patricius stays and helps you out.
 
Each post gives me even more food for thought, Patricius - I'm loving it. Here's my thoughts about the latest meal.
Patricius said:
Do you think that you might include the lands across the sea, like the free cities?
I certainly want to tackle the Free Cities, but I want to get Westeros out of the way first. I'll definitely be including them in a scenario at a later date.

Victory Conditions: Would the Kingsmoot be kind of like the UN where they vote you into office? At least in terms of the code.
Yeah, it'd just be the renamed diplomatic victory. But now that I think about it, it might be better to have the UN building renamed to the Iron Throne, and then getting elected that way. The kingsmoot is a little too Ironborn specific, I think.

UU’s.
Stark could have a direwolf? ;)
Yes! Easy to implement, makes perfect sense, and it's easy to implement (I didn't already say that, did I?)

...the builder
Since the traits are a great deal more limited then I first thought, I was considering what I would do for a builder trait. Here's what I came up with - it would be just like financial, only with hammers. Would +1 hammer for every plot generating 2 be too much?

And as for mod progress... A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT. After a great deal of cursing and coaxing, I've got the rivers of Westeros running strong. All that's left to do with the map is place resources, and run some touchups. Since it's near finished, I'd like anybody who's interested to take a look and let me know how it looks in terms of playability and believabilty. I think the clumps of hills are a little much, and I've been debating completely sealing off the Vale of Arryn with mountains.

So here's the map -
 

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Hi erikg88!

Twas I that started making ASOIAF Civ4 mod but it all kinda fell apart around about January this year when all the peeps who had offered to help me (the ones with the practical XML\Python skills) just kinda dissappeared without saying a word to me. That left me pretty discouraged and about that time I was moving house so the bottom line was that I stopped making the mod. :(

Unfortunately I don't have the time or the "know-how" to do much, I did try to continue the mod alone for a bit but I could never get the damn flags to work properly so in the end I just gave up.

I'm very happy to see that you are making a mod as I would absolutely adore playing a ASOIAF in Civ4. I dunno how deep or complicated you're thinking of taking this, my lot were very ambitious and there were some awesome ideas floating around on my mod forum (before athe guys dissappeared) if they were possible, would have made it an awesome game to play. Such a shame it all fell through. :(

Anyways, if you want some ideas I still have loads!

Additionally I'd love to be involved and I'd gladly help you if you need any, I have loads of ideas that are still on the weba dn the site and forum I set up for my mod are still there if you want to use them.

PM me if you want them
 
By all means, post whatever you've got on your HD/your mind, Feet. I'd love to see it.

As for the Mod's progress: I just added in the Baratheon boys, which means most of the major houses (barring the Arryn's) are done.

What that means is I will soon have to cook up a tech tree, and get into creating new buildings and all of that. Also, unique units.

My computer is swamped with virii right now, so my progress might be slowed as I battle the damn things.
 
For the senario part, would it not be better to have the techs represent a significant event or time period than an advancement in technology?

Set up something like:

1. All civs start out with a tech that represents their hours (ie. House Lannister)
2. All corresponding techs that relate to the events of said house can only be obtained by those civs that have the innitial tech
3. Each new tech represents a major event in the history of the house and is given appropriate bonuses or minuses for the success or failur of said event.

This way when a civ reaches a certain event, you could have one of the major characters in the book spawn. They could be given different abilities; noble is needed to build X wonder, lord gives bonuses to certain units stacks, etc. You could also make each character unit give a "ransom" reward when the unit is captured by another civ. If possible the unit could be transferred back to the owning civ.

Civics should stay with the same feudalism system in the book. These are just some ideas for civics I can think of and do not know if they are possible or not.

1. Vassels - reduced units maintaince
2. Levies - faster production of foot units
3. Martyrdom - reduced war weariness
4. Serfdom - Free maintainence of workers

I would think it would be best to start the senario with the five kings. Maybe have the condition where if you kill the king unit, all cities and units are added to your civ (if that is all possible).

Maybe you could have some wonders that represents victiories for a civ, built in a specific city. Say the Lannisters need to built the wonder "Death of Robert" after a specific tech (event) is reached in King's Landing, before the new event is reached and is made obsolete. So with the "Death of Robert" completed the Lannisters could build the wonder "Corronation of Joffery" and be entitled to certain bonuses".

As in the book, most of the characters good decisions had and equal fallout. So each major wonder should have an equal negative effect added to it. Or better yet, if you can do it, after a certain wonder is built in another civ you could have negatives added to the wonder in the civ that it directly affects. If that makes any sense at all.

Well that is all I can think of now anyways. I don't really know how much of this is useful or even if you are able to apply these ideas. Just a few random ideas I came up with in the spur of the moment.

Good luck with this mod as I will surely give it a try when you have all the major ideas wrinkled, tested, and formalised.
 
So! We've gone nine days without a post, but I certainly haven't been idle. Here are some screens to let you know how things progress.

Some of the renamed improvements.


Old Pyke is doing quite well for itself - not only is it the holy city for the Drowned God, the Seven, and the Old Gods, but the Titan of Braavos stands guard in the harbor...


The lack of foresight you'd expect from Theon Greyjoy - attacking one of his own faith, and from a sizeable point deficit. (Can you guess which ruler [from the Yucatan] he's based on?)


The requirements essential to bringing the Mother of Dragons to your cause. I've modified each item so it's bonus production matches the project (i.e. having Silk means you build the Queen's Vesture more quickly, ditto for Gems/Golds and the chests, and Wine+the Cask.


The Knight of Flowers, galloping off to Dragonstone...


With the religions settling into focus, and most of the improvements renamed, a few things remain to do.

A few more houses (meh)
Units (ugh)
The Entirety of the Tech Tree (mother of god, no!)

So aside from those notably unfun things, I wanted to get some opinions on some of the more interesting stuff, as well as respond to any comments that I've left hanging.

I'm going to modify the railroads so they look similar (but fancier), than the regular roads. I'll name it the Kingsroad, and bump down the movement bonus to maybe 5 or 6. Anyone know how to modify road graphics?

What's to be done about these wonders? So far I have locked down only the Citadel (renamed GL), The Titan of Braavos (Colossus), Street of Silk (a great suggestion from this thread which puts a brothel in each city), perhaps the Wall... after that, I'm drawing blanks. Baelor's Sept is already in place as the Shrine for the Seven, and The Iron Throne has indeed replaced the UN.

Valyrian Steel has started to dot the landscape, using Aluminum's graphics.


Civics are stil floating in the ether, but let's see what Gaias has to say about that:

I like all of the civics ideas you posted, Gaias, and I believe they are possible. If you have any more on your mind, please share.

As for your suggestion about scenario tech trees, I have a few objections with it:
1.) I'm lazy, and I don't want to code specific trees for each house.
2.) It'd feel top strictured, and it would take away a lot of the choice from the player.
3.) Python events would probably suit better.

Thanks very much for the posts guys, and let's resume feeding me some ideas here! 9 days with only myself and the Blaster/Sasser virii (aren't they 3 years old) to work on the mod (and don't worry, I did a total reformat, so my computer is a tabula rasa), things have been stagnating.

Anyway! I go off to Illustrator to create the firey sigil of R'hllor.
 
There was a graphics pack with 5-6 new roads a while back. Maybe one of them could be used for your Kingsroad?
 
After the patch, my "clean" TechInfos.xml file should be useful for taking the sting out of tech tree creation... Just something to consider...
 
Patricius said:
Great job erik, is there any parts that you are struggling with speciically that we could discuss, or possible give to me to tinker on?

Patricius
Any civics ideas, as well as UUs. Aside from the Stark Direwolf and the Greyjoy raider, that still leaves UUs for at least Lannister, Tyrell, Tully, Baratheon, and maybe a few more. So anything you can think of there would be good.

More building ideas. Since the game doesn't progress into the modern age, we don't get things like the Recycling Center, and I'm having a hard time coming up with an analogue that would fit with the setting.

A balance question: if the missionary unit for the God of Many Faces is a Faceless man, would it be unbalanced to give him spy abilities? Maybe I could just put that monastery farther down the tech tree?

And IVZanIV, I'm not sure what this clean XML sheet would do for me. I can have as clean a sheet as I want by just copy-pasting in the relevant bits and editing them as I need to... what would your files do for me that would make the process of laying out a tech tree any less arduous?
 
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