Rise of the Homos(Development Thread)

I don't think Gigantopethicus was an "early human" in the same sense as those others you mentioned. And they may have been contemporaries of man too, so I'm thinking they should be like barbarian units.

Oh no. It's part of the later extinct Megafauna and disappeared about 300 Ma (thousands of years ago).

I guess I will leave the dinosaurs out. I was only thinking like a 1% chance of something extremely rare spawning on the map. That is what I am referring to. That is why I thought fantasy a little like instead of gold or treasure chest you get......

I thought about perhaps bring in FfH's magic system to be a form of animism. For example placing things on the map that the religions feel are important. Like giant trees, caves, giant stones, perhaps animals(if possible) and etc. So shamans for one maybe more units could do something unique like the spell system but altered to fit in this context of animism.

I was planning on Gigantopithecus. And of course woolly mammoths and sabre tooths. Some others I am planning on are bison and boars those are already made. I am also thinking about scaling down the size of many things in order to make the animals look bigger. I mean I want a mammoth to be really big. It needs to be about 4 times the size of a normal elephant.

Other things I thought about gorillas, chimps, orangutans, and gibbons . Maybe Paranthropus, Australopithecus, and Kenyanthropus species making rare appearances if I could set it to very rare. But that is why I ask should the fantasy part being the crazy rare appearences that could happen. Sorta like rolling the dice on a random encounter.

As for maps this looks interesting to me as well.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7438216&postcount=122

The flooding would be good to have because of all the flood stories. That could be a trigger for a wave of migration. It is possible to add more yields to the game, but getting the AI to use them is something else. I would prefer more yields but might not be possible.

I began making some before in the WoC for this reason. I had changed the map to have 5 basic yields instead of the standard Civ 4 yields. But other than that there would be need some quantity amount I think if they were resources. Anyway that part would take some SDK work.

The civs swapping to new ones...bad idea? How many at the beginning of the Neolithic do you think should be around. I am thinking in the Neolithic is where tribes begin turning into city states. So like I tried to explain I was thinking of not going by real time but by technological advancements. That means most of the Americas was still in the Stone Age. Olmec versus Sumerians in the Neolithic sound horrible? Mayans versus Babylons in the Copper Age?

I guess you guys really are interested. Well just tell me what not to do please, and what is must in your minds to do for sure. I will get this info all together for anyone who wants to help. And thanks for the input.

just a random thought, but it would be cool to have many more animals as has already been said, but make it to where if you attack them there's like a 33% chance you gain food, 33% chance you gain clothing, and a 33% chance you capture it (as seen in FFH). And maybe throw in something like animals have a chance to spawn other animals(like the camp), and also animals could be sacrificed for food or clothing.

though if that was all in the python like it is in the camp unit, it may be a bit slow. But if you also consider that there won't be cities on the map, it'll probably be about average still. Maybe once people start settling down(building cities) that feature could be disabled or something.

Shiggs713 said:

just a random thought, but it would be cool to have many more animals as has already been said, but make it to where if you attack them there's like a 33% chance you gain food, 33% chance you gain clothing, and a 33% chance you capture it (as seen in FFH). And maybe throw in something like animals have a chance to spawn other animals(like the camp), and also animals could be sacrificed for food or clothing.

though if that was all in the python like it is in the camp unit, it may be a bit slow. But if you also consider that there won't be cities on the map, it'll probably be about average still. Maybe once people start settling down(building cities) that feature could be disabled or something.

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Nothing wrong with the idea. I just want to say what I was thinking before. I thought capturing would occur once you research a certain tech. Then after holding the animal so many turns you could turn it into a domesticated animal. We would probably need some stages in between on the tech tree if used. So I was thinking a whole new action on capturing later.

Now food would be simple to get from an animal, but cloth is something else. I mean how would there be an amount of cloth? For the moment I was just thinking having hammers to represent this because actually different types of clothes could be possible later by techs. I am thinking to keep it simple you get hammers from animals that can be processed as a stockpile of hammers just like gold in the normal game.

I did make 5 new yields in the WoC in anyone could get them to be used by the AI. The 5 were fruit, wild game, fish, timber, and ore. Meaning these replace the food, hammers, and gold on the map. I don't know if there is any use for them or not yet.

I am wanting to take gold out of the equation completely from the land, or at least until a much later time. I would rather barter with hammers or food versus gold in the beginning. So might just need to change the symbol instead of the code.
And thanks for the offer of help.

If anyone wants to contact me by im. I set up a Skype account just for civilization. You can search for "johny.smith.civ" if you want to chat about any of the details.

Anyway I will be around it if you guys want to use it.

The list I did before I think is just way too much. I am going to try to simplify things. These can be changed. I just want to list them to have something start to work on. I am open to changing, renaming, or whatever. Anything at all. I just want to give a layout on what I am planning first.


These are in a tree form to match possible steps of your tribe as your progress. I am thinking you swap your civilization and get a different tech tree per era. I intentionally wanted to spread them out around the globe. So anyway the tech trees would be hypothetical for many as in "what if". For example what if the Mesoamerica had progressed into the Iron Age before Europeans arrived. Well tell me if it is a horrible idea please.

The idea itself sounds good, but it also sounds like an incredible amount of work.

I think a lot of people would be interested to play a prehistoric mod; we're always in need of mods that explore a truly different setting. But I'd agree with The_J, anything requiring tons of complicated changes is unlikely to ever get done. I'd suggest starting with something simple and easier on yourself to accomplish, like making a straightforward mod using an already existing DLL (RevDCM or standard CivBTS), coding a single tech tree with interesting techs, then add some civs and units and you're already at an early playable release.

The tech lines on your tree could include evolutionary changes (like Opposable Thumbs, Bipedal Stance, and Larynx) as well as cultural ones (Social Hierarchy, Supersitition, Spoken Language) and primitive technologies (Blunt Weapons, Flint, Fire, Cooking) etc. That's more than enough to bring tons of interest and uniqueness to your mod, and you'll be up & running 10 times as fast.

Once you have the basics working, you can easily add extra features like slaughtering or capturing animal units (I think that could be brought over from FfH). Then you're free from having to worry about recoding the DLL for civilization swapping, multiple tech trees, 5 new yield types, and the mod would be just as much fun for anyone playing it. Just my 2cents!

Well the one primary thing in this mod will be no cities needed, and your city is mobile. I am not going to have to have cities. There is something already partially done if you guys have not seen it for the mongol camp to act as a city it just needs finished. I did say a while if at all till this will be complete.

The techs I want a little more accurate. I probably will need to make the other members of the homo genus non-playable civs. I just wish I can figure out a way to make homo sapiens sapiens learning something from the other species with unique tech trees in play. Fire was way before this mod begins. There is plenty of things to fill in, but it would require more units which I plan to do that can show the improvements in small steps. The warrior with the club will probably be changed to looked like homo erectus or something.

Well I do not want to just make another mod that is only slight xml changes. So there will be no basic mod with only xml. I assume you guys have no clue what has already been done that needs finished code wise. If it is not done there is no mod really from my viewpoint.

https://worldofciv.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/wocrapture/Installer/Camp RoH.rar

If you guys want to see the camp now. I got it researching techs and building units finally.





Just finally got faichele's code working.

Awesome.

I'd recommend changing the graphics though, I'm sure you were planning on doing that anyway.

The Capo said:

Awesome.

I'd recommend changing the graphics though, I'm sure you were planning on doing that anyway.

Click to expand...

Ya I was going to redo the graphics.

I need to get the first era technologies done so it will help anyone who wants to do work on xml for technologies. I may use fire as a very beginning technology if I don't figure out anything better.

Fire-stick farming (as the phrase used to describe how humans began clearing vegetation) I will need to put in some era for sure. A link to fire from the first era might be needed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming

The axe of course will be there. Regardless the first era every homo sapiens sapiens will share as a tech tree if I have the civilizations changing or not.

Anyway so it take a little while for to workout the techs. If anyone has any suggestions on what techs would be around between the axe and spear-point let me know please.

IIRC there was a scenario for Civ II (it may have been in ToT, or maybe Fantastic Worlds or something) that dealt with early homonids (I think the Neanderthals were one of the civs). If it helps you might want to try to find information on that and take a look at the tech tree there to give you something to use as a template.

EDIT: What is the victory condition here? I think you should somehow use the Space Race but turn it into creating a settlement or something like that.

Where can you get ToT to play anyway now? I never played the mod, but ya sounds like some ideas.

Victories I have no clue what to do with them. If the mod ends early maybe a settlement related victory. How about the first to make a particular iron age weapon?


I started to do the tree but then realized how confusing to me the yields would be to use as they are from BtS for a Stone Age. So I just changed some art and the yields on the terrain. No new code changes.

Food I do not looking like bread since that will be a later invention so change to some plant looking symbol. I am thinking meat would be from animals later. Production I thought to replace with wood. Gold replace with stone(just for the yield not the commerce). Anyway tell me if they look bad please. I am open to changing it back or around. I just wanted to get some feedback on the idea so far.

The file is just changes to one above called Camp RoH.rar

I like food and production. Commerce looks a little dark, or maybe strange if anything. Just kinda looks weird using something resembling a piece of coal for commerce. Maybe more of a precious stone look, like a ruby or emerald? Or even a few smaller stones together or somethign like that.

i think commerce can be represented by sea shells

First of all, this mod sounds quite interesting. My best wishes for it.

About the commerce, why not use salt as icon?

First of all I want to clear up their are two different values used here.
1. The yield of commerce
2. The commerce of gold

I wanted to explain and see what other people think about changes I am thinking to make.

I need the commerce yield to look clearer. I am thinking of going away from the value of wealth so much for the yield. I made obsidian symbols of the stones to show on the map and they look good, but I need to redo the symbol on the Gamefonts to make it clearer. That is what you see above.

This is yields normally built by cottages for example. I am thinking of changing that to have mines produce stone(ore) as shown above, and things that produce wood would be things that do not fit as food or ore. So for example a Stone Quarry would produce commerce yield not production yield.

But now on the commerce of gold or wealth I am thinking replacing with something rare. I am thinking of using somethings like you guys are suggesting. That is what you would be trading. Not what you see up here. The only thing I had thought was something people made out of the stone maybe versus just a rare item. Like beads maybe for example. I don't really know yet, but I need to figure it out soon.

Sea shells while it sounds interesting I think it will not make much sense if they are not near the ocean. Salt really was not so valuable this early I believe. They were not mining at this point, or no real way to collect it from the ocean. Rubies and emeralds make sense. It is logical for something worked from the original stone, but they really could not be really done so small of course at this time. Maybe jade. It does not matter I mean so much if it stretches the truth just something to represent it I know. Suggestions are good. I need to see what I can find for an imagine as well to use.

Anyway I want to see it the idea still sounds good. The camp does not need commerce yields I mean. Since I am starting over basically. Should I really bother with the cottages how they are? If this is a horrible idea or if you have a better one please let me know.