Davane's Daily Mod Release Thread

The Spy (Released 12/02/10)

The Spy is a stealthy infiltrator that is capable of many forms of subterfuge, from stealing intelligence reports to sabotaging imprvoements, from kidnapping workers to instigating revolutions. The Spy is a Recon unit that has a Combat Strength of 3 and is invisible to most units (only Explorers and other Spies can see them). The spy also has a 50% Withdrawal rate. Spies are available with Alphabet, and there are no limits on their production. The Spy also has hidden nationality (BtS only). Spies start with the Sentry and Commando promotions, and have 2 Moves.

Since Spies have become combat units, changes the way they act significantly in many ways. Primarily, during wartime, Spies will engage enemies rather than sneak past them, preventing the use of their espionage abilities in squares occupied by enemy forces until those forces are defeated. Spies also capture cities, and thus it is impossible to use any espionage abilities on enemy cities during wartime as such cities are automatically captured and become allied cities. During peacetime, the spy has full use of their espionage abilities.

This daily mod has been more ambitious than the previous ones, as it has required editing text labels and adding new infos into the game (namely the Invisible_Spy Basic info). With this knowledge, you can expect to see other more ambitious daily mods in the near future.

The Lighthouse (Released 12/02/10)

The Lighthouse is available with Sailing and provides +1 Food from Water tiles, but increases City Maintainance by +5%. In addition, it demonstartes the primary use for resources in the mod - the Lighthouse provides +5% Food with access to Clams, Crab, or Fish (up to +15% Food for all three), in addition to providing +1 Health for these bonuses (taken from the Harbour building).

Do you have any plans for adding other mod/modmods to this mod? Revolutions, stone age mod. Or in other way expanding the techtree or is it "just" a rewrite of civ4?

I'm following your development on this mod with great interest.

I do indeed have plans to expand this mod with ideas from other mods, and you have mentioned two of the prime candidates already. I follow the mod developments for civ IV avidly, which helps me keep up with progress on the latest ideas. I always seem to find that I like ideas from different mods and wish they were in one mod - I also like mixed genres, such as mixing fantasy with sci-fi, or steampunk with post-apocalypse.

But first, I have to learn to code my ideas, and the best way to do this is to get hands on with the core game and use that as a basis. At the moment, I'm working purely with XML, using what the game already has, but I intend to experiment with Python and SDK modding in time, hopefully alongside exploring some of the other popular mods that have been developed thus far.

Besides, so many genres stem from periods in real history, so it serves as a good foundation what whever genre-spanning ideas come forth!

SAM Infantry (Released 13/02/10)

We move into the Modern Era, the final era of Civ IV, with the SAM Infantry. This unit is essentially an Infantry unit equipped with SAM launchers, so just like other earlier "weapon upgrade" units, it shares the same Combat Strength as Infantry, which is 16, as well as their Withdrawal rate of 20%. Because SAM Infantry have to switch weaponry, they only get 1-2 First Strikes rather than the Infantry's 2 First Strikes. However, they make up for this with a 30% chance to intercept Air units performing missions within 1 square. SAM infantry require Rocketry, Assembly Line, and Flight to build, and upgrade to Mechanized Infantry (and Mobile SAMs in BtS).

The Granary (Released 13/02/10)

The Granary is the second building to provide bonus yields for resources - in this case it provides +5% Food with Corn, Wheat, or Rice (up to +15% with all three). In addition, the Granary keeps 50% food after growth, which essentially halves the amount of food needed to increase city population, and provides a useful buffer should the city end up starving, possibly preventing population loss. However, Granaries increase City maintainance by +5%, just like most other city buildings.

Da' Vane's Mods (Released 13/02/10)

The Mechanized Infantry
As military forces became mobilizied thanks to the advances of combustion, there was a need to transport infantry units to hold the territory claimed by the advancing tanks. The answer in the short term was to equip Infantry units with transporters allowing them to quickly get from one place to another, while providing a modicum of protection. Mechanized Infantry has a Combat Strength of 24, 2-3 First Strikes, and a 30% Withdrawal rate. It has two moves per turn, and also has a 30% chance to intercept air units nearby. Mechanized Infantry requires Robotics, Assembly Line, and Flight to build.
Mechanized Infantry is classed as a Vehicle unit, a new unitcombat class that lies between Armor units and Gunpowder units. Although the unit itself and the unitcombat details have been updated, promotions have not, and as such Mechanized Infantry cannot recieve any promotions. I promise I will get to promotions ASAP.

The Temple
The temple remains largely unchanged from Civ IV. It still serves to improve cities with access to religion by providing +1 Happiness and +1 Culture. More importantly, temples allow the city to assign 1 Priest specialist, which increases Production and Wealth, as well as providing additional GPP that are skewed towards Great Prophets. In addition, each Temple also increases City Maintainance by +5%.
Update (07/03/10): Temples now provide an additional +1 Happiness if they match your State Religion.
Update (04/05/10): Temples now provide a bonus to your city depending upon their religion, as follows: Judaism: +25% Wealth; Buddhism: +25% Research; Taoism: +25% Culture; Islam: +10% Wealth and +10% Research; Christianity: +10% Wealth and +10% Culture; Confucianism: +10% Research and +10% Culture; Hinduism: +5% Wealth, +5% Research, and +5% Culture. You can only construct Temples for your current State Religion.

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to post a mod today, so I posted one late yesterday to cover me. However, turns out I am able to post a mod after all, so it looks like you lucky people ended up with two Daily Mod updates for today!

The Modern Armor (Released 14/02/10)

Modern Armor is currently the most powerful land unit available. It has a Combat Strength of 28 and 1-2 First Strikes. It also has 2 Moves and starts with the Blitz promotion, and a 30% Withdrawal rate. This make for an incrediably powerful offensive unit designed for breaking through enemy lines and taking enemy cities. However, Modern Armor doesn't recieve defensive bonuses, so despite the unit's high Combat Strength, it is not recommended that this unit is used for defensive purposes.

The Oracle (Released 14/02/10)

So far, we've seen wonders that obsolete with a specific technology, wonders that do not obsolete, and wonders that do not strictly obsolete but otherwise become redundant over time. The Oracle provides yet another type of wonder: ones that have an instant one-shot effect and then become redundant. It's hard to justify a reason to spend a lot of Production on a wonder that provides a one-shot effect unless such an effect is pretty powerful, let alone any sort of increased City Maintainance cost. Likewise, the incentive to conquer cities with these wonders is negligable, given that the Wonder's effect has already been used up, and that in most any culture provided by the Wonder is lost upon capture.

I have updated the Oracle to counter these issues. First and foremost, the Oracle now has a permanent benefit in addition to providing a free technology when built - it provides +10% Research, +1 Happiness, and allows the city to assign 1 Priest specialist. In essence, the Oracle is now a building that combines a Monestery with a Temple, alongside it's one-shot effect. However, the Oracle increases City Maintainance by +20%. In addition, the now standard culture mods are in place - the Culture provided by the Oracle does not double with time, but is not reduced when captured either, hopefully giving player more incentive to capture a city with the Oracle built in it. The Oracle requires Priesthood, along with Aesthetics (BtS only), which also serves to put a slight speedbump in the normal CoL/CS slingshot tactics...

Technical issues with my internet connection yesterday prevented me from uploading yesterday's Daily Mods, so here are both yesterday's and today's Mods for you to enjoy...

The Carrier (Released 16/02/10)

With the advent of Flight, it quickly came appararent that the need to have a mobile airfield from which air units could take off and land was vitally important in trans-oceanic conflicts. The Carrier serves this purpose, carrying Fighters and serving as such a mobile airfield. As an unforeseen side-effect, naval conflicts themselves changed, as the longer operational range of the fighters resulted in Naval confrontations occuring further apart than ever before, often out of visual range of most modern navies.

Functionally, the Carrier is an upgraded Transport, with a Combat Strength of 20. The Carrier can carry up to 4 Fighter units, bringing them in line with the Air unit limits for Cities (BTS only). Carriers require the Flight and Astronomy techs to build.

The Submarine (Released 16/02/10)

The Submarine is a naval vessel that is capable of submerging under the surface of the waves, granting it incrediable stealth against enemy naval forces. They have a Combat Strength of 22, 2 First Strikes, and a 40% Withdrawal rate. They can explore rival territory and pass through impassible terrain such as Ice, and can carry a single Special Person unit. The Submarine requires the Combustion and Radio technologies to be built.

Note that in BTS, the Submarine was renamed the Attack Submarine, while the Submarine unit instead carried Missiles. As part of this mod, the Attack Submarine has reverted to being called the Submarine (with the same description, art, and effects as Submarines in previous versions), while the new BTS Submarine has been renamed the Missile Submarine. This means that if you apply this mod, you will be required to update several XML references to Attack Submarines and Missile Submarines to their new versions. Davane's BTS Mod has already applied all these changes, but if you with to apply this mod seperately, the relevent entries in UnitClassInfos, Civilization Infos (for Barbarians), and GameTextInfos have been provided in the archive. The Caravel mod has also been updated to reflect this change. Submarines can be upgraded to the newly named Missile Submarines.

The Library (Released 16/02/10)

Available with Writing, Libraries are repositories of learning and knowledge. They provide +2 Culture and increase the city's Research by +25%. They also allow the city to assign a single Scientist specialist. However, they increase City Maintainance by +5%.

Design Notes: The reduction in the number of Scientists allowed by the library serves two main purposes. Firstly, the research potential of the city is reduced, so there is slightly slower research during the Ancient, Classical, and Medieval eras of the game. Secondly, it allows for a Scientist specialist to be assigned with the University, making this building more useful, and bringing late-game Research rates back in line with the standard game.

The Forge (Released 16/02/10)

The Forge is a key Classical era building that helps increase a City's production, at the cost of increased Unhealthiness in the city. In addition to providing +25% Production, +1 Unhealthiness, the Forge also provides +1 Happiness and +5% Commerce with Gems, Gold, or Silver, and +5% Production with Copper or Iron. However, the Forge increases City Maintainance by +5%.

The Fighter (Released 17/02/10)

The Modern era saw many advances in technology that have changes warfare in different ways. One of the more significant discoveries was that of Flight, which started a race for air supremacy between different military forces, which would in turn help land and naval forces achieve their objectives through aerial intelligence, combat support, and improved logistics, while depriving the enemy of these same advantages.

The Fighter is the earliest Air unit available, and their main purpose is to establish and maintain air superiority for your forces. They have an Air Combat Strength of 20, and have a 50% chance of intercepting other aircraft. They have an operational Range of 6 squares, within which they can perform recon sweeps, Air Bomb defences and improvements (5% damage), and perform Air Strikes (with no damage limit - so they CAN destroy enemy units with a low enough Combat Strength from performing an Air Strike). They also have 0-1 First Strikes and a 20% Withdrawal rate. (These abilities are irrelevent unless you have BtS, because cannot engage in normal combat. In BtS, Air Units can fight in normal combat with enemy Air Units when they are intercepted, in which case these abilities are applicable.)

The Colossus (Released 17/02/10)

The Colossus has remained largely unchanged, continuing to provide +1 Commerce for all Water tiles. However, the Colossus increases City maintainance by +20%. The Colossus' Culture does not double with time, but it no longer gets reduced when captured. In addition, the Colossus no longer obsoletes.

I've started playing with Python and created my first Python mod - simply updating the Civolopedia's Building Screen so that the Yield and Commerce modifiers of the buildings are displayed in a more tidy fashion. It may only be a font size reduction and a few integer changes, but it means I am beginning to get to grips with Python now, which may enable more python mods in the future, especially those of a greater gameplay purpose.

The Bomber (Released 18/02/10)

The Bomber is an air unit that is designed to drop high explosives upon their foes. While they have a Combat Strength of 20, the same as Fighters, they cause Collateral Damage to up to 4 additional units (and remember, Collateral Damage can kill if units are of low enough health). In addition, Bombers can Bomb city defences and improvements, reducing them by 20% per turn. Bombers have an operational Range of 10 squares, but cannot intercept enemy air units. In addition, they have -50% strength against Water units.

The Heroic Epic (Released 18/02/10)

The Heroic Epic is a national wonder that presents a lasting testament to the prowess of your military forces during the Classical era. The Heroic Epic boosts your military production by +50% and reduces War Weariness in the city by -25%. It also increases your production of Great Generals by +25% (with Warlords)., and increases enemy War Weariness by +5% (with BTS). It produces +4 Culture that does not double with time) and generates Great Artists, but increases City Maintainance by +10%. The Heroic Epic requires a Barracks, but no longer requires a military unit of a specific level, enabling most civilizations to build the Heroic Epic - it is assumed that any civilization without a military hero will simply make one up. You will need the Literature and Bronze Working techs to build the Heroic Epic.

Note that since the Heroic Epic is a National Wonder, every civilization can build one. This means that civilizations may face cumulative War Weariness as more rivals build their Heroic Epics, which can make all-out war between several civilizations a lot harder to manage until you get Jails and the Mount Rushmore national wonder. This works particularly well with Defensive Pacts, which can see aggressors facing a number of enemies at once should they declare war.

Update (19/03/10): The Heroic Epic now increases enemy War Weariness by +25%. However, it requires both a Library and a Barracks to be built in the city. This should see War Weariness become an increasingly harder aspect of the game to manage, particularly if you go to war with a lot of enemies at once (beware of Vassal Agreements and Defensive Pacts!). As such, wars will need to be decisive, or you will need a lot of victories, culture commerce, and/or luxuries to sustain a more drawn out battle of attrition. This also makes destroying enemy luxurious resources a viable tactic...

So, Civilization V has been announced. I, personally, am not sure if I am going to be buying it - it all depends upon what the specs for Civ V will be, and I am not entirely sure that all the changes will be beneficial; so I'll be playing the role of sceptic until more details are forthcoming. note that given the success of Civ IV mods to continue to breathe new life into the game, even five years after the past release, Civ IV still has a long life in it left, and that means so does this mod...

The Jet Fighter (Released 19/02/10)

The Jet Fighter is an improved fighter that does everything the original does, but better. With increased range, increased speed, and increased firepower, the Jet Fighter is top dog when it comes to Air Superiority. The Jet Fighter has a range of 10 squares, a Combat Strength of 26, and a 75% chance to intercept enemy air units. It has 1-2 First Strikes and a 30% Withdrawal change, and can Bomb city defences by 10% per turn.

The National Epic (Released 19/02/10)

The National Epic is a national wonder that celebrates the glory of the civilization and it's achievements. This equates to +25% Great People Points in all cities, and an additional +75% Great People Points in the city it is built in (for a total of +100% Great People Points). The National Epic is the civilized builder's counterpart to the Heroic Epic. Like other national wonders, it increases City Maintainance by +10%. The National Epic also produces +4 Culture, and like other Culture-producing buildings, it does not double over time. Finally, the National Epic increases the length of Golden Ages by +25%.

Hi, I run your bts mod yesterday and I played the 1000AD scenario. I got a XML error starting the scenario. See the attached pic.

Thanks for that Allan79.

That error is the result of having swapped the Attack Submarine and Submarine units in BtS. For some strange reason, Firaxis saw fit to change the original Submarine unit so that it carried Missile units instead of special people, and THEN create a new unit called the Attack Submarine which carried special people. Why they did this, I do not know, since it would have been a lot easier to have simply added a new Missile Submarine unit with the ability to carry Missile units.

Anyways, the error has been fixed now, and you can find it in the next update, which will be due later today.

The Stealth Bomber (Released 20/02/10)

With advances in military aviation yechnologies resulting the increasingly potent Interception rate of the Jet Fighter, military scientists turned their weapons development in a new direction for a new type of bomber. Knowing that such a unit could not hope to defeat or withstand interception for jet Fighters, they instead worked on finding ways to evade interception altogether, and the result of this research was the Stealth Bomber. This unit is very hard to detect on modern radar systems, rapidly reducing the window of time enemy interception has to prevent the Stealth Bomber from completing it's mission.

The Stealth Bomber has a Combat Strength of 26, like the Jet Fighter. It has a range of 14 squares, and a 50% chance to avoid enemy interception. In addition, the Stealth Bomber causes collateral damage to up to 7 additional units (thus, it can cause damage to 8 units per air strike), and can bomb city defences, reducing them by 30% per turn. However, the Stealth Bomber has a -50% penalty against Water units, as it is less effective against these opponents.

The Great Library (Released 20/02/10)

The Great Library is a world wonder that is essentially an improved Library. It provides +25% Research and +8 Culture (which does not double with time, but isn't reduced when captured). In addition, it allows the city to assign 3 Scientist specialists, and provides +1 free specialist for that city. It can only be built in a city that already has a Library. The Great Library requires the Writing technology, but does not obsolete.

Design Notes: The Great Library has been reduced is power because it is available earlier and no longer obsoletes. This means it provides a smaller benefit over a longer period of time. In addition, it provides a free specialist which can be assigned anywhere - this gives the city the freedom to allocate specialists as it needs, without worrying about polluting it's GPP pool too much - the fact that the Great Library itself allows Scientist specialists means that this free specialist is likely to become a Scientist specialist most of the time.

Da' Vane's Mods (21/02/10)

The Gunship
With advances in flight came the development of the first rotary wing aircraft. Unlike their fixed wing brethren designed previously, rotary wing helicopters were able to take off and land without requiring a vast runway, and were able to hover in the air, which enabled them to actively engage enemies on the ground rather than simply strafe them in a flyby or release ordinance that effectively relied on the target remaining in the area of impact. This, combined with the increased mobility that air units had, lead to the eventual development of Gunships.These were highly mobile helicopter units that used their high mobility and mounted rockets to actively engage and defeat mobile units, such as Armor.
The Gunship has a Combat Strength of 24, but gains a +25% bonus against Armored units (for an effective CS of 30 against them). They have 1-2 First Strikes, and a 30% Withdrawal Rate. They no longer get flanking attacks against Siege units. They can move through all terrains and ignore movement costs when moving.
Update (28/04/10): The Gunship now has Flat Movement Costs, can move through all terrains including Impassible Terrain (such as Peaks), and in BTS, can move over Water terrain as if it was Land terrain. It is still classed as a Land unit rather than a Water unit, however.

The Theatre
The Theatre has been updated so that it's primary focus is now on Culture production, rather than Happiness. It provides +3 Culture, and increases the city's Culture rate by 25%. In addition, it provides +1 Happiness, and an additional +1 Happiness for every 20% of the Culture Slider. Plus, with access to Dye, Theatres provide +1 Happiness and +5% Commerce. Finally, the Theatre allows the city to assign up to 2 Artist specialists. However, the Theatre increases City Maintainance by +5%.

The ICBM (Released 22/02/10)

The ICBM, or the Nuke as is it is better known, is a devastating nuclear missile that can be launched at anywhere in the world, for massive damage and a lot of nuclear fallout in the tile and the surrounding area. It requires Fission and Rocketry to be able to build. The Manhatten Project is no longer neededto build ICBMs, and neither is Uranium, so all civilizations with the required techs can start developing their own nuclear stockpiles. Beware of Global Warming once the first nuke is launched however...

Design Note: In BtS, Firaxis changed the way ICBMs were soft-coded in the XML, so the process I used for Vanilla and Warlords does not work with this version. Instead, and easy work around to achieve the same effect is to give the ability to enable nukes to your Palace in the BuildingInfos.xml file.

The Globe Theatre (Released 22/02/10)

The Globe Theatre is a national wonder that is a combination of a Theatre and Colloseum for your nation. It's main benefit is that the city it is built in no longer suffers any unhappiness for any reason. In addition, it provides +6 Culture and increases the city's Culture rate by +25%. Finally, it allows up to 3 Artist specialists to be assigned in the city. However, it increases city maintainance by +10%.

Global Warming Mod (Released 22/02/10)

Since I have finished all the basic military units in Vanilla, I figured I'd make a start on looking at other aspects of the game, to help get the feel of the way I'd like the game to work in general. This meant cracking into the GlobalDefines.xml file, and the first thing that sparked my interest was the Global Warming mechanic, which ed to the development of this simple XML-only mod.

Global Warming starts after the first Nuke is launched, and randomly replaces land tiles with the vastly inferior Desert terrain, making the tiles largely unusable and often resulting in mass starvation for your cities, along with a loss of production and commerce. This simple mod simple replaces changes the tile that Global Warming creates to the new Environmental Damage terrain. This terrain looks just like a Plains tile, but only provides +1 Food, just like Tundra. However, you cannot found cities on the affected tiles. This basically results in a slower effect than the current Global Warming mechanic, with the added complication that viable city sites may become more and more limited as such Global Warming increases, as entire swathes of land become virtually uninhabitable, providing only meagre sustainance.

Da' Vane's Mods (23/02/10)

Great People
Because each of the Great People types in Vanilla are all uniquely complex, but all essentially work in the same way as far as combat and military matters go, I have opted to combine all the Great People unit types into a single category for the purposes of this mod. All five Great People types - Great Prophets, Great Artists, Great Scientists, Great Merchants, and Great Engineers - have a Combat Strength of 1, but can only defend. However, all of these Great People types can be captured when defeated in combat - just like capturing Workers. Such capturing simply means that when a Great Person unit is defeated, a new Great Person of the same type is created under your control in that square. Since this is a new unit, all experience and promotions are lost, and the new Great person will even have a new name. You can consider this a form of repatronization - in history many great people were given new identities upon their capture, and put to work for their new leaders, rather than put to the sword. These make juicy targets for hit and run tactics.
In addition, Great People are all classed as Civilian units, as are Missionaries, Settlers, and Workers. As with the creation of the Vehicle unit class, this means these units currently do not have access to any promotions at this time (but see below for more on this).
Note that Great Generals and Great Spies are not included as Great People. This is because not only were they not available in Vanilla, but they wouldn't be classed as Civilians anyway...
Update (24/04/10): All Great People can explore rival territory.
Update (04/05/10): The Great Scientist can no longer build an Academy. However, the amount of Research they provide towards discovering techs have been increased to compensate. The Great Prophet can no longer build the holy Shrines. Instead, they have the ability to Hurry a Building, Create a Great Work, Conduct a Trade Mission, or Infiltrate a City (BtS only), although they do so at half the efficiency of Great Engineers, Great Artists, Great Merchants, and Great Spies when using these abilities.
Update (01/06/10): Great People no longer build Corporate Headquarters.

The Aquaduct
The Aquaduct has remained largely unchanged, continuing to provide +2 Health to the city. However, it does increase City Maintainance by +5%. Not really much to say about it that isn't already in the 'pedia.

Event Message Mod
This is a simple XML only mod that increases the speed of the messages in the game. It halves the time the messages are displayed from the start of the turn, and slightly shortens the pause between such messages. Okay, not much of a mod to get excited about, but it was something that always niggled me slightly, and I might as well do it while going through the global defines anyway...

Combat Promotions
I promised I'd get around to it ASAP, and since I have now finished all the base units in Vanilla, I figured I'd reward myself by starting on the Promotions. I've started with the Combat promotions (Combat I, II, III, IV, and V). These each provide +20% combat strength. In addition, Combat III, Combat IV, and Combat V each provide +20% healing in Friendly, Neutral, and Enemy territory respectively. These are available to all unit types except Civilians (which means Vehicle units now have some promotions to choose from).
Update (23/03/10): The Combat VI promotion has been updated for the Warlords and BtS versions of this mod. It provides +50% Combat Strength. It requires the Combat V promotion, but no longer requires the unit to be led by a Warlord.
Update (02/04/10): Fixed a typo where the BtS version of the Combat I promotion only provided +10% Combat Strength. It now provides +20% Combat Strength along with the rest of the Combat Promotions.

Are you going to put all these texts in the civilopedia or should I called it Davanapedia?

Hehe, very funny, Allan!

I might try and update the Civopedia entries in due course, but with so many ideas on the go, it's not a real priority right now. These are really just ways to let you know that I've done something new, and explain a bit about why I made the choices I did and what they mean for the gameplay.

In another news, I've been setting up the SDK for some DLL modding. However, this will likely take the form of a seperate BTS 3.19 mod. This means ther will only be a single DLL version, which for compatability versions will only be for the PC. Because of this, I will try and keep the DLL mods to a minimum, trying to get as much out of XML and Python as possible first. This also means that Mods which use DLL modifications may only be partially incorporated into the main mods.

As for my initial concept of including other fan-made mods, the announcement and impending release of Civ V means that this is going to be put on hold for now, as Civ V is most likely to be released by then, and I will be wanting to assess how the community reacts to this. Many Civ IV players may shift to Civ V, and if resources allow, I may opt to shift this idea to development for Civ V, rather than continuing this with Civ IV FIVE years after the original game's release. That said, people still play Civ III (which I never really had the opportunity to experience - might have to look into that at some point) after all these years, so it could be expected to see the Civ IV community remaining just as equally robust for some time in the future. Regardless, up until the release of Civ V, I will still continue to develop this mod for Civ IV, if only because I am enjoying it so much!

Really interesting stuff here, davane

I'm going to try these out.

Da' Vane's Mods (26/02/10)
Slight delay in the release schedule, but everything is now back up to date with todays release(s). Enjoy!

The Trireme
The Trireme is a Classical era naval vessel that was adapted for early naval assault. It's equiped with a metal prow desigend for ramming enemy naval vessels. The Trireme has a combat strength of 4 (vs. the Galley's CS of 3) and requires both Metal Casting and Sailing to be built. It can be upgraded to Caravels or Frigates.

The Trebuchet
The Trebuchet is a massive siege engine used during the Medieval era. Trebuchets hurl large rocks in long, powerful arcs, capable of causing massive damage to enemy armies and fortifications. The Trebuchet has a Combat Strength of 8, has 1 First Strike, and gets a +50% bonus when attacking cities. The Trebuchet has a 20% Withdrawal chance, and can Bombard enemy defences, reducing them by 15% per turn. The trebuchet requires Engineering to be built, and can be upgraded to Cannons.

The Cuirassier
The Cuirassier is essentially a mounted Knight armed with a musket rather than a melee weapon. It has a Combat Strength of 10, 1 First Strike, and a 30% Withdrawal rate. Cuirassiers require Horseback Riding and Gunpowder to be built, and can be upgraded to Cavalry.
Update (30/03/10): Cuirassiers require Military Tradition in addition to the Horseback Riding and Gunpower techs mentioned above.

The Hanging Gardens
The Hanging Gardens is a world wonder that provides +1 Population in all your cities, in addition with +1 Health and +1 Happiness in all cities. It also provides an additional +1 Health and +1 Happiness in the city it is constructed in. However, the Hanging Garden increases City Maintainance by +20%.
Update (04/05/10): The Hanging Gardens now requires Masonry and Mathematics, just like the Aqueducts required to build it.

The Harbour
The Harbour provides +1 Trade Route and increases Trade Route Yield by 50%. It also provides +1 Health. However, the Harbour increases City Maintainance by +5%, and no longer increases city health with access to Fish, Crab, or Clams.

The Colosseum
The Colosseum provides +1 Happiness and +1 Culture, along with an additional +1 Happiness per 10% Culture rate. It increases City Maintainance by +5%.

Start Year Mod
This is not much of a mod, but rather a simple variable tweak that causes games to start at 6000 BC rather than 4000 BC.

Minimum City Distance Mod
Another simple mod, but this time with a more significant impact on gameplay. The minimum distance between cities has been reduced to 0, so that you can build cities next to each other if you wish. You cannot build cities within the cultural borders of another player, but otherwise you can place cities right next to enemy cities if you wish to do so. This means that you can place cities close to gether to form canals or a sprawling metropolis. Alternatively, you can place cities on the edge of your borders to help fortify your position, and put added cultural pressure on your foes. However, bear in mind that only one city can work a single square, so placing lots of cities in a small area may limit the growth of those cities.

Free City Culture Mod
This mod reduces the Free Culture provided by cities to 0. This means that newly founded cities do not extend your cultural borders at all until they are actually producing culture, and are slightly easier to flip culturally. This also means that unless the new city is within or adjacent to your existing cultural borders, it will be unable to work any tiles. Normally, once a city has gained 1 culture, the cultural borders will expand, allowing the city to work adjacent tiles as normal.

Cover Promotion
The Cover promotion gives the unit +50% strength vs. Archery units. It becomes available with the Archery tech.

Shock Promotion
The Shock promotion gives the unit +50% vs. Melee and Civilian units. It becomes available with the Bronze Working tech.

Pinch Promotion
The Pinch Promotion gives the unit +50% vs. Gunpowder units. It becomes available with Gunpowder.