Ethnicae - Mac / PC compatible Mod

ETHNICAE 2011



DECEMBER 2011 : Ethnic Mix More becomes ... ETHNICAE !!!


This is a major update which is named Ethnicae 1.0 2011 "xmas special" ( to avoid the confusion with the oldy Ethnic Mix More )

Let's say right now, there will be another major update in the next weeks which will be named : Ethnicae 2012 1.1 "Apocalypse Project" because, despise the fact I worked hard to this mod, I haven't been fast enough to complete ALL units of ALL civilizations ...

As already said here and there, Ethnicae units are not only a pick of other great modders units, it's a huge selection of the best units around and a huge work of texturization and creation of new models based on many different meshes. Some works have been made in Blender but of course, more to come soon !

Civilizations which are complete ( or almost complete ) today with new skins, new heads, new textures, etc ...



Many new units ! And many many new textures !! ( around 750 units )

- Babylon
- Carthage
- Celtic
- England
- Ethiopia
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- India
- Japan
- Mali
- Mongol
- Native
- Netherlands
- Ottoman
- Persia ( more or less )
- Portugal
- Russia
- Spain
- Sumer
- Viking
- Zulu

This doesn't mean that there are no units related to the other civilizations, but they are not yet updated ( from the ancient mod ) and they will be updated in the next update ...

Brand new skins for all african units has been created and almost all textures are now 256x256 !!! ( I know some people prefer 128x128 ... But I had to make a choice. For everyone who's playing to Civ 5 and still play to Civ 4, it won't be a problem at all and since computers are more and more powerful ... )

A new complete civilization is arrived : Pacific/Polynesia/Maori civilization with a complete set of units, a leader : Tama Te Kapua, a specific music, a unique unit, a special building.









What's included too ?

Different leaders :

- Aelia Pulcheria ( Byzance )
- Cetshwayo ( Ethiopia )
- Cochise ( Native America )
- Harald ( Viking )
- Hiro Hito ( Japan )
- Knut Innriki ( Viking )
- Louis XIII ( France )
- Martim Sousa ( Portugal )
- Mustapha Kemal ( Ottoman )
- Pontiac ( Native America )
- Sejong ( Korea )
- Tama Te Kapua ( Pacific )
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi ( Japan )
- Zenobia ( Arabia )
- Isabella Del Castillo ( Spain )
( it is another Isabella I named a bit differently to avoid to suppress the basic Isabella from game )







And what's more ?

- Ethnicae is now modular ... ( at last )

- GeoModder's great Cultural City Style last version 0.99 is included and I added some buildings ( much more to come ! )

- NEW Terrain Graphics ! ( between Civilization and Colonization styled )

- New Buttons ...

- Some new wonders ( Tsentom ones ) such as : The Sphinx, the Cheomseongdae and the Copernicus Observatory wich both add events to the gameplay, the Great Bath, the Eden Project.

I would like to add much more but I didn't have enough time ... But asap the civilizations units are all completed, I'll begin to work on adding interesting and brand new stuff ! And it will be very soon !






GUINEA PIG PART

The mod is no more in beta testing and has already been tested on both single and multiplayer games on both Mac and PC ... And reported working fine. If any mistake is encountered, just report, I'll do my best to help. So, don't worry, everything is done to get ETHNICAE a great mod with your help !

This is a mod for BTS 3.19 ( and surely playable on BTS 3.17 too )

This mod doesn't change the basic gameplay

If this mod is not enough for you, well, rip whatever units you want ! ( as far you add a little credit for the hard work of your beloved Coffe Junkie )






INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

1) Unzip the Ethnicae folder into your Mods directory ( ../Applications/"yourciv4beyondthesword_install_folder"/Mods/ )
2) Load the game and play as normal by first loading Mod option




CREDITS

Bakuel, Danrell, Charles88, Chuggi, Polycrates, AlazkanAssassin, AsioAsio, Sepamu92, Mechaerik, Ambrox, Millenia, Achilleszero, Deliverator, Sakhr, Buddy3101, Gagonite, SaibotLieh, Bernie14, tsentom1, melcher kürzer, walter hawkwood, etc ... etc ...

To everyone who is not listed : just tell me : I'll add your name !

A Special think and thank to AlanH who provided a great working Nifskope on Mac, Xyth for all his precious advices, Keinpferd who supports me in unit creation, FlyingToaster for her patience to play the beta release until every correction has been made ...




WHAT'S NEXT ?

- New sets of units and/or updated ones for : America, Arabia, Aztec, Byzance, China, Egypt, Inca, Khmer, Korea, Maya, and Holy Roman Empire

- Modern ethnic foot units for each civilization ( from musketmen to paratroopers )

- Naval units ( new boats for everyone )

- Tanks for every civilization

- New wonders

- New civilizations : Tibet and Slavic Federation ( based on Magyar/Hungary and Poland )




DOWNLOAD

Ethnicae is 180 MB compressed and 600 MB uncompressed


Here : http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=18158








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2009/2010


ETHNIC MIX MORE IN BLUE :

What is it ? It's Ethnic Mix More with ColdFever Blue Marble terrain graphics ...

The only differences between Ethnic Mix More and Ethnic Mix More in Blue are ColdFever fantastic Blue Marble grahics ... As I couldn't make the Blue Marble graphics working fine in multiplayer when simply added to CustomAssets, I put the files in my mod and this way, it worked

It's just the BlueMarble "core" files ( only BM terrain, without BM mousepointer, without BM fonts, etc ... ) from pure zip package for highres supplied by ColdFever ...

- Tested working fine in both single and multiplayer on MAC
- Tested working fine in single on PC
- Not tested in multiplayer on PC ( sorry : don't have 2 PC at home ) but, if it works on Mac multiplayer, it should work fine on PC too ...

ColdFever Blue Marble thread :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=295876

ALL credits for Blue Marble go to ColdFever !

- - - - -

ETHNIC MIX MORE 1.2 UPDATE :

Here the second update of Ethnic Mix More and I numbered it 1.2 ( Valentine Special )

What's new ? Well ... As I try to progress with Nifskope, I tried to enhance many many units ...

One point of weakness of the mod was maybe the lack of difference between the Minor Asia civilizations ( Sumer, Babylon, Persia, Arabia, Ottoman ). As a good wizard, Bakuel made some fantastic Berber units a few weeks ago and so, I used them for Arabia and began to re-create and touch some pixels on Minor Asia units until I have enough diversity between them. Then, I used Bakuel Berber meshes to make too some Ottoman units and worked a lot on Nifskope to get some new Sumer/Babylon units. Related to Persia, I used both Bakuel great persia units and some of my own to propose a complete set.

So ...

- Almost all India units are re-created, including a new settler and a new scout ( instead of the MidEastern style of BTS who's really not accurate for India ! )

- Almost all Sumer units are re-created.

- Almost all Arabia units are re-created.

- Almost all Ottoman units are re-created ( including a new explorer )

- Almost all Khmer units are re-created ( added new ones )

- Almost all Korea units are re-created ( added new ones )

- Enhanced too some Mongol and China units

- Enhanced and updated almost all Nihon units

- Created a new Africa settler and created 8 new textures for all African shields ...

- Enhanced many Knights of several civilizations, mostly the horse part with a new 256x256 texture ...

- I re-create a new carriage for War Elephants ( a 256x256 texture ) and then worked on War Elephants to get a more visual diversity.

The carriages are a bit empty to let some other creators to add whatever they want ( weapons for example, which is not my best knowledge )

- Added several cuirassiers more etnically diverse.

At last, as pointed by Mamba, I finished to get some crash after many multiplayer tests so, as GeoModder updated its great Cultural City Style to 0.95, I included it. This version ( 0.95 ) doesn't crash the game. I had no problem at all with it ...

And the Eden Project ( wonder mod ) of tsentom1 is still there !

Tested both on Mac and PC ( single and multiplayer ) and remember : this mod is for Civilization IV Beyond The Sword 3.1.9


- GeoModder's Cultural City Style version 0.95 :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=328300

- The Eden Project ( wonder mod ) from tsentom1 :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7060423#post7060423


Total : 490 Units ... Each unit has its own dds button.

Compressed ( .rar format ) : 130 Mo
Compressed ( .zip format ) : 135 Mo
Uncompressed : 330 Mo


ETHNIC MIX MORE :

This mod is for Civilization IV Beyond The Sword 3.1.9 only and it works on BOTH MAC and PC ( single and multiplayer - I named it Ethnic Mix More as a tribute to White Rabbit EDU's Mod which inspired me

This mod is still a work in progress and I continue to go further with it, with a little bit of patience. It intends to bring to Mac players a bit of units flavor you can find in other mods only available for PC users ...

This mod is not modular. The units are not "FPK" packed for those who want to make their own changes. But not unpacked slow down a bit the Mod launch I suppose.

This mod doesn't include any .dll

The 5 languages of the xml files are written in english ( except for some french parts ) but there are : so, no missing text.

I could add more units ( for example, the same number of units for each civilization ) but my purpose is not only adding any flavoured units but only add quality units. And units creation is like coding : a work always in progress

So, added a complete set of African units ( which is missing in BTS ), some animals units, and of course, many units for almost all civilizations ...

It has been tested both in single and multiplayer games : both on Mac and PC

Units creation credits : Bakuel and Danrell ( I use many of their units ), Chuggi, Polycrates, AlazkanAssassin, AsioAsio, Sepamu92, Mechaerik, Ambrox, White Rabbit, Bernie14, Millenia, Achilleszero, Deliverator, Sakhr, Buddy3101, Gagonite, SaibotLieh, etc ...

A special thanks to Flintlock1415 who pointed me towards a great utility for Mac : SquishDDS which does a great job and spared me a lot of time !!!

To everyone who is not listed : just tell me : I'll add your name !

I did it only because I think that there are not enough Civilization mods really available on Macintosh or Macintosh compatible ...



EASY INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS :

1) Unzip the Ethnic Mix More folder into your Mods directory ( ../Applications/"yourciv4beyondthesword_install_folder"/Mods/ )
2) Load the game and play as normal by first loading Mod option



VERSION HISTORY :

- Version 1.2 (14/02/10) --> This is the current and 2nd version. Tested working on Beyond The Sword 3.19 multilingual ( both Mc and PC )
- Version 1.1 (01/01/10) --> This is the current and 2nd version. Tested working on Beyond The Sword 3.19 multilingual ( both Mc and PC )
- Version 1.0 (01/10/09) --> This was the 1st version. Tested working on Beyond The Sword 3.19 multilingual ( both Mc and PC )

Work still in progress - So, please, enjoy !

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There are not modern units pictures because they are already posted in another thread here :

Modern Units Thread

This is more or less the screen used for the mod :

coffee junkie said:

- Include the flavoured ethnic city style for each civilization ( credits to : GeoModder )

Click to expand...

Glad to see my little assembly is of use to you.
Just to give you a tip: tomorrow the latest version will be uploaded, but its called Cultural Citystyles these days.

EDIT : Here are the updated pictures of Native units :

coffee junkie said:

Click to expand...

I sure recognize that first unit! But you seem to be using the wrong animation. This is actually my fault- i wrote the wrong one in the Unit Doc file. It actually uses Quecha animations, not the Swordsman ones.


Either way, that's a lot of units! Looks great

Looks cool, downloading now. I'll probably be ripping a lot of this off.

Looks good! I'll add this to the Mac Modding Index.

One thing though, you can skin/create buttons with a Mac. I wrote a tutorial on it a while back; its in the index.

mechaerik said:

I sure recognize that first unit! But you seem to be using the wrong animation. This is actually my fault- i wrote the wrong one in the Unit Doc file. It actually uses Quecha animations, not the Swordsman ones.


Either way, that's a lot of units! Looks great

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for your reports. I know there will be some mistakes ( mines of course )

Asap all the mistakes will be found, I'll update the mod corrected

Thanks to have point me the right animation !

Flintlock1415 said:

Looks good! I'll add this to the Mac Modding Index.

One thing though, you can skin/create buttons with a Mac. I wrote a tutorial on it a while back; its in the index.

Click to expand...

And I missed this ? Damned me ... Thank you Flintlock This will be my first reading tomorrow just after breakfast

HERE are some minor changes to do as pointed by people around ( thanks for this ! )

- Egypt Maceman : change Swordsman animation ( kfm ) to Quechua one <--- done

- Greek War Elephant : find a correct animation ( still a 90° behaviour ... ) <--- done

- Hugues Capet Leader : re-do a correct .dds file ( a pink button picture problem ) <--- done ( at last ! )

- India Maceman and India Spearman : change the skin to be more flavoured suitable <--- done


I'll update this post when anything wrong will be found in the mod.

Could you upload it somewhere else besides rapidshare? Another mirror?

mechaerik said:

Could you upload it somewhere else besides rapidshare? Another mirror?

Click to expand...

well ... yes I think I can upload it on one of my own ftp servers. I'll upload it tonight

I'll put the download link in my first post as mirror.

EDIT : Mirror link posted in first post <---

Nice work. I like the variety. How do I credit the units used? Thanks.

JA_Lamb said:

Nice work. I like the variety. How do I credit the units used? Thanks.

Click to expand...

There is already a text file inside the mod and credits are there. Few creators are missing but the credits file will be updated with the next mod update.

As a player/user of the mod, you don't need to credit the units creators But you can visit their threads !

Working now to the Ethnic MiX More mod ( Ethnicae ) update ...

What is already done :

- Included "Cultural City Style" mod by GeoModder

- Modified few little things ( but not much )

- Modified some units colours and or some unit itself

- Added Infantry units for Middle East and China ( credits to Danrell ) and gave to the ME units a sand colour to uniforms ...

- Added 2 spearman units ( Credits to Ambrox for his Bronze units pack ! ) I re-coloured a bit the skins and voilà







- Reskinned some units ... Example :

Before :



After :



Even not very acurate, the spearman now doesn't look like a greek one. Of course, I would have prefered doing more but Nifskope is still obscure to me.

But all these are only testing for instance ...

I still have an animation problem with the Greek WarElephant ......... Tried different .kfm but the driver is still at 90°

Coming back soon ( ? ) with some fresh news

Oh I'm familiar with a number of their names and work, but compiling what you've done also deserves a big thank you. Especially from the Mac users who'll most probably begin modding like mad, just like the rest of us.

Thank you JA_Lamb

It's very kind of you

I'm having error messages pop up about the xml when the mod is loading, but overall, I really like this mod. C: Thanks. Can this be combined with cultural citystyles? Or does that mod have this in it? Another question: why is the game crashing when I play and click "Return to Main Menu?" Does it have to deal with the fact that I'm using a Mac version on a PC, or is it something else?

taxation said:

I'm having error messages pop up about the xml when the mod is loading, but overall, I really like this mod. C: Thanks. Can this be combined with cultural citystyles? Or does that mod have this in it? Another question: why is the game crashing when I play and click "Return to Main Menu?" Does it have to deal with the fact that I'm using a Mac version on a PC, or is it something else?

Click to expand...

Thank you Taxation.

I'm really surprised you got some xml error pop ups because people have tested it both on Mac and PC without any problem.

I play this mod each time I open my game and there is no popup. I tried it with different maps and scenarios maps without any problem ...

I saw you wrote about some errors you got with GeoModder "Cultural City Style" and I will answer the same thing Geo told you : are you sure your Civilization install is OK ? Did your BTS update installed correctly ?

In which folder do you put the Ethnic Mix More mod ?

In my mod, one small .dds picture is missing for Leader Hughes Capet and one .kfm animation is wrong for Greek WarElephants as already mentionned in this topic

These mistakes will be corrected in the next update of the mod And this update will integrate GeoModder "Cultural City Style" mod.

Coming soon

You are welcome. C:
Yes, I cannot remember when it was updated, but I looked at the specs of BtS and it was 3.19. And I am pretty sure the installer is okay, as is the folder I put the ethnic mix mod in: Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\MODS. I also have the same issues with the Hughes Capet thing (is it pink?) but I did not notice the Greek War Elephant issue.
Can't wait for the update! I have no idea how to XML, so this will be terrific. C:

Here are some screenshots:

taxation said:

as is the folder I put the ethnic mix mod in: Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\MODS.

Click to expand...

That's not the place where to put my mod ( and pretty sure "Cultural City Style" too )

The right path is :

Mac --> yourHD/Applications/YourGamesFolder/Civilization IV/Beyond the Sword/Mods/EthnicMixMore

PC --> C:/Program Files/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4/Beyond the Sword/Mods/EthnicMixMore

taxation said:

I also have the same issues with the Hughes Capet thing (is it pink?) but I did not notice the Greek War Elephant issue.
Can't wait for the update! I have no idea how to XML, so this will be terrific.

Click to expand...

Yes : the missing .dds picture is this one. Related to the Greek War Elephant, some have and some doesn't. On Mac, I have this issue but it is solved now.

And the missing .dds Hugues Capet picture is ok now

I finish to test the update of the mod ( which includes "Cultural City Style" and some other surprise ) and will upload very soon

EDIT : Fogot to mention there is too a question of Civilization cache cleaning for PC gamers ... You should ask to someonemore informed than me

Okay, I did what you said;
C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Gold\Beyond the Sword\Mods
and I still see the errors.
Can't wait for the update. C: