Revival: Genetic Era Mod

Hello everyone, after a 2 and 1/2 year leave from Civ IV I am returning and wanting to revive the Genetic Mod for BTS. I am hoping I will get some help but I am willing to try and see this through even if I don't.

Dubmetender probably won't be joining us and so I am considering releasing the mod under a new name that is more all encompassing rather than just focusing on the last era. As details and ideas surface, the new mod will be in a new thread under the new (or old) name. This thread is mainly to serve as an announcement and a forum for discussing plans and recruiting help.

UPDATE (Evening of 1/5/09): Below I have listed the primary purpose of this thread and suggestions for any one who wants to contribute to this topic:

Mod planning
What did you like about the Genetic Era mod? What didn't you like? What should we add? What should we leave out? I have my own ideas (which I will report in post #2 of this thread. This post will evolve with the plans for the mod). Please keep in mind that my time will be limited and it will be very difficult to do this by myself.

Recruiting
I may go on a recruiting campaign in a separate thread to get the attention of other modders wishing to join together but for now at least, I will take suggestions and offers here. Please let me know by pm as well if you are interested in helping mod. I am looking for EVERYTHING.... SDK, XML, Python, and possibly graphics.

Mod name suggestions

I would like feedback or suggestions regarding the name of the mod. With the addition of the events engine to the last incarnation of the Genetic Era mod, there was an emphasis on the different stages of the history that man has passed through, not just in tech level but in time itself. In that vein, in part inspired by biblical symbolism, my first suggestion is to call this new incarnation the Seven Trumpets mod.

Explanation: I realize the symbolism is one sided/biased... but I wanted a name that would symbolize all the "eras" of man past and future since that is what this mod is supposed to represent, a trek from the past to the future. The Genetic era makes the seventh era in the game. Each blow of seven trumpets, according to some, represents an age in history that is roughly equivalent to 1000 years which is also consistent with the Genetic Era Mod's gameplay timeline (which was extended so that one could play well into the 7th millenia... the 23rd century). Anyway... I thought it was catchy title and it fits the concept. But perhaps the reference is too aloof for a Civ mod name... Let me know what you think. I am still open to suggestions.

<Disclaimer>Making SDK changes to a mod is time consuming even when one has done all the changes themselves. In order to update the GE mod to BtS, I will need to make changes to code I didn't write and isn't all documented in a way that helps me know what the changes were made for. This will be the most difficult part of the process and so please be patient as it may take a significant amount of time to update.</Disclaimer>

The current plan

Currently I plan to convert/create this mod in a modular fashion so that the features to be included appear in a playable version of the game one at a time. Here is the list of features that I wish to convert and the order I hope to accomplish this. Some of these are in order of decreasing simplicity, some are in order of my favorite features.

Original Features

1. Graded Invisibility
2. Undersea Colonies/Tunnels
3. Vision/Fog of war Improvements
4. The Genetic Era Techs
5. Nonrenewable resources
6. Enhanced City Improvements
7. Swamps
8. Enhanced Event Engine (Combine BtS event and GE mod event engines)
9. Add some events we wanted that were too difficult before BtS
10. The Great Explorer Unit
11. Event Improvements
12. Improve AI for Genetic Era Mod enhancements
13. Integrate some other mods that have features I have always wanted to incorporate

New Features: Really want to integrate
<Reserved>

New Features: Would be nice
Canals that span thin sections of land

New Features: If there's time
<Reserved>

In addition to features that we have/will have made ourselves, I would also like to integrate some features from other mods/components. Here is a list what I hope to include so far:

Borrowed Features: Wish list

• Finite Diplomacy affects
• &#8220;Lead from Behind&#8221;
• Ethnically diverse Units
• Ethnically diverse City Styles
• Additional Civilizations
• Option to customize own civ
• Wonders destroyed or captured display global message
• Dales Combat Mod
• Revolutions Mod

Great to see you back, PrimeOver. Although I can't help, I suggest you try and talk to the developer of CivFusion. I think you two could combine efforts to make a totally awesome mod!!
Thanks, Justin

Hey man, welcome back!

Long time no see!!

I still can't mod, but for testing purposes, here I am!

Nice to have you back!

I have updated the first two posts. Read them if interested

Hi. I am interested. Faichele already began merging your events in the BtS events in the WoC if you are interested. We were already planning to use your genetic era as well.

Basically everything on your list was already at one point being worked on except Graded Invisibility. There was some work done on the ages, and many others at the moment I can not remember. Anyway WoC is much better modular way. So I would suggest it anyway.

Here is WoC Lite if you want to give it a look. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=317432

Although it is in RevDCM at moment as well. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=262937

So if you would want to use RevDCM you would have Revolutions and Dale's combat mod. Well I hope you are interested anyway.

johny smith said:

So if you would want to use RevDCM you would have Revolutions and Dale's combat mod. Well I hope you are interested anyway.

Click to expand...

If you're redoing the mod, I really suggest basing it on RevDCM as johny smith suggests.

RevDCM includes some of the best things out there, not only Revolutions and Dale's Combat Mod, but also things like the BetterAI, SuperSpies, Influence Driven War and BUG/BULL. And since these things can be turned on and off, it provides you (and players) with the ability to change the game to their preferences (as you suggested).

Plus, RevDCM plays very well and stable and so do Dune Wars and Legends of Revolution, that use RevDCM as a code base as well.

Cheers, LT.

johny smith said:

Hi. I am interested...Basically everything on your list was already at one point being worked on except Graded Invisibility. There was some work done on the ages, and many others at the moment I can not remember. Anyway WoC is much better modular way. So I would suggest it anyway.

Click to expand...

Do you and Faichele have what you have done so far?

As far as your interest, would you want to help me with the conversion or do you want me to help you put it into your mod?

Before you answer let me address what you and Lord Tirian suggested:

Lord Tirian said:

If you're redoing the mod, I really suggest basing it on RevDCM as johny smith suggests.

Click to expand...

This isn't a bad Idea. I looked at the lite version of WoC and I really like it. Particularly the civics screen (and the super font thingy... nice work!!! I'm not sure who did this first but I did one like this as well for genetic era. I just wasn't that big!) Since the work has already been done, I might as well use that as a base and graft our mod into that one. Does RevDCM have a basic SDK set of files too like WoC?

In the end, I think I want to go through our old Genetic Era files and separate the components out of that were written by Major before I started contributing. Since then I have released the code for the Events engine, Vision improvements, and graded invisibility as mod components and I want to do the same for each of the components listed above, including the ones written by Major.

Then we can integrate all the components into one new mod. But while Major did document some of his changes, not all of the changes mention what the change was for and so it might be difficult to do.

If you have already done some of the work, it would be nice to see what you have and I can pick up where you have left off and we can work together.

The WoC Full not the Lite version had code based on your event code. Faichele called it "extended events". I think this is the correct installer for the latest BtS 3.17 version.

http://worldofciv.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/worldofciv/Installer/WoC_Full-v1_20-setup.exe

It is rather large. It will take a lot of work to pull it out, but it really is the only way to continue the work onto 3.19. The extended events should be commented fairly well to where they are at. The problems was it still broke the save game when used. The SDK work was all done by Faichele, but he has not been able to bring it into 3.19 yet.

Now the genetic era itself was attempted to made modular as well I think in that version, but the files will probably be confusing at first because of it being in WoC format. I think we made some improvements to it but never finished it.

RevDCM has SDK sources as well. They are at the bottom of the first post in the RevDCM thread.

So I don't honestly know what is the best route. I think just having the G-era brought back as a module for RevDCM would be a good start. There was one mod in BtS called Next War that I think you should look. It is a near future mod. The other mod in BtS Final Frontier has some space units and routes that could be adapted as well.

I don't mind helping. It is just a matter of time for me. I am not really talented with the SDK. I usually did buttons and units best anyway. If the G-era can get converted to BtS I will suggest maybe some future improvements if you are interested.

Does that download include the source code?

When you say it still broke the save game when used, you mean you can't load old games off of an earlier version? That's not uncommon... not much you can do about that if there are any changes to the data (for example the number of units that you can build).

Or do you mean that once you save the game, it will not reload?

I am sorry. I am myself not clear on the save game. Faichele only told me there was a problem with it. I believe it was not saving things correctly from the extended events. I never tried to use them myself even. There were too many things being modded at once.

The SDK is in the file. I downloaded it today to verify. The file is 201mb just to let you know. I am not sure after looking if the G-era stuff is in that file. I know it is in the SVN though.

You need 7zip or winrar to open these.

Sea city stuff
http://worldofciv.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/worldofciv/Assets/Modules/Sea Cities.tar.gz?view=tar

G-era techs
http://worldofciv.svn.sourceforge.n...rary/Technologies/Genetic Era.tar.gz?view=tar

Extended event module
http://worldofciv.svn.sourceforge.n...ibrary/Extended Events Engine.tar.gz?view=tar

Well I try to find more when I have time.

Great, thanks. That will be enough for now. I am impressed you guys got the Sea City stuff out. That was the part I was loathing to do... lol. I just asked about this in the main mod forum but... is the 3.19 patch SDK out yet?

UPDATE: I am currently working on creating an XML editor for ALL mods so that modding becomes even easier which is the reason for the delay. Once a decent version of that has been posted I will begin work on transitioning the mod.

wow, didn't except reborn of genetic era after such long being inactive. I would like to help but not sure if it's possible with my poor moding skills

BtW... in case you hadn't noticed i stopped planning this revival because of Civ 5. If it turns out I like Civ 5, i may start a revival then

hey ,

nice to see the veterans are returning to modding

g'luck hope it wont take too much time.

Hey!!!

Is this mod still active? I'm looking forward to play underwater cities... how and where can I dowload that mod?

Greets