Dawn of Civilization - an RFC modmod by Leoreth

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Thanks for reporting ... I'll investigate.

On another note: Does somebody know a tool that can edit .tga files and is able to do the simple task of selecting a rectangular area inside that file and move it by one or two pixels? GIMP and Paint.net won't allow me this, it seems, or I'm to stupid to figure out how. I can't fix the Civ name display bug otherwise :(
 
On another note: Does somebody know a tool that can edit .tga files and is able to do the simple task of selecting a rectangular area inside that file and move it by one or two pixels? GIMP and Paint.net won't allow me this, it seems, or I'm to stupid to figure out how. I can't fix the Civ name display bug otherwise :(
I'm using Paint.net (take a look at my profile :lol:) and unless I'm not reading you correctly you can select any area and move the content... (You would be leaving transparent pixels in the wake, though. Unless you use layers, of course.) The tool you need is called "Move Selected Pixels". :rolleyes: Not to be confused with "Move Selection", I might add.
 
The problem is an additional comma in the bireme button entry, detailed below. (Civ4ArtDefines_Unit.xml)
Spoiler :
<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Units/Venice_Galleas.dds</Button>


Since CivFanatics doesn't support XML file attachment I can't directly send a fixed file.
 
Good find! Thanks!

@Baldyr:
I guess I was stupid then :lol:
 
I have to say you really outdone yourself. This is one of the best RFC mods out there! good job!
 
Thanks, I'm happy you enjoy it :)

The praise should probably go to others, like Panopticon, embryodead and Corossol, where I got my ideas and large parts of code from. Credit where credit is due!
 
I am not sure if it was mentioned, but you have two different parthenons. One gives +50 GP rate and +2 GA, another gives +100 GP rate and +1 GA. They require different techs. Which one should I build for the greek UHV?

Oops sorry I misread. One is pantheon, another one is parthenon (facepalm).

Anyway, looking at the fact that they are THAT similar, don't you want to tweak them to be more interesting?

For starters, why does Pantheon give GA points? Shouldn't it give great prophet points instead?

P.S> I think I've seen a bug though. There was an event about good "confucian wedding between phoenicia and babylon", while they are zoroastrians (it should say "zoroastrian wedding").

Also they have no "zoroastrianism" icon next to their names, but their names are shifter to the right. Can it be caused by a broken zoroastrian icon (not holy city, that one is ok)?
 
Ah, this looks very great! :) Big thanks to everyone participating in making this. I've only played three games so far, but 2/3 the Phonecians settled their second city in Italy, and after that city flipped to the Romans, they were stuck with only Sur, and collapsed in one game, and got conquered by the Arabs in the other. Guess they need to always settle Carthage as nr 1 city, if we're going to make them start in Sur - I like the idea, and can see its potential, but we need to work/playtest some more, with regards to their settling and AI in general, it seems.

I like most of the changes, and the new civics are really great :) The ability to run Socialism early through the new Stonehenge-wonder seems a bit owerpowered though - more upkeep yeah, but unlimited engineers everywhere? And also I disagree with Monarchy disabling a state religion - that seems a bit unhistorical, and unrealistic.

Also, I think you should really consider including NerfCothons excellent mod: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=328203 - the corporations there are awesome, and for me including them here makes a lot of sense, instead of putting something together from scratch.

But I like this all a lot :D Will have some more comments after playing more games :)
 
I'll give you some feedback on your civic changes:

Spoiler :

II.8. Civic changes

The civic system was completely redesigned, save Rhye's expansion category, which exists outside of the rest and works fine. However, many effects of the standard system still exist and only have been recombined or moved between categories. The main problems of Civ's civics was:
  1. Often, civics in one category were not mutually exclusive. Law was a major offender here, as a society could very well run in Nationhood, be governed by a Bureaucracy and still have Free Speech.
  2. Civics that support a certain type of economy (cottage economy, specialist economy) were not thematically fitting. I tried to stick to the concept Capitalism = CE, Communism = SE, Fascism = war economy.
The new five civic categories are: Government, Organization, Society, Economy, Religion.
  • Government:
    1. Tyranny (standard)
    2. Monarchy (Monarchy): +1 happiness per military unit
    3. Theocracy (Theology): +3 experience in cities with state religion
    4. Autocracy (Nationalism): +2 happiness with barracks, can draft military units
    5. Republic (Philosophy): unlimited Artist, Scientist, Merchant. +100% cottage growth
  • Organization:
    1. Direct Rule (standard)
    2. Vassalage (Feudalism): +2 experience per military unit
    3. Absolutism (Civil Service): +33% production and commerce in the capital
    4. Representation (Constitution): +3 research per specialist, +2 happiness in biggest cities, -50% maintenance from distance to capital
    5. Parliamentarism (Democracy): +1 hammers in towns, +1 free specialist
  • Society:
    1. Tribalism (standard)
    2. Aristocracy (Monarchy): Lower unit maintenance, +50% great general emergence
    3. Socialism (Communism): unlimited Engineers, +100% culture, +100% great people birth, +25% number of cities maintenance
    4. Totalitarianism (Fascism): +25% military unit production, -50% war weariness
    5. Capitalism (Liberalism): +2 commerce in towns, can spend gold to finish production
  • Economy:
    1. Self-sufficiency (standard)
    2. Serfdom (Masonry): can sacrifice population to finish production
    3. Mercantilism (Banking): +1 free specialist, +1 commerce in cottage, workshop, no foreign trade routes
    4. State Property (Communism): +10% production, +1 food and hammer in workshop, watermill, no number of cities maintenance
    5. Free Market (Economics): +1 trade routes, +50% trade route yield
  • Religion:
    1. Animism (standard)
    2. Pantheon (Polytheism): +1 happiness for monument, no state religion
    3. Patriarchate (Monotheism): +25% building production with state religion, missionaries without monasteries
    4. State Church (Divine Right): +25% unit production with state religion, +1 happiness with state religion, no foreign religion spread
    5. Secularism (Liberalism): +10% research, +1 happiness per religion


The following tech lost a civic:
  • - Bronze Working (It reveals Bronze, lets you chop, leads to iron - no Problem here)
    - Democracy (It's a dead end in the tech tree, but Parliamentarism is a strong civic - might be a problem)
    - Feudalism (You get longbow man and its a central tech - might be a problem)
    - Code of Law (It's a central tech but if you don't go for Confucianism this one lost a lot - problem
    - Medicine (It stops plagues (which you turned off) and gives you hospitals, but it's a dead end too - might be a problem)

The following tech gained a civic:
  • + Monarchy (Wine and now 2 civis which are both great and work together - problem
    + Communism (Makes it equal to liberalism and is a dead end - good!)
    + Polytheism (no one went Poly -> Priesthood - great!)
    + Divine Right (without Islam this was meh - good!)
    + Masonry (Bronze was more important so no argument here)

Civic concepts you lost:
  • Nationhood:
    This is bad. But it was bad before, because everyone used free speech and it's harder to get! The emergence of nation(states) was the defining political development in the 19th which culminated in the 1st World War. We still have the tech, but you basically lose the concept of national sovereignty. Calling it Autocracy is another problem, because the idea of a nation was strongly linked to ideas of democracy (french, german, english revolutions).
  • Emancipation:
    I think this is a Problem too, because there is nothing left of it in the game and this is politicly, economically and culturally too important.
  • Serfdom:
    Slavery and Serfdom are very different concepts and representing the servitude with sacrificing population seems very questionable to me.
  • Caste System:
    I don't know a lot about caste systems, but thats because I was raised in the western hemisphere. I don't know how important it was in Asia, but we should be careful about an even stronger western focus.
  • Environmentalism:
    I think this should be represented in the game, but as long as one can mine coal, pump oil, etc. without depletion there is no need for it.
  • Pacifism:
    Sadly there are few pacifists in history and tying it to a religion seems wired, more like a personal philosophy than a state policy. We could interpret it as favouring peace, but not going to war is basically the same.

Enough for now... Next time I will talk about common combinations before and after the mod and give you some ideas what I would change.
 
I agree with most of these points.

I can see serfdom and slavery as a same civic, but it needs a better name. These both represent a society where one man "owns" another man, but slavery is MUCH more severe, with people trading, killing etc. (although it was different for many countries), while serfs had some rights which protected them. So if you go "sacrifice population to ***" it should be Slavery, not Serfdom.

Sadly there are few pacifists in history and tying it to a religion seems weird
There's no Pacifism, there's Secularism, and it feels very appropriate.
 
I'm very happy there is that much civic feedback!

Oops sorry I misread. One is pantheon, another one is parthenon (facepalm).

Anyway, looking at the fact that they are THAT similar, don't you want to tweak them to be more interesting?

For starters, why does Pantheon give GA points? Shouldn't it give great prophet points instead?
The Pantheon and Parthenon are actually quite different things (but I wasn't aware of the fact for a long time either). It gives GA points because it's a rename of the Leaning Tower ;) For the similarity of their effects, that will be changed in 1.3, most likely. Read more below.

P.S> I think I've seen a bug though. There was an event about good "confucian wedding between phoenicia and babylon", while they are zoroastrians (it should say "zoroastrian wedding").
I guess I should rename the associated adjective then, too.

Also they have no "zoroastrianism" icon next to their names, but their names are shifter to the right. Can it be caused by a broken zoroastrian icon (not holy city, that one is ok)?
This was already mentioned by others, currently my apparent inability to use paint.net on TGA files prohibits a fix :rolleyes:

Ah, this looks very great! :) Big thanks to everyone participating in making this. I've only played three games so far, but 2/3 the Phonecians settled their second city in Italy, and after that city flipped to the Romans, they were stuck with only Sur, and collapsed in one game, and got conquered by the Arabs in the other. Guess they need to always settle Carthage as nr 1 city, if we're going to make them start in Sur - I like the idea, and can see its potential, but we need to work/playtest some more, with regards to their settling and AI in general, it seems.
I was also quite disappointed when I noticed that. Carthage already has a settler map value of 700 (maximum), so there's nothing I can further do to encourage the AI to settle there. Possible solutions:

a) shrink Rome's flip area so that they at least keep Messana on Sicily
b) disallow settling on Sicily completely via settler map
c) gift a settler on the Qart-Hadasht tile to Phoenicia in ~800 BC when controlled by the AI

Which one do you think is best? I like (c), as it guarantees a historical situation, especially for a Roman HI. And Phoenicia needs a little help anyway.

The ability to run Socialism early through the new Stonehenge-wonder seems a bit owerpowered though - more upkeep yeah, but unlimited engineers everywhere? And also I disagree with Monarchy disabling a state religion - that seems a bit unhistorical, and unrealistic.
I will likely introduce some new wonders with 1.3, and the Sphynx will lose its overpowered effect in the course. Most likely it wil then allow unlimited artists, to make the traditional Stone Henge -> Caste System gambit for culture for some UHVs possible again. Its current effect will move on to the Parthenon, which will allow all government civics, so no Pantheon/Parthenon confusion anymore, too :)

Monarchy does not disable a State Religion, that's an annoying side effect that only affects display (another non-religious civic does the same, don't remember which one). Or do you have a screenshot of being forced out of your state religion when adopting Monarchy?

Also, I think you should really consider including NerfCothons excellent mod: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=328203 - the corporations there are awesome, and for me including them here makes a lot of sense, instead of putting something together from scratch.
To be honest, I don't want to deal with the effects medieval corporations have on the economy of that period, although I like NerfCothon's mod a lot. If you have any criticism on the current corporations over-/underpowered, feel free to say so.

But I like this all a lot :D Will have some more comments after playing more games :)
Fantastic! :)

- Code of Law (It's a central tech but if you don't go for Confucianism this one lost a lot - problem
+ Monarchy (Wine and now 2 civis which are both great and work together - problem
That's not a problem anymore. I changed Aristocracy's requirement to Code of Laws somewhere between 1.0 and 1.22, but forgot to document it. But I guess that one killed two birds with one stone :D

- Medicine (It stops plagues (which you turned off) and gives you hospitals, but it's a dead end too - might be a problem)
I would rather have plague turned on again, and tried to do so, but somehow it didn't return. This one still irritates me.

Nationhood: This is bad. But it was bad before, because everyone used free speech and it's harder to get! The emergence of nation(states) was the defining political development in the 19th which culminated in the 1st World War. We still have the tech, but you basically lose the concept of national sovereignty. Calling it Autocracy is another problem, because the idea of a nation was strongly linked to ideas of democracy (french, german, english revolutions).
Well, I don't consider Autocracy an equivalent of Nationhood, it simply got its effect (and is unlocked by Nationalism because many non-monarchist autocratic rulers used a national cause as their source of legitimacy).

But while I definitely won't question Nationalism's impact on history (RFC represents this very well by enabling respawns), I don't view Nationhood as a way in which a civilization can be governed. I even find it hard to define properly who's a state in nationhood these days. Every western state? Are America (and Switzerland, Belgium ...) in although their idea of a nation is not based on ethnicity, but on common history/ideals? The whole idea is too fuzzy to me, and I can't see the concept fitting into any category while being mutually exclusive to its alternatives.

Emancipation: I think this is a Problem too, because there is nothing left of it in the game and this is politicly, economically and culturally too important.
Oh there's much left of it! Two, maybe three entire civics: Socialism and Capitalism.
The reason for me to take it out is that I disagree with Firaxis' take on society. They focus on who was oppressed by which means, and list three manifestations of social suppression: Slavery, Serfdom, Caste System. The last civic is simply the abolition of any kind of oppression. It is even defined that way in the civilopedia. Looking at how it is defined by a negative, the absence of something, shows how void the concept is.

I focus on who is socially in power by which means: the nobility, by owning the land (Aristocracy); arbitrarily, no one, by governmental subvention (Socialism); the state, by controlling all organizations (Totalitarianism); or the rich, by owning the means of production (Capitalism).
Seeing how those in power obviously have more influence on a state's shape than those oppressed, I find this take on society more reasonable from the gameplay view.

Serfdom:
Slavery and Serfdom are very different concepts and representing the servitude with sacrificing population seems very questionable to me.
The effective difference is rather small: people legally bound to their masters to do their work. The main difference is on the rights of these owned people, and I don't think this difference is sufficient to justify two different civics (what should the other effect be, anyway?). The common picture associated with Slavery (contributed by the game sounds no less) of being mainly about people being whipped to death to complete a monumental building is wrong, though. Most slaves worked on farms, and they also had educated jobs like artists or teachers - either way, most slave owners had an interest in their slaves staying alive.

So from that point of view, the entire concept of sacrificing massive amounts of population for buildings is questionable. The thing is: this concept is entirely necessary for the gameplay, has to be available early and for a long time.
That's why I made it the common economic civic for antiquity and middle ages, because in RFC most players used Slavery until Emancipation was available anyway, and that's what I considered ahistorical. So I had to find a catch-all term for this concept, and Serfdom seemed to be a more universal term than Slavery to me. If you know an alternative, I'd be glad to hear it.

Caste System: I don't know a lot about caste systems, but thats because I was raised in the western hemisphere. I don't know how important it was in Asia, but we should be careful about an even stronger western focus.
I know. I have replaced it mostly because its effect directly contradicted what a caste system means: people assigned to their jobs because of birth, not of ability. How should that translate into increased social mobility, which manifests as unlimited specialists ingame?

Environmentalism: I think this should be represented in the game, but as long as one can mine coal, pump oil, etc. without depletion there is no need for it.
Well, Firaxis' Environmentalism was weak in gameplay and is no real economy civic (you can have State Property or Free Market running simultaneously to it without contradictions). The only reason for it to be in the game was political correctness, so my political incorrect mindset told me it had to go ;)

Pacifism: Sadly there are few pacifists in history and tying it to a religion seems wired, more like a personal philosophy than a state policy. We could interpret it as favouring peace, but not going to war is basically the same.
Agree here. Pacifism never played any role for the major powers this game is about.

Enough for now... Next time I will talk about common combinations before and after the mod and give you some ideas what I would change.
I'm already looking forward to see your conclusions :)

By the way: you didn't tangle the issue of civic effects that were lost during my changes. Are they missing? Or were they useless?

Sorry Deon, missed your post while typing this lengthy answer :D
There's no Pacifism, there's Secularism, and it feels very appropriate.
Secularism is more my equivalent to Free Religion (no more than a rename). Pacifism has no direct replacement, althout CIVIC_PACIFISM in XML is used for the Pantheon civic, I think.
 
Yeah I don't know when I have time, but I was going to review what was lost and never there from a gameplay and a historical/political standpoint.

By the way did you get the mail I send to you?
 
By the way, the plague IS in. It just hit me around 300 AD.
That's awesome! I played some years into the Middle Ages (much after 1300 AD) and got none, but that seems to have been bad luck then. Can someone confirm this for the 600 AD scenario, too?

Because then I could continue to take out the unit damage effect and be happy :)

Yeah I don't know when I have time, but I was going to review what was lost and never there from a gameplay and a historical/political standpoint.

By the way did you get the mail I send to you?
Probably, didn't have the time to check because I had to write lengthy response posts :lol: You'll get an answer during the evening (GMT+1 here ;)).
 
I had to find a catch-all term for this concept, and Serfdom seemed to be a more universal term than Slavery to me. If you know an alternative, I'd be glad to hear it.

What about maybe "Servitude"? Just off the top of my head
 
What about maybe "Servitude"? Just off the top of my head
Could do it, in English at least.

played a couple of games in 600AD scenario - the plague is definately in and killing units as well
Okay, then I will make units immune in 1.3.
 
I would be happy if it wounded units, not killed. I went from top military position to the lowest one. I had a few level 6 units (pikemen, knights) and a lot of level 4 units, and I was left with one warrior I kept to add happiness and one longbowman.

Also for some reason Islamic nations voted in apostolic palace. I mean, I had an option to stop war against me because I was a catholic holy city, and Saladin (Islam) was at war with me. When I chose this option he voted too (defied). It seems a bit broken.
 
Don't civs with another state religion still get votes when they control cities with the AP religion?

I would be happy if it wounded units, not killed. I went from top military position to the lowest one. I had a few level 6 units (pikemen, knights) and a lot of level 4 units, and I was left with one warrior I kept to add happiness and one longbowman.
We would have to test that. My main concern is that plague doesn't hinder the AI too much (as a player you can easily escape it anyway).
 
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