The Touhou Mod Development Thread

Penopat said:

I was actually previously working on a Touhou mod myself. It was to be all inclusive, containing 10 civs based on the original Touhou Jojishi from Civ4 (the 10th being the Ten Desires civ) with leader traits generally based on what civs/leaders had in that mod.

The leaders were to be "balanced" by each one being very powerful, as per classic Gensokyo powerlevel warfare; Eirin would get mad science/growth/specialist bonuses, Koishi would get free courthouses/minimal resistance and would have an Rome/ICS playstyle, Cirno would have lower science and weaker unit strength but can mass units really fast and extremely cheap upkeep, Reimu would get majorly increased gold in cities and would have extremely powerful Customs Houses, etc.
Unique units and buildings were initially going to be 1 unique wonder/building that would be very powerful and 1 unique "Boss Unit" that would replace a typical unit - a Momiji that is a super-mobile Longswordsman or a Yukari that would essentially gap via Paratrooper mechanics, for example. Later on as I would do more research and learned how to use Lua or DLL modification better, I would shift back to individual civ techs and single boss units that would upgrade as you go through the ages just like the original mod.

I just kinda stopped working on it, largely because I'm not great with modding. Perhaps a bit too ambitious on my regard. I still work on it very very occasionally, though...

Then again, thanks to the sudden influx of Touhou mods, I'm kinda getting interested in trying to work on it again

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The ambition! It's too much for me! Nah seriously, that's a pretty big goal for just 1 man. For now we're doing separate civs to add to the vanilla ones (try not to replace vanilla civs if you make one) and we are in no position to object you joining the mod crew . Still, if you want to work on a separate civ, post the character or group you are making a civ on (so no civs repeat themselves). If you want to keep working on that HUGE mod, be my guest, we'll help you with what we can.

Welcome btw

2hu2good said:

Penopat, we'd be happy to invite you to this modding project we have going on. Right now we seem to be focused with making each civilizattion one at a time, and any help or ideas you can provide would be very useful.

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hey 2hu2good, are you going to make a Touhou civ one of this days? Make sure you don't work on one that it's already out!

For the sake of whatever, here's the civs/leaders that are already out:

- Sakuya Izayoi (Maid Operations)
- Cirno (Fairy Alliance)
- Oni Clans
- Aya Shameimaru (Tengu Republic)
- Utsuho Reiuji (Earth Spirits)
- Nitori Kawashiro (Kappa States)
- Remilia Scarlet (Scarlet Estate)

Apolodog said:

hey 2hu2good, are you going to make a Touhou civ one of this days? Make sure you don't work on one that it's already out!

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Oh, I'm not quite advanced enough with modding yet to actually create a full civ for the project. I'm only here to really input ideas and organize the effort when needed. If I do learn enough modding to make a civ, I might be able to crank out something.

Apolodog said:

For the sake of whatever, here's the civs/leaders that are already out:

- Sakuya Izayoi (Maid Operations)
- Cirno (Fairy Alliance)
- Oni Clans
- Aya Shameimaru (Tengu Republic)
- Utsuho Reiuji (Earth Spirits)
- Nitori Kawashiro (Kappa States)
- Remilia Scarlet (Scarlet Estate)

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Hmm, I don't really see the practicality of a civ for just Sakuya and her maids. Wouldn't Sakuya be best suited as part of the Scarlet Estate? Also, the Oni Clans sound much more like an interesting idea for a touhou version of the barbarians, rather than a civ itself.
I have all the rest in that list except for the Earth Spirits, which I want to get my hands on soon, but my only hope is direct download since Steam won't work right for me.

2hu2good said:

Oh, I'm not quite advanced enough with modding yet to actually create a full civ for the project. I'm only here to really input ideas and organize the effort when needed. If I do learn enough modding to make a civ, I might be able to crank out something.



Hmm, I don't really see the practicality of a civ for just Sakuya and her maids. Wouldn't Sakuya be best suited as part of the Scarlet Estate? Also, the Oni Clans sound much more like an interesting idea for a touhou version of the barbarians, rather than a civ itself.
I have all the rest in that list except for the Earth Spirits, which I want to get my hands on soon, but my only hope is direct download since Steam won't work right for me.

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The Maids civ is basically a test civ I made, I put it there just because (since what you say it's absolutely true) (though if we start running out of characters, we could make ramifications of the big groups) (I always had a civ with mokou as the leader in mind) (go mokou!). Maybe I'll fix it (since it has A LOT of flaws I can correct), but that would be later. About the oni clans, your idea sounds cool, but I don't know if bouncymisha can make a mod that replaces barbarians (I know I can't).

Well, I'm out for a new civ while I upload the Kappa one to the workshop.

The name is: Celestial Rogues (since they're celestial that left heaven because of the dull lifestyle) (if you think you have a better adjective, go f yourself tell me so I can consider it) led by Tenshi.

UU, UB, UA not yet thought of, brainstorming activate.

I stuck Okuu up at

http://depositfiles.com/files/k0stqa6q9

2hu2good said:

Also, the Oni Clans sound much more like an interesting idea for a touhou version of the barbarians, rather than a civ itself.

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Heheh... well, personally, I've always rather liked the oni of Touhou, particularly their culture and personality as being some of the most honest and trustworthy youkai in Gensokyo. I also find it really cool how Suika is basically a reference to Shuuten-douji and his the other oni to his underlings. There's also the fact that the oni were a significant power bloc in the past, dominating the Tengu before they eventually retreated into hiding, so it's hard to see them as being just a "barbarian" presence. Maybe I'm just a big oni fan, but I can't help but feel that making the oni the barbarians would be selling them short. :3

If anything, I'd probably classify the random, low-level youkai of Gensokyo as barbarians -- the ones that occasionally ambush humans that wander in from the outside world and don't make it to the Human Village.

Anyways, from the feedback I've gotten regarding my Oni Clans mod, they seem like they should be okay to put up on Steam, although I still gotta plow through all of the diplomatic dialogue and fix the Kishin a bit, still. I'm also developing plans for the Moriya Shrine and, if no one objects, the Human Village, so I'll probably press ahead with those two civs next.

I confess I didn't test the oni clans very much, I've been messing with Eientei.

And eating cookies.

Huitzil37 said:

I confess I didn't test the oni clans very much, I've been messing with Eientei.

And eating cookies.

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*laughs* No worries... I was mostly just looking for any feedback regarding any potential balance issues and the like.

Mmmm, cookies~

Huitzil37 said:

Reimu?

Getting INCREASED gold?

What Touhou are YOU talking about?

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Reimu was Financial and Hakurei Shrine was clearly extremely gold heavy in Jojishi (Way of the Hakurei had +5 gold per specialist, it was insane...), so I continued to follow that trope. None of the other civs I have focus on Gold so much as her, so it also works out as a gameplay differentiation; finally, someone who warrants making Great Merchants an actual strategy now

Just pretend it's following the "Once again" trope from vanilla Civ5 - she's building a civilization that will stand the test of time, and this time around she's making sure she's getting those donations...

Another example was Aya running the Youkai Mountain civ. It's like America (land unit sight but also no movement penalties) with England (she STARTS with a spy on founding of her first city and get yet another extra one later on) and gets bonus culture + faith when putting a city near a Mountain. Also gets Spain's natural wonder abuse. As you can see, every civ is ridiculous in power, but it also helps enforce different playstyles; I feel current Civ5 traits aren't enough to to encourage completely different playstyles, which I hope the mod would help change.

Huitzil37 said:

Reimu?

Getting INCREASED gold?

What Touhou are YOU talking about?

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Well, Reimu's greed for money is one of her more notable characteristics (although the Hakurei Shrine is typically impoverished). Certainly she's not very productive in other fields.

It's one thing I'm debating about my ideas for the Human Village faction... I've already come up with a UU I'm fairly pleased with, so I'm going to start working on those ideas, but I'm still wondering who should lead them. Should it be Reimu, or would people prefer the Hakurei Shrine be a separate faction (I believe like it was in Jojishi), with someone from the village leading the Human Village instead? (Most likely Rinnosuke, and probably giving it a somewhat mercantile/trade influence).

Also, at some point we should make a "Donation Box" replacement to the Bank...

As you can see, every civ is ridiculous in power, but it also helps enforce different playstyles; I feel current Civ5 traits aren't enough to to encourage completely different playstyles, which I hope the mod would help change.

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But the problem with that is, it A: requires a rebalancing of the entire game, and B: makes it so you can't play them with existing civs or anyone else's mods, which is half the fun.

Also, at some point we should make a "Donation Box" replacement to the Bank...

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The Donation Box is Reimu Hakurei's unique building. It provides you with absolutely no money, unlike the Bank, which it replaces.

Huitzil37 said:

The Donation Box is Reimu Hakurei's unique building. It provides you with absolutely no money, unlike the Bank, which it replaces.

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Well, given that the problem with the Hakurei Shrine (and, by association, its donation box) is the fact that it's too remote and difficult for humans to reach (unlike, say, youkai, which hang out at the shrine but don't donate!), you could see Reimu try to put donation boxes in each of her communities to facilitate donations.

EDIT: Also, started trying to collect links and info on the civs we've completed so far in the opening post, although I couldn't add links to Steam yet. I'll have to do that tonight when I get home.

So after much thought, I've decided that there should be 10 primary Touhou powers to focus on:

- Scarlet Devil Municipality (Remilia Scarlet)
- Hakugyokurou Hegemony (Yuyuko Saigyouji)
- Eientei Empire (Eirin Houraisan)
- Tengu Republic (Aya Shameimaru)
- Kappa Federation (Nitori Kawashiro)
- Earth Spirits Coalition (Satori Komeiji)
- Great Fairy Alliance (Cirno)
- Holy Hakurei Assembly (Reimu Hakurei)
- Gensokyan Human Kingdom (Keine Kamishirasawa)
- Palanquin Union (Byakuren Hijiri)

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I'd also throw in a custom non-Gensokyan civ for the sole purpose of challenging these 10 civs, just for shiggles.
Honorable mentions for other major civ candidates include the Oni, the Celestials, the Lunarians, and whatever else you guys can think of.

Also, who thinks we should form a steam group or something?

2hu2good said:

So after much thought, I've decided that there should be 10 primary Touhou powers to focus on:

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What, no Moriya Shrine? Considering that they showed up more in Symposium of Post-Mysticism than the Hakurei Shrine, one could argue that they're more prominent (the Hakurei Border notwithstanding...)

That said, it does bring some thoughts to mind -- exactly how should we approach this? What kind of timeline should we look at, what should the ultimate goal be, how centrally organized should we be? For that matter, what sort of concept of Genoskyo do we want to create?

I'll admit, I have a feeling my thoughts about the civs I want to make are probably different from most others. I've been approaching the idea of making Touhou mods not so much from a "represent characters from the game in Civ" so much as trying to model Gensokyo itself, and the cultures within it. For example, when considering my Tengu civilization, I was going to use Lord Tenma (the actual leader of the Tengu) rather than Aya (the most prominent Tengu in the games). I would probably also lean towards using Rinnosuke rather than Keine for a Human Village civ, although I could probably make it work with her. (I'm not sure I'd see her as a human representative, though...)

So my approach would be more "represent a culture in Gensokyo" rather than "build a culture around a character from the games"... which not everyone would agree with. So I'm not sure if we should just work out compromises, or just have everyone do their own thing... or what...

bouncymischa said:

What, no Moriya Shrine? Considering that they showed up more in Symposium of Post-Mysticism than the Hakurei Shrine, one could argue that they're more prominent (the Hakurei Border notwithstanding...)

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They would be a fairly significant honorable mention, but the Hakurei Shrine, IMO, is much more important considering it is the domain of the most important character in Touhou.

bouncymischa said:

exactly how should we approach this? What kind of timeline should we look at, what should the ultimate goal be, how centrally organized should we be? For that matter, what sort of concept of Genoskyo do we want to create?

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Those are complicated questions which I think would be best left to each individual modder to decide. If the time comes when we decide to be more centralized in our project, we can hold a majority vote on the preferred concept of interest.

bouncymischa said:

I'll admit, I have a feeling my thoughts about the civs I want to make are probably different from most others. I've been approaching the idea of making Touhou mods not so much from a "represent characters from the game in Civ" so much as trying to model Gensokyo itself, and the cultures within it. For example, when considering my Tengu civilization, I was going to use Lord Tenma (the actual leader of the Tengu) rather than Aya (the most prominent Tengu in the games). I would probably also lean towards using Rinnosuke rather than Keine for a Human Village civ, although I could probably make it work with her. (I'm not sure I'd see her as a human representative, though...)
So my approach would be more "represent a culture in Gensokyo" rather than "build a culture around a character from the games"... which not everyone would agree with. So I'm not sure if we should just work out compromises, or just have everyone do their own thing... or what...

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I agree, building the cultures of each faction of Gensokyo independent of the signature characters is very important in this endeavour. However, it still wouldn't hold that same Touhou charm without the signature characters to represent them. My thought is to just build the culture and society first, and then integrate the signature character later, changing minor aspects when needed.

I'm making up the master sound file definition lists so that you just have to copy the file once and you'll be set. I threw in at least two possible leaders for each group where applicable, and then TH001-TH005 as extra slots for ones I missed. Here's the list of the names I added:



Can you think of any I missed that you can imagine someone wanting to make a leader of?

2hu2good said:

They would be a fairly significant honorable mention, but the Hakurei Shrine, IMO, is much more important considering it is the domain of the most important character in Touhou.

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Well, my comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, since Reimu will always be one of the most significant characters to the Touhou fandom... but considering that the Moriya Shrine has been one of the most influential elements in recent Gensokyo history (what with becoming a rival to the Hakurei Shrine, setting off the events in Subterranean Animism and creating the Geyser Centre, and then inadvertantly causing the events of UFO and Ten Desires) I was a bit surprised to not see them on the list.

At any rate, the Moriya Shrine is going to be my next civ project, so I'm going to make them anyways~

2hu2good said:

Those are complicated questions which I think would be best left to each individual modder to decide. If the time comes when we decide to be more centralized in our project, we can hold a majority vote on the preferred concept of interest.

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I would probably prefer it that way -- I just wasn't sure, since your list of civs seemed to suggest an interest in centralizing what projects we worked on. As I mentioned, I've got plans for a Moriya Shrine civ, and I'm getting rather excited about making a Human Village civ... but I wasn't sure if someone was going to step in and tell me to change things because my ideas might not line up with theirs.

2hu2good said:

I agree, building the cultures of each faction of Gensokyo independent of the signature characters is very important in this endeavour. However, it still wouldn't hold that same Touhou charm without the signature characters to represent them. My thought is to just build the culture and society first, and then integrate the signature character later, changing minor aspects when needed.

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I suppose I can agree with that, and it's an area I'll have to see about compromising on. As you say, I'd rather build the culture first and then incorporate the leader -- my Oni civ did that a bit with Suika, as she's certainly not the "leader" of the oni (if they even have one), but as one of the Four Devas she's probably pretty close, and the whole storyline of Immaterial and Missing Power makes her a rather interesting character to have try and build an empire.

Huitzil37 said:

I'm making up the master sound file definition lists so that you just have to copy the file once and you'll be set. I threw in at least two possible leaders for each group where applicable, and then TH001-TH005 as extra slots for ones I missed. Here's the list of the names I added:

Spoiler :

Reimu
Marisa
Alice
Keine
Rinnosuke
Yuuka
Shinki
Yumeko
Remilia
Sakuya
Cirno
Team9
Yuyuko
Youmu
Yukari
Eirin
Kaguya
Mokou
Suika
Shikieki
Komachi
Kanako
Suwako
Aya
Tenma
Nitori
Iku
Tenshi
Satori
Okuu
Byakuren
Minamitsu
Nue
Miko
Seiga

Can you think of any I missed that you can imagine someone wanting to make a leader of?

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I'm somewhat tempted to try and use Hieda no Akyuu for a leader for the Human Village, even though I'm not sure what music I'd use...

Maaaaaaybe Toyohime? I do kind of wonder if the Lunarians shouldn't just get folded in with Eientei... not quite canon, but it could round out the Eientei cast? I'm not sure if there's enough Lunarians for a true empire, although it would be rather amusing. ("You tried to invade the moon... and now we're invading the earth!")

Hmm, I might just have to try and run with that idea. Be easy to find city names...

I don't think we know enough about the Lunarians for them to have their own independent side. And the adjective I am using for Eientei is "Lunar".

But added Hieda and Toyohime just in case.

bouncymischa said:

I would probably prefer it that way -- I just wasn't sure, since your list of civs seemed to suggest an interest in centralizing what projects we worked on. As I mentioned, I've got plans for a Moriya Shrine civ, and I'm getting rather excited about making a Human Village civ... but I wasn't sure if someone was going to step in and tell me to change things because my ideas might not line up with theirs.

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Oh, of course not. That was the whole point of the honorable mentions. I simply think that before we work on civilizations like the Oni or the Moriya Shrine, it would be best if we focused on and completed the ten major powers first, and then we can proceed to do the rest as we see fit. All ideas are valuable, and they will be implemented in some way, shape, or form when the time comes. The only problem is that certain ideas and concepts may be of a higher priority than others, if that's acceptable to you.