Typhlomence's Civilizations

Aaaah! Those Starshrooms look incredible! Any idea what you're going to do for animations?
They use the Smokey Skies Airship animations for the moment. Only difference right now is that the smoke is on a different bone (so it's closer to the Starshroom model), but I might change the smoke to something a bit less dirty, if there's one available.

The cannon fire does appear in the air in front of the model, but since Starshrooms are unable to attack offensively anyway, that's not a big deal.

This Civ is looking ridiculously brilliant. And this is what, your third one? Very impressive!
Thank you. :) I suppose that might be since I've learned a lot of things about CiV modding during the time I've been making the Lumas. I mean, I would never let myself do a half-hearted job on Rosalina anyway, but I want all my civilizations to be the best quality I can make them (which means I hope I have time to update Mainwaring and Bowser soon after Rosalina's release, too).

I want this nowww! :D
And I wish I could give it to you nowww... :p

I promise to spend more time on it since I would be very happy with a release before the end of April. I know I said "end of this month" last month though so I won't guarantee anything. I doubt it would be later than early May, however.

Also, I realised I forgot to show something in that last post: Rosalina has a Dawn of Man text now!
Spoiler :
 
May I suggest The Kongs and King Boo as Civs?

For the Kongs I'd suggest their ability be increased happiness from Bananas, and have a unique warrior.
 
Anyways, Bowser is one of my favorite civs, I'm sure to have him in every game. One minor suggestion would be to put in Hammer Bros somehow, using the Hand-Axe's Model.
 
May I suggest The Kongs and King Boo as Civs?

For the Kongs I'd suggest their ability be increased happiness from Bananas, and have a unique warrior.
Haha, a few people asked me for King Boo on the Workshop as well. Honestly, I'm not sure what route I'd go with them - since all his citizens (and troops) should be Boos, would it be possible to have an UA that allowed his units to pass through enemy units like they would friendly ones?

If the Kongs would have a UA based on Bananas, I would at least extend it to Citrus as well - I know those apes love their bananas but for gameplay purposes, Bananas only might be a bit restrictive.

Anyway I don't know when I would do those if I chose to.
Anyways, Bowser is one of my favorite civs, I'm sure to have him in every game. One minor suggestion would be to put in Hammer Bros somehow, using the Hand-Axe's Model.
I'm glad that you like him! Also, that suggestion is interesting... with the release of that mod that changes all human units to ponies for MLP civs, I thought about doing something similar that changes all of the human units to various Koopas for Bowser. Since that's a flavour thing, though, I won't be doing that soon.

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So, an update. I haven't really done much work on the actual technical parts of the Lumas since my last post, and for a very good reason. I've been talking about their uniques with DarkScythe and come to the conclusion that I need to rethink them a lot so that they're not overpowered, especially as it can be pretty easy to gather all six Grand Stars depending on where they spawn.

Here's a list of changes that are either been done already or are on the table right now. Feel free to leave your own feedback - I'm really anxious to make something interesting to play as well as balanced.

Starshroom
  • Moves reduced to 3, from 5. It's basically a jack-of-all-trades explorer that can go anywhere - still faster than most normal land units, but slower than a fast land-only unit (i.e. the Mounted/Armored line, Lancers and Helicopter Gunships) or a sea unit.
Collecting Grand Stars
  • When they are placed on the map, either at the start of the game or when Rosalina loses them, they will be a minimum of 10 tiles away from each other, and 15 tiles away from one of her units (I'm not sure whether the latter should apply for after the game has started - it may switch to being 15 tiles away from Rosalina's territory in that case).
  • They will be generally placed on land tiles, but can be placed on water if there are no suitable land tiles. If a suitable tile still cannot be found, the proximity restrictions will be removed.
Grand Star bonuses - this is the big one
  • Each Grand Star will no longer give a flat Production bonus for as long as you have them. Instead, I've decided that they'll give a temporary boost after collecting them each time (scaled by game speed). This, I feel, is also a possible way to add a Science boost - this boost will depend on other factors so as to avoid being overpowered and to encourage the player to make more choices about their approach.
  • Instead of granting another secondary boost immediately, as well, Grand Stars will allow the construction of special buildings that give extra bonuses. These buildings will not be attached to specific Grand Stars, but will require a certain number of Grand Stars to be built each. It will not be possible to build all of the buildings at once in one game; the player will have to choose wisely to suit the type of victory they are aiming for, as some will be designed to complement a specific victory type. Only one copy of each building can be built, as well, but I don't know yet whether they will be in the capital only (if not, those not in the capital when it is lost will still be destroyed).
Also, I still am not sure what I'm going to change the second unique to (it'll have to since the Kitchen will be a Grand Star building) - all I know is that it's not likely to be another UU. I guess it would depend on what I decide for the Grand Star bonuses.

Unfortunately this may take time to figure out so *sigh* looks like our poor Guardian of the Cosmos will be delayed again. I hope I'm not going to become like Duke Nukem Forever or something...
 
Question: how are the Grand Stars collected? Also, will an AI Rosalina know to collect them?

If it were me, what I would do for the Grand Stars is to keep their bonus relatively simple, like +5% production and +5% science (or +10% production and no science bonus).
 
Question: how are the Grand Stars collected? Also, will an AI Rosalina know to collect them?
They are collected in one of two ways:
  • If a Rosalina player owns the land the Grand Star is on, it is collected automatically.
  • Otherwise, if one of Rosalina's units is on or adjacent to a tile on which a Grand Star resides, they will collect it at the end of the turn. This has a few caveats: If the Grand Star is in a foreign player's land, the Rosalina player must either be friends or at war with them (and if it's under a city, your only choice is to conquer it). A foreign unit on the tile will also prevent collection. Finally, if multiple eligible Rosalina players have units around a tile at one time (if one is on it, they will always get it if eligible), the one with the most units gets it - if more than one has the most, it is allocated randomly. That situation will almost never come up, so you probably don't need to worry about it.
In all cases, a Rosalina player with the maximum number of Grand Stars will act as a foreign player for the purposes of checking Grand Star collection.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to get an AI Rosalina to deliberately seek them out. It was my hope that allowing collection from an adjacent tile would increase the chances that an AI Rosalina would get one by randomly exploring the map (since Scouts can only move two moves normally, if an AI controlled one tries to pass by one, they should collect it). One thing I did consider is for players who have Grand Stars in their territory to get a diplomatic penalty against AI Rosalina to increase the chances that she would go to war with them and serendipitously collect them on the way.
If it were me, what I would do for the Grand Stars is to keep their bonus relatively simple, like +5% production and +5% science (or +10% production and no science bonus).
Having a simple increase like that is both a bit boring and can be potentially unbalanced, especially as a Rosalina player might happen to get them quickly. Say if you happened to get them all by 75 turns, +30% in Production and Science would be gamebreaking (seriously, it would probably make Babylon look like India). I had feedback that even a plain +10% Production bonus for each could be overpowered. Hence why I've decided to consider using special buildings - to try to balance Rosalina by introducing important choices and to keep her gameplay interesting. Hopefully. :)
 
I'm not sure if this would work, but perhaps what you could do is make them work like Ancient Ruins that can only be picked up by the Starshrooms (and might only be visible to Rosalina)? AIs know to look for ruins.


Also, re-reading your thing, I like the bonuses.

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Also, an idea I had for a King Boo's UA: Vanish. As ghosts, all units have a small withdrawal chance.
Or: Undead. Everytime he loses a unit in battle, he gains a little bit of money.

His Unique Unit would probably be the Big Boo, though I'm trying to think of what it would do...
 
Bumpity, bump. :p

On the subject of the King Boo Civ, it occurs to me: you'd need to have a Haunted Mansion UB. I'm not entirely sure what it'd do, maybe cause fear in units attacking or adjacent to the city, but it'd need to be a thing.

Also, you're doing God's work. Keep it up. There really need to be more Video Game based Civs.
 
Me and Typhlomence were planning Zelda civs in the future. Right? That's still a possibility?

(I am planning to start a fictional civs thread after the Dervish are released. IF we do the Zelda civs we talked about ages ago, it could be a collab!)
 
May I suggest adding a "Star" religion? Just a thought.
Eh, I don't think so. Sure the Mushroom Kingdom celebrate the appearance of the comet (actually the Comet Observatory but I'm not sure everyone knows about that) every 100 years, but I'm not sure it or the Lumas have any religious significance.

The Lumas' default religion will be Buddhism, as I've read that SMG has Buddhist themes. It works well with the whole reincarnation aspect, anyway.
Bumpity, bump. :p

On the subject of the King Boo Civ, it occurs to me: you'd need to have a Haunted Mansion UB. I'm not entirely sure what it'd do, maybe cause fear in units attacking or adjacent to the city, but it'd need to be a thing.
Hmm, I could see how to code such a thing. However I'm not planning on doing King Boo any time soon, if at all. Protagonist is looking for ideas for one, I know that much.
Also, you're doing God's work. Keep it up. There really need to be more Video Game based Civs.
Nonsense, I am doing Rosalina's work, as she is the only goddess I worship. :mischief:
Me and Typhlomence were planning Zelda civs in the future. Right? That's still a possibility?

(I am planning to start a fictional civs thread after the Dervish are released. IF we do the Zelda civs we talked about ages ago, it could be a collab!)
Me, work with you? What is this codswallop?!

I'm kidding, I'm kidding! I still don't mind helping you out there. I'm glad you remembered, actually. :)
 
Just stopping by to say thanks for the Koopa Troop civ, and please keep up the good work! I recently decided to download a bunch of fictional civs to spice up Civ V, and it's been a blast. Also, I love the idea of one or more Hyrule civs done at this level of quality. The one currently available is a bit lacking. It has no unique music, little interesting dialogue, and (worst of all) it references the CD-i Zelda games that good Zelda fans all pretend don't exist. (Edit: Not referring to the most recent one, which seems not to be finished just yet).
 
Just stopping by to say thanks for the Koopa Troop civ, and please keep up the good work! I recently decided to download a bunch of fictional civs to spice up Civ V, and it's been a blast.
You're welcome! Always nice to hear about someone using my civilizations. :)
Also, I love the idea of one or more Hyrule civs done at this level of quality. The one currently available is a bit lacking. It has no unique music, little interesting dialogue, and (worst of all) it references the CD-i Zelda games that good Zelda fans all pretend don't exist. (Edit: Not referring to the most recent one, which seems not to be finished just yet).
But... this peace is what all true warriors strive for! :(

In all seriousness, at present I won't be doing a Zelda civilization on my own, since I've never played an entry in the series. Zantonius Hamm has, which is why we discussed working together.

Also, while I'm still talking about Rosalina's abilities with DarkScythe (though I might just start implementing things soon just to keep the work going and to test things), I'm currently working on updating Bowser. Mainly a small bug-fix when cities are captured and a cap on the UA (production boost will be 50% maximum), but I'm also going to add some more unique diplomacy responses and some new models. The Bullet Bill will actually use a model from New Super Mario Bros. Wii, instead of that reskinned Guided Missile, and you'll be getting some flavour units as well. What can you look forward to?

Well:
Spoiler :

Yes, while I'm using the actual sprites for textures from SMB3, this is made completely from scratch.
 
Holy Crap. :eek:

Gotta ask, are there any plans to tweak the leader screen? It's not bad by any means, but the decision to use a version of Bowser's Castle from a Mario Kart track for the background strikes me as odd. If I put something together would you consider using it?
 
The reason I have the Mario Kart 7 Bowser's Castle is simply because that was the only picture I could find that was actually feasible as a background for Bowser to stand in front of (and even then, I had to upscale and blur it). If you want to put something together that you think might work better then by all means do so, I'll be very grateful. :)
 
Alright, I'll give it a shot! On the subject of the leader screen, I know Mario 64's Bowser theme is fairly iconic, but I still feel this might be a better fit for it:


Link to video.

This makes me think of Bowser a lot more. Plus, it's from right around when they started using that weird Arabian sounding Sitar type instrument that showed up in a lot of future variations of his theme.
 
Well, here's one take on it:

Spoiler :


You certainly wouldn't have to upscale this time. (Might have to downscale a bit, honestly) It's surprisingly hard to find decent shots of Bowser's Castle, you were right about that much. I'll keep looking though, if the above isn't to your liking.
 
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