[Religion and Revolution]: Ideas for Total Conversions

Actually my original long long long term plans for Religion and Revolution had included to create a Total Conversion of it.
One possibility would have been to create a Sci-Fi TC.

The Sci-Fi TC I was thinking of would have been inspired by "Frank Herbert's Dune".
(But only inspired, story still being a new one.)

To give you some idea:

• One Planet
• One Emperor (Parent for all Playable Civs)
• Several Major Houses (Playable Civs) with Unique Units and Unique Buildings
• Several Tribes (Similar to Fremen, much more important for Player than Natives in Colonization)
• Several other Fractions (A Guild of Navigators, religious fractions, a technology fraction, ...) acting as aditional Parents with many other features
• Terraforming as a main feature
• Harvesting of Goods (similar to Spice Harvesting in Dune or Whaling in RaR)
• Technology as Major Feature
• Spies and Assassins as a Major Feature
• Still using Trade-, Production-and Yield-System of Colonization
• North and South Poles acting as "Homeplanet"-Plots (Similar like Europe-Plots)
• Ranged attacks
• War / Fights in Space, in Air, on Land and in Water
• As final goal to become Emperor (similar to War of Independence)
• ...

Although a lot of Religion and Revolution mechanisms and features could have been reused / rebuilt,
this still would have become a totally new game.

• Much darker atmosphere
• Much more important but also difficult and dangerous environment
• Much more important diplomacy and wise use of non-military features
• Much more military diversity
• ...

A gigantic project like that would require a big team that would stay motivated over a long long period of time.
I am not even motivated myself anymore for something that big.

Also, a lot of features I would have considered essential for that project haven't been implemented in Religion and Revolution
and I don't know if they ever will ...

• Inventions
• Religions (Protestants and Catholics)
• Culture / Rebuild Area of Influence
• Rebuild Military System
• Wild Animals
• Advanced Diplomacy
• Enhanced Goody Hut System
• Drying Swamps, Digging Riverbeds, Planting Forests
• ...

But well, I was only dreaming.

Don't worry Ray, of course you're welcome to post that here!

Yes, a scifi or Dune-themed total conversion mod of RaR like that sounds great. I've really hoped to eventually develop Colonization 2071 into a much more full featured mod like you're describing, though it would also require a serious team effort as you say. BTW as you may know, there is a great Civ4 mod Dune Wars which is very well made, it does a part of what you mentioned, although Civ4Col opens the additional possibility of actual trading/harvesting of goods like Spice etc. Perhaps someday you might finally install Civ4Bts just to try Dune Wars out? Though I know you much prefer Civ4Col to Civ4

orlanth said:

Yes, a scifi or Dune-themed total conversion mod of RaR like that sounds great.

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Well, I did not want to do something "Dune-themed" but only "Dune-inspired".

As I said, the storyline and background would be a new one.
Creating that background and having the freedom to create features freely without being tied to a given scenario,
would be a big part of the fun of such a project.

orlanth said:

Though it would also require a serious team effort as you say.

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That is the problem.

To create a mod as big as Religion and Revolution or a SciFi-TC as I am thinking about you simply need
a big team of motivated, reliable and skilled modders.

orlanth said:

BTW as you may know, there is a great Civ4 mod Dune Wars which is very well made, it does a part of what you mentioned, although Civ4Col opens the additional possibility of actual trading of goods like Spice etc. Perhaps someday you might finally install Civ4Bts just to try Dune Wars out? Though I know you much prefer Civ4Col to Civ4

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I know that the mod "Dune Wars" exists and have read a bit about the features.
(Sounds like a great mod. I have never played it though.)

However, I would have liked to create several features that mod does not know.
Also, for what I am thinking of (or let us say for my personal taste) Civ4Col (or actually Religion and Revolution) would be a much better base.

As I said, I was only dreaming.
But as a modder, it is always good to have big dreams.

Again Ray, you're reading my mind !
I think I already told you about my idea of a "magical" colonization (inspired by Master of Magic). My second idea was a Sci-Fi, Dune-like Colonization

I've heard of Dune Wars but I haven't tried it...

raystuttgart said:

Also, for what I am thinking of (or let us say for my personal taste) Civ4Col (or actually Religion and Revolution) would be a much better base.

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In my opinion too some Dune or Dune-like options are well adapted to Colonization . In Frank Herbert's novel the Houses (or civilization) use ships to voyage from their Homeland to Arrakis... And Fremen would be the Natives...

I'm a little busy right now, but I'd like to discuss this one of these days. I love the idea
@ Orlanth: I still have to answer your message ! Sorry if I'm late

Don't miss the trees for the forest. The features which you listed that need to be implemented should still be implemented, and a lot of work is to be done on RaR. A few of the features I would like to see right away are: Drying Swamps, Digging Riverbeds, Planting Forests and Wild Animals, but along with Wild Animals, and healing buff to scouts and a strength of 1 to treasures. At any rate I'm just afraid at the lack of movement RaR has had recently, and I am concerned talks of another mod will attract what attention is yet remaining for RaR.

Sanotra said:

The features which you listed that need to be implemented should still be implemented, and a lot of work is to be done on RaR.

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Indeed, it would be nice if those features would get implemented.
But I am wasted ...

Sanotra said:

At any rate I'm just afraid at the lack of movement RaR has had recently, ...

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Woah, there has been a lot of "movement".
We might not have implemented many new features recently, but we did massiv amounts of improvements and fixes.

Please also consider, that our active team has been tiny within the last months.
(Most of the time, we were only 2 or 3 modders regularly working for the mod.)

Robert Surcouf said:

I'd like to discuss this one of these days. I love the idea

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Sure, some brainstorming is always fun.

But don't misunderstand me.
This originally was part of my long long long term plans.
Today I do not seriously plan to do this anymore.

The original post of this thread was nothing more than some idea sharing in orlanth's thread.
(I asked that the post was moved here, because I did not want to spam orlanth's thread.)

1. Today I don't believe anymore, that a big enough team of skilled, motivated and reliable modders for such a project can be found.
2. I am almost sure, that I myself do not have enough motivation left for this.
3. Many features I would have considered essential for that Total Conversion are still not implemented in Religion and Revolution.

raystuttgart said:

[*]One Emperor (Parent for all Playable Civs)

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Multiple children per parent civilization is possible, but so far I was only able to do that on scenarios, not on random maps, unfortunately. The problem is that adding parents is something done in the .exe, not in the DLL code. However, theoretically there should be a way to create code to add parents through the DLL code, but I haven't been able to do so so far.

The work that has been done to RaR so far has been very good. You guys have done a good job. Keep up the good work.

Yes, the versatility of RaR makes it a really ideal platform for total conversion modding. The creation of so many flexible new features exposed to XML tags is what helps this the most. It's inspiring to hear of those initial long term TC plans developed by Ray; somewhat like you, my eventual ambition had been to one day redevelop my old mod Colonization 2071 as an improved Sci-Fi TC mod with more interesting features, using TAC (or now the much improved RaR) as a base. (even my most ambitious plans hadn't considered all of the many interesting features mentioned by Ray!) But yes, an endeavor like this would require a motivated team and more developed features, and this is indeed far in the future if it's ever achieved.. but who knows, maybe someday we will colonize the stars lol!

I would even say that RaR currently may be the best overall platform for modding, considering all Civ games! As I was discussing with Androrc over PM, the prospects for true total conversion modding in Civ5 are currently extremely poor; and I would say TAC and RaR are much more strategically interesting and fun as a game than Civ5, and even looks better than Civ5 to me graphics-wise thanks to the efforts of Schmiddie, melcher kurzer, Robert and others. So although it might seem progress is gradual and the Civ4Col community is small, this has still been clearly one of the most impressive Civ projects currently going, and kudos to the entire team.

orlanth said:

So although it might seem progress is gradual ...

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If progress is to be messured only by quantity (the amount of new features added),
then yes, there was relativley little progress lately.

But a good mod is defined also by quality.

We had massive amounts of improvements considering AI, graphics, sounds, screens, balancing, stabiltiy, performance, ...

So what is better ?

A) a mod stuffed with features but unplayable
B) a mod that carefully adds new features but pays attention to quality

See, I know I was annoying sometimes, when it came to adding new things.

But I seriously believe that new features must fulfill certain criterias:

1. Stability
2. Performance
3. Balancing / AI
4. Atmosphere / Historical Correctness
5. and of course Fun / Gameplay

orlanth said:

It's inspiring to hear of those initial long term TC plans developed by Ray;

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I am a dreamer.
I like to create plans and have "visions".

orlanth said:

I would even say that RaR currently may be the best overall platform for modding, considering all Civ games!
...
this has still been clearly one of the most impressive Civ projects currently going, and kudos to the entire team.

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Religion and Revolution was not intended to become a "fire and forget project" full of incomplete features and bugs that nobody could enjoy playing.

It was intended to become a stable base for many projects and a community platform to bring together, improve and then share again
the best features created by our small modding community.

And yes, we have come a long way.
Without the massive efforts of all team members and a lot of support from partners and community, this mod would not exist.