Tarot: Land of Arcana (WIP)

Just to let you know I'm continuing to follow the thread even if i'm not posting comments.

That's cool. Let me know if you think of anything that w/b good for the mod.
 
That's cool. Let me know if you think of anything that w/b good for the mod.
I think my original idea to create a special unit for each of the Minor Arcana cards is just not going to work. This is because the Minor Arcana cards are just that ... cards. They are not offensive or defensive type units.
In my opinion you gave up on this too soon. When working with something as layered in symbolism as the Tarot it helps to think outside the box. Same goes for units.
Spoiler :


Sure looks like a thief to me. Or an assassin. Or maybe a spy (check out the standard Firaxis Spy unit). Or maybe he needs to have multiple swords like CamJH's Red Shield?

Spoiler :


A blind-folded sword-wielding woman? If you want her eyes covered try Hikaro's Shinra Soldier. He's a unit maker who has done a lot of female units. Gotta have two swords? Then go for ruby-sauce's Elite Gerudo Guard. Four of swords? tom2050's Thark 4-Sword Elite. Higher numbers a problem? Try his Sword Demon.


This doesn't only work for the swords, either.

Spoiler :


How about a darker equivalent of the swords' thief - maybe aaglo's Dark Elf Assassin. Or go for something creepier, like tom2050's Banshee.


Spoiler :
Farmer with a stick? Fighting unit? Kinboat's Medieval Resistor wields a pitchfork. Or change the animation file names & use any of Plotinus' workers.


Spoiler :

A fleet-owner looking out to sea, holding a pole? How many sailing ships are in the db?

Use your correspondence tables.
Spoiler :
Pentacles seem tough? Earth, orbs, etc. ruby-sauce's Orb Magician. Or his Earthbender. There are plenty of peasants and poor people in the pentacles cards - and plenty of peasant/levy etc. units.

Wands are sometimes associated with air instead of fire. So check out ruby-sauce's Airbender. Queen of Wands - Hikaro's Cetra Archon. Ace of Wands - Imperial Psyker by LizardmenRule!.

Ace of Pentacles - aaglo's Flying Carpet. Ace of Cups - Rocket Cat.


Same old medieval knights too boring?
Spoiler :
Knight of Wands - check out Hikaro's Chocobo Rider or Supa's Terror Bird Riders. Knight of Cups - elephant artillery by both imperator1961 and Balam-Agab. Take your pick.


Cups being associated with water, ...
Spoiler :
... they'd have a strong navy. Like Orthanc's Yellow Submarine. And amphibious units. Like utahjazz7's Kool-Aid Man.


You may think some of those suggestions are silly. The point is don't get stuck on names of units. You're going to have to spend some time perusing the library threads and checking out the units for various artists.
 
In my opinion you gave up on this too soon. When working with something as layered in symbolism as the Tarot it helps to think outside the box. Same goes for units.

I see what you're saying. There's plenty of creative leeway on what kind of units those cards can become. They don't necessarily have to fit the exact meaning behind the cards, especially when the card meanings are highly subjective.

So I think you're right. I can still make units based on (and probably named after) the Minor Arcana cards.

You may think some of those suggestions are silly.

Not at all. Those are all great ideas and I'm glad you took time to tell me about them.

I'm adding some of those dudes to the special unit lists now. The Imperial Psyker is wicked cool. I like him as the Ace of Wands. Anyway, it is good to finally start making some decisions about units.

Special Unit Lists for each Suit:

Pentacles
Cups
Swords
Wands

Note: Subject to change of course. Basically, I'm just slotting units that I like but I'm not giving much thought to which Minor Arcana card they should represent. And I'm starting to think that it really doesn't matter too much which unit goes with each card, unless it is a great fit, like the King of Wands and the Five of Cups (Banshee).


The point is don't get stuck on names of units.

Yea, I have OCD pretty bad and get hung up on small irrelevant details all the time. Long story short this is something I fight all the time.

You're going to have to spend some time perusing the library threads and checking out the units for various artists.

Definitely. I've sifted through the database before and found some cool units, but I wasn't organized at the time. Now I have some lists to work off of and I can add something as soon as I find it.

Funny. It took 164 posts before I posted images of any possible units to the mod. :) Only me.

Thanks for your feedback...
 
Blue Monkey, this unit is awesome, but I am not sure where to use it.

One of the parts of my Magnum Opus (spaceship) screen is a Mirror, because after researching spells and magic circles, etc, I noticed that many powerful spells involved a mirror placed within the circle...

So anyway, this mirror unit needs to be in the mod somehow...

Alice Through the Looking Glass Mirror. tom2050, Blue Monkey, Supa, Balthasar
 
This is coming alone well Gray Wolf... I like that you are using the Cards to Represent rather than directly dictate or be the Units. This provides Flexibility and you can certainly always use "Artistic License" with decisions.

Always Please Yourself...Most important to make the Game something You Really Like and have fun Creating and Playing.

I am sure there are Many people following this thread. They simply don't tend to post on "reports" of work in progress.
 
Blue Monkey, this unit is awesome, but I am not sure where to use it.

One of the parts of my Magnum Opus (spaceship) screen is a Mirror, because after researching spells and magic circles, etc, I noticed that many powerful spells involved a mirror placed within the circle...
The mirror is one of several designed as an "upgrade" unit. They're there from the beginning, but are useful only if you hang on to them until you've researched the technology required to upgrade to the "real" unit. It's one way to allow one-of-a-kind units to be built. When the mirror breaks ...
 
Plotinus, if you are still reading this, I think you created custom tech screens for each civilization, so maybe you can give me some general advice on this? I think you just have to make sure you use the same x and y location for techs, right?


Edit: I decided not to mess with multiple tech trees...

Probably wise, as it's a huge amount of work and a big hassle, not to mention risks unbalancing the game! But, yes, if you want to use Firaxis-style arrows on the tech tree screen, each civ has to have techs that bear the same relation to each other so they can be put in the same places against the background. This is because you can't have a different background image, with different arrows, for the different civs. Apart from that, though, there's no reason why different civs can't have tech trees that bear no resemblance to each other.
 
This is coming alone well Gray Wolf
Thanks, I'm slowly but surely piecing things together...

I like that you are using the Cards to Represent rather than directly dictate or be the Units. This provides Flexibility and you can certainly always use "Artistic License" with decisions.

Yes, it's definitely more flexible this way. It's not what I originally planned but everything will probably work out fine.

Always Please Yourself...Most important to make the Game something You Really Like and have fun Creating and Playing.

Yes, I just need to have some fun with this. If I do that, I'll probably start getting some cool ideas.

Speaking about that, I was going to tell you that I love the tunnels in the EFZI2 mod which are actually airports. So I may try to do some kind of magical transport thing like that in the Tarot mod.

I am sure there are Many people following this thread. They simply don't tend to post on "reports" of work in progress.

Right. I rarely post on a WIP thread unless I know I am helping in some way. But I should start giving people more feedback. It really helps.
 
Gray Wolf... In EFZI2, the Tech Trees are different for each of the Factions. The "Capabilities" = Techs are the same for several of them but change for each Faction. If the Techs are only for a particular Civ and no one else can research it and it cannot be traded, that is easy as there is no need to keep any of those Techs in a particular place on the Screen. The difficulty is when some Civs have other Techs between the Techs that all Civs share. The Techs that are shared have to be in the same place on the screen... x & y. I did not use arrows as there are not many Techs for the Factions.

yes, the actual Airports can be something else such as the "Sewer Tunnels" in EFZI2. Same thing for "AirDrop". That is used for the Coffin Units that "unearth". Rather than AirDrop, they come up out of the ground and that is simply done with the animations.

...The thing I like about it all is that the AI uses them effectively because they actually do what they were designed to do in game. Just Renamed.

For a "Magical Transport" you could use any Magic animation and the Unit will appear after it plays. I use a "Transport Beam" for a few Units in EFZI2. The Dalek for example. This is still "AirDrop" in the Editor... just a different animation.

You could make an animation using an Orb or what ever you like that would appear to Transport the units. It could fade in and out or come up out of the ground for example and the Unit would be on the map. Just use your imagination. Add some cool sounds and you can obtain a believable Magic Transport :)
... you can make as many different Transports as you like. One for each Civ or for special Units, etc... they all use the same Editor "Airdrop" Flag, just different animations.
 
Just to reinforce Vuldacon's comments, there are several different "magical effect" animations which have been posted over the years and which can be combined with a unit's other animations.
Blue Monkey... Exactly :)
In Fact, anyone can feel free to use anything I have Uploaded... Mix and Match, change adjust, etc... If I had been in the "Podcast" I would have mentioned that almost all things accomplished have been built upon by those that discovered them and or embellished them for all that came after. We all create and discover new things and Gladly share with others... that is what speeds the progress and makes it all happen. It is after all a Great Community and although it is based on what has become an Older game engine, what is being created to this day is New and appealing. Viva CIV III/Conquest :thumbsup:
 
Vuldacon and Blue Monkey,

Thanks for all of the info related to magical transports, airports, airlifts, and magical affect animations. That was very helpful.

Anyway, I'm going to check airlift on some sample units and pay attention to what happens. Once I see how everything works, I'll try to implement magical transports in the Tarot mod.

I am going to finish making the beta tech screens first though...
 
If you are ambitious you might want to take a look at teleportation. You need to use an extended editor such as Quintillus' to get access to this feature. Start by reading the original explanation of how to use teleportation by Bluemafia. A discussion about one practical application of it is here. In the present case, you could have an appropriate Major Arcana - Tower, Chariot & Judgement come to mind - allow for the building of a telepad (or maybe a small wonder that autoproduces telepad & teleporting units).

Another way to restrict the building of improvements and units is requiring a resource to be within a city radius. This works especially well on premade maps.
 
Creating. a. map. takes. way. too. long.
 
Creating. a. map. takes. way. too. long.
Don't know how you're doing it. Everyone works slightly differently. Here are three posts on how I do it. Ignore the "grid overlay" part in the second post - it gets good results but is exceedingly slow (imho). Read them in order, 1 2 3 & everywhere it says something about bmp2bic or map tweaker, use Quintillus editor instead. A couple of posts on using it to convert images to maps are here and here. There are other posts in his thread worth a peek as well.

It is a quicker and simpler process to do than to explain.
 
Blue Monkey,

I had a lot of trouble getting the cross platform editor to import a .bmp file and I originally posted a bunch of questions here. However, it turned out to be very easy to use. You just have to know what to do. Anyway, there is definitely a learning curve on getting the map import feature to work correctly, so I may write a tutorial on this some day...

Anyway, thanks for your links and explanations.

Edit: I'm just cleaning up some of these old posts about maps that I decided not to use...
 
Edit: I have OCD and for some reason these old posts were bothering me so I'm removing them or paraphrasing them.

This whole post was basically about how I like Napoleon and want the game to feel like the French Cups are fighting the Holy Roman Empire in the early 1800's...
 
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