Hi All!
So a couple pages back I see you were working to integrate my formulas into this mod...Well, why didnt someone try to contact me for some help?!
Hehehe...
I havent tried the mod yet, but I'm seeing a fair ammount of concern over the balance of building and training times.
Well...
I've offered to assist Keldath in my own MODs thread, and I believe I can solve all of these problems once he gets me the data set I need.
Some comments based on what I've seen in the forum sofar:
1) localization...this should NEVER be a problem, and is only tedious to fix, not difficult. In your Text .xml files just make sure you always mirror your descriptions into the other languages like thus:
<English>Blah</English>
<French>Blah</French>
<German>Blah</German>
<Italian>Blah</Italian>
<Spanish>Blah</Spanish>
Dont worry about actually doing the translation, since although it would be VERY nice to have the other languages all be accurate, unless you know someone absolutely fluent in all fo the languages involved, a quick poll taken in the forums a couple of years back reveals that people prefer reading english(even as a second language) to the sort of hacked-up mess you get from the online translation programs.
Doing the above is simple but tedious, and avoids the complaint of having to change your language setting to get it to work on localized versions.
2) City Radius 3 - I dont think you should waffle on this as a "patch". Include it or dont! Make a firm decision on the flavor of your mod, and stick to it! If it has 3 city radius, then it has 3 city radius! If not, then not! Unless you can figure out a way to make it a selection under Custom, you should have it either in or out!
3) Did you ever fix the TGA fonts issues you were having? I couldn't tell for sure based on the talk in the forum...But I think I figured that out once a while back, I could look at it again if you still need help with that.
4) You said you added more turns to make the game end in 2015? Doesn't it normally end in 2050? Perhaps it is a typo and you meant 2150?
5) And I need more than just Costs in that list, I need effects as well...and not for ALL the stuff in the game, just for anything you added or changed! The list can be quick and dirty without the names of things like this:
CULTURE:
Wonders - +8 +4 +5 +25% +6 +8 +100%
Natnl Wonders - +5 +6 +50% +7 +8
Buildings - +3 +4 +6 +9 +25%
Resources - +2 +1
Hammers:
Wonders - +25% +50% +2
Natnl Wonders - +25% +25%
Buildings - +2 +1 +4 +25%
Resources - +2 -1 +1
And I need this for the following: Culture, Hammers, Gold, Science
Each + (or -) represents one thing you have added and it's effect on that category.
What I will then do is figure out, using the original contents of the game as a running total, a ratio of how much you have changed the balance...and then from there modify all of the formulas that affect speed to accomodate these changes. I will then retrofit these numbers to fit all of the speeds you are currently using (by turn numbers and nothing else) comparing to the base used in Vanilla Civ for Normal speed (the speed formulas used by firaxis in BTS are seriuosly skewed, it's like they made all these changes and then just threw big round numbers at them to try and accomodate them!) at 460 turns.