Typhlomence's Civilizations

That is a pretty huge post! X3 It's awesome to see you're getting so much done with the civ -- it's particularly cool to see all the resource icons -- although it's always that last 25% or whatever that takes the most time...

As for the Grand Stars, I'm not quite sure what to suggest. After some discussion and feedback regarding my Moriya Shrine civ, I'm considering just how I want to approach science civs in the future, since they can be quite problematic. At the very least, you may want to consider a secondary theme for Rosalina, so that she's not just solely a science civ, and could have the Grand Stars interact with that. I don't know enough about Rosalina to say what a good secondary theme might be, though...

EDIT: Are those P80 Shooting Stars? They do have an oddly retro sci-fi look to them...

EDIT2: Looking at the map for Rosalina from the selection screen, I'm sorely tempted to try and do a reskin of the Arcology building that you could plop down over her capital to make it look like that space station... I bet I even know how I could make it float in the air above the city... X3

Zantonius Hamm said:

I am looking forward to this civ's release! I cannot guess the Tank and Plane, though, can't seem to remember anything of the like in SMG...

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If you can name them, it might make sense. We have one named anyway:

bouncymischa said:

EDIT: Are those P80 Shooting Stars? They do have an oddly retro sci-fi look to them...

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Yup. And if you consider what Rosalina is associated with, then that's why I chose it.

I honestly didn't think of it looking retro, just "it'll be a nice easter egg if I use vehicles named after astronomical terms".

bouncymischa said:

That is a pretty huge post! X3 It's awesome to see you're getting so much done with the civ -- it's particularly cool to see all the resource icons -- although it's always that last 25% or whatever that takes the most time...

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I'm pleased with how the resource icons turned out, especially with getting the font icons working. Now to figure out how to place exactly six Grand Stars per Rosalina on the map...

bouncymischa said:

As for the Grand Stars, I'm not quite sure what to suggest. After some discussion and feedback regarding my Moriya Shrine civ, I'm considering just how I want to approach science civs in the future, since they can be quite problematic. At the very least, you may want to consider a secondary theme for Rosalina, so that she's not just solely a science civ, and could have the Grand Stars interact with that. I don't know enough about Rosalina to say what a good secondary theme might be, though...

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Well, Grand Stars are giving a Production bonus already, and she built the Comet Observatory almost single-handedly, so... Production? Here's what the storybook said:

It turned out that Star Bits weren't the only things buried in the ice. There were tools and furniture unlike any they had ever seen, and the girl used them to build a home.

Looking at the completed house, Luma remarked, "Don't you think it's awfully big for just the two of us?" With a library, bedroom, kitchen, fountain, and gate, it was certainly spacious, but still, something seemed to be missing.

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Plus I still want to give a Spaceship production bonus somewhere in the Grand Star bonuses.

Either that... or I could tone down the Grand Star Production bonus and add something in for Culture. Because if Rosalina can write one storybook...

bouncymischa said:

EDIT2: Looking at the map for Rosalina from the selection screen, I'm sorely tempted to try and do a reskin of the Arcology building that you could plop down over her capital to make it look like that space station... I bet I even know how I could make it float in the air above the city... X3

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If you want to try that and it works, then I'll put it in (and be very grateful for it).

Typhlomence said:

Yup. And if you consider what Rosalina is associated with, then that's why I chose it.

I honestly didn't think of it looking retro, just "it'll be a nice easter egg if I use vehicles named after astronomical terms".

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Oh! I thought they were references to something in the SMB canon, like that airplane you're giving Rosalina.

In that case, are the tanks Comets? They have look rather like WWII British tanks, and the Comet is the only one I could think of with an astronomical name...

Typhlomence said:

Well, Grand Stars are giving a Production bonus already, and she built the Comet Observatory almost single-handedly, so... Production? Here's what the storybook said:

Plus I still want to give a Spaceship production bonus somewhere in the Grand Star bonuses.

Either that... or I could tone down the Grand Star Production bonus and add something in for Culture. Because if Rosalina can write one storybook...

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Hmmm... a bonus to building buildings or wonders? If they've already got a Production bonus built in, and you don't want to layer on too much Science, then you've got... Food, Gold, Culture, Faith, and Happiness, I suppose? Faith isn't too much in theme, but you might be able to have them offer rewards for some of the other potential yields...

If you want to try that and it works, then I'll put it in (and be very grateful for it).

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I think I can get it to work -- reskinning might actually be harder than doing the model, although the texture gets placed radially anyways. I'll have to play around with it and let you know :3

bouncymischa said:

Oh! I thought they were references to something in the SMB canon, like that airplane you're giving Rosalina.

In that case, are the tanks Comets? They have look rather like WWII British tanks, and the Comet is the only one I could think of with an astronomical name...

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Yes they are. Well, I said "astronomical" but Rosalina and the Lumas are associated with comets, stars and the like, so it wasn't completely random.

It's a sorta obscure easter egg, I know, because it relies on the player knowing about Rosalina (which I generally expect they would if they download this) and real-life military hardware. But I thought it might get a chuckle if someone who knew their tanks and jet fighters noticed it.

And if they don't... well you still get a couple of flavour units.

bouncymischa said:

Hmmm... a bonus to building buildings or wonders? If they've already got a Production bonus built in, and you don't want to layer on too much Science, then you've got... Food, Gold, Culture, Faith, and Happiness, I suppose? Faith isn't too much in theme, but you might be able to have them offer rewards for some of the other potential yields...

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Hmm, it's tricky. The main reason I went with a science focus initially was that I wanted to make the Lumas be most suited for a Science Victory, which I thought made the most thematic sense with the "build an launch a Spaceship" bit - especially with the collect-Grand-Stars feature I have now, since collecting them all and getting a boost to Spaceship part construction would represent collecting all the Grand Stars in SMG and then being able to travel to the centre of the universe.

I agree that Faith doesn't really fit, even with the possible religious symbolism in SMG and the fact that some people consider Rosalina to be a goddess (she's never called that in any canon, I can tell you now). Gold doesn't really fit with the Lumas either.

I've mentioned the one reason why Culture could be used. Food, as it also represents growth, could work (and I considered it when I first thought up the Grand Star bonuses) since in SMG more Grand Stars = more operational parts of the Comet Observatory = a more hospitable home for the Lumas. Happiness would fit nicely, since Grand Stars are living things and are related to the Lumas, I'm sure the little star creatures would be happy to see them liberated, but... that's what the WLTKD in the UA represents.

I'll mull this over while I implement the other stuff, since it's moot if I can't get the Grand Star collection bit working.

bouncymischa said:

I think I can get it to work -- reskinning might actually be harder than doing the model, although the texture gets placed radially anyways. I'll have to play around with it and let you know :3

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Even if you can't do it, I really appreciate it.

I actually had a brainwave about the UA last night. Since in SMG each Grand Star collected opened up a new part of the Comet Observatory, perhaps I could make each bonus tie into the part that was opened.

In order, the domes are the Terrace, the Fountain, the Kitchen, the Bedroom, the Engine Room, and the Garden.

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Well, it might be a tad difficult to think up what would correspond to most of those, but it's something, anyway. Of course, if I did this I'd probably use a different UB.

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Oh, and also, while I said I wanted to release something for April Fools' as well, I don't think I would be able to get something out in time, unfortunately. So I'll probably move straight to Daisy after Rosalina's done.

Typhlomence said:

I actually had a brainwave about the UA last night. Since in SMG each Grand Star collected opened up a new part of the Comet Observatory, perhaps I could make each bonus tie into the part that was opened.

Well, it might be a tad difficult to think up what would correspond to most of those, but it's something, anyway. Of course, if I did this I'd probably use a different UB.

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Hmmm, so they'd be unique National Wonders (i.e. 1 per civ, but not replacing existing NWs) that you could build? That could be fun, as it might open up a wider range of effects, much like normal Wonders do. I'm not familiar with what each component does, though, so can't really suggest what sort of bonuses they might provide. Bonuses to production, growth, happiness, and culture seem like they'd be a good starting point, though...

Also, made some progress with the space station model. Getting models to float has been easy, but the texture is proving more difficult. I'm trying to figure out how the texture maps onto the surface still, so I can at least imitate some of the patterns. I did get a basic model done, though, so should be able to provide you with something if you want to use it! :3

bouncymischa said:

Hmmm, so they'd be unique National Wonders (i.e. 1 per civ, but not replacing existing NWs) that you could build? That could be fun, as it might open up a wider range of effects, much like normal Wonders do. I'm not familiar with what each component does, though, so can't really suggest what sort of bonuses they might provide. Bonuses to production, growth, happiness, and culture seem like they'd be a good starting point, though...

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Well... I was thinking of tying them to the capital anyway, so yes, they could be National Wonders. I'm not sure whether they should have to be built though - if they did they'd have to be worth sinking the hammers and turns into, and makes it a bit more catastrophic if you lost them (since you'd have to collect the Grand Stars and then build them again - unless the capturing civilization kept them). I'll get a handle on what they actually do once I sort out my Lua.

bouncymischa said:

Also, made some progress with the space station model. Getting models to float has been easy, but the texture is proving more difficult. I'm trying to figure out how the texture maps onto the surface still, so I can at least imitate some of the patterns. I did get a basic model done, though, so should be able to provide you with something if you want to use it! :3

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I'm not sure how I would actually implement it, though. I assume it would act as a building model so I would assign it to a dummy Palace replacement?

Typhlomence said:

I'm not sure how I would actually implement it, though. I assume it would act as a building model so I would assign it to a dummy Palace replacement?

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So far, I'm not sure there's any way to get new building models to appear in the game. I believe one mod that I saw accomplish it did so by having the user replace the existing building files with modified ones to include the new models. I've had to do the same thing to get new visual effects to work in the game.

However, playing around with IGE I've noticed it's quite possible to place an improvement overtop a city, and it'd be fairly easy to have some Lua code identify when the capital is built and place an improvement there. So I figured that was one way to have Rosalina's space station appear in the game, if desired.

Oh, well, I'm not surprised that it's a hacky solution, but if it works then I'm game for it.

Speaking about graphics on tiles, I assigned Grand Stars the same models as Gold (only thing I thought would make sense from the vanilla resources) for the time being, since I didn't want them to be invisible if the player didn't have the icons showing, but when I added one with the plopper in FireTuner it didn't show it. Of course, I may have coded it incorrectly, but I've heard somewhere that graphics like that don't update until you reload. Is that the case?

I wouldn't mind a dedicated model for a Grand Star resource, but even if I could make it (and I probably could - a star shape with spheres on each tip is pretty simple) I wouldn't have the first idea as to how to import it in.

And for an update... I'm just about ready to test the Lua for the Grand Stars logic. Not expecting it to work immediately - who does? - but I hope I'm on the right track with it.

Typhlomence said:

Oh, well, I'm not surprised that it's a hacky solution, but if it works then I'm game for it.

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Having to replace the core files to get buildings or effects working is rather hacky, but I'm not sure I'd consider placing an improvement model over the capital to be that hacky...

Typhlomence said:

Speaking about graphics on tiles, I assigned Grand Stars the same models as Gold (only thing I thought would make sense from the vanilla resources) for the time being, since I didn't want them to be invisible if the player didn't have the icons showing, but when I added one with the plopper in FireTuner it didn't show it. Of course, I may have coded it incorrectly, but I've heard somewhere that graphics like that don't update until you reload. Is that the case?

I wouldn't mind a dedicated model for a Grand Star resource, but even if I could make it (and I probably could - a star shape with spheres on each tip is pretty simple) I wouldn't have the first idea as to how to import it in.

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I'll admit, I haven't tried messing around with map resources much, but when I coded things like events that placed new resources, they showed up immediately. Could it be you didn't have the technology to reveal the resource yet? Another possibility is that there's an error in the resource's art define, which would make it invisible.

I did at one point define my "grey goo" as a resource, and it spawned on the map in IGE without any issues, so I'm guessing that the game should permit adding modded resource graphics.

I could take a shot at making a Grand Star resource -- I have less time these days for proper modding, but I can usually dabble with graphics whenever I've got some free time. There's a couple of Civ 4 metal/stone resources that could be an alternative to the existing Civ 5 ones, or I could reskin something like the Crystal Forest model, or a similar model for iron deposits Walter Hawkwood did. I could take a shot at making a completely original model, like I tried with the Question Block and Warp Pipe, but my success with those has been limited so far...

Still, I believe resources are done pretty much the same as improvements, so it shouldn't be too hard to create art defines for one.

bouncymischa said:

Having to replace the core files to get buildings or effects working is rather hacky, but I'm not sure I'd consider placing an improvement model over the capital to be that hacky...

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True, I suppose. My train of thought was that using a dummy improvement to make the city look different was "hacky" because it was an "unconventional" use of an improvement (just as many people use things like dummy buildings or policies for additional effects).

bouncymischa said:

I'll admit, I haven't tried messing around with map resources much, but when I coded things like events that placed new resources, they showed up immediately. Could it be you didn't have the technology to reveal the resource yet? Another possibility is that there's an error in the resource's art define, which would make it invisible.

I did at one point define my "grey goo" as a resource, and it spawned on the map in IGE without any issues, so I'm guessing that the game should permit adding modded resource graphics.

I could take a shot at making a Grand Star resource -- I have less time these days for proper modding, but I can usually dabble with graphics whenever I've got some free time. There's a couple of Civ 4 metal/stone resources that could be an alternative to the existing Civ 5 ones, or I could reskin something like the Crystal Forest model, or a similar model for iron deposits Walter Hawkwood did. I could take a shot at making a completely original model, like I tried with the Question Block and Warp Pipe, but my success with those has been limited so far...

Still, I believe resources are done pretty much the same as improvements, so it shouldn't be too hard to create art defines for one.

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It's definitely not an issue with prerequisties since the Grand Star doesn't need one, and I did get the resource icon on the map so it was definitely there. I'll try reloading the game just to see next time, but I wouldn't be surprised if I stuffed up the art define for it.

I didn't realise that the Grey Goo you did was a resource! If it's possible to have something like that show the ground below it, then I could probably use something like that to add some sort of image on the ground to show Grand Star tiles when the resource icons are turned off.

As I said I could probably make a Grand Star model myself - it's converting it which I may struggle with. Instead I could do a reskin of an existing resource (either one of the vanila ones or a custom one) myself just to make it stand out on the map, since that's not hard for me to do. Don't go out of your way to do something like that for me especially as you're already doing the Comet Observatory model.

Typhlomence said:

It's definitely not an issue with prerequisties since the Grand Star doesn't need one, and I did get the resource icon on the map so it was definitely there. I'll try reloading the game just to see next time, but I wouldn't be surprised if I stuffed up the art define for it.

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Art defines can be tricky, although once you get the hang of them I think they're more straightforwards. I still screw up the art defines for units, though. X3

Typhlomence said:

I didn't realise that the Grey Goo you did was a resource! If it's possible to have something like that show the ground below it, then I could probably use something like that to add some sort of image on the ground to show Grand Star tiles when the resource icons are turned off.

As I said I could probably make a Grand Star model myself - it's converting it which I may struggle with. Instead I could do a reskin of an existing resource (either one of the vanila ones or a custom one) myself just to make it stand out on the map, since that's not hard for me to do. Don't go out of your way to do something like that for me especially as you're already doing the Comet Observatory model.

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Yeah, I borrowed the code from Pazyryk's Blight to make the Grey Goo. I believe his Blight was originally a retexture of the Marsh graphic, but I then retextured that to make the Grey Goo. But he didn't want the Blight to remove Great Person improvements, so he defined it as a feature and a resource -- but since I'm not sure if the the game dynamically updates custom features, I mostly experimented with it as a resource.

To be honest, if all you really want is some kind of a marker that hovers over a tile showing "A Grand Star is here!", then that should be pretty easy. Experimenting with my miasma effect lately, I figured out how to put a custom texture on an invisible flat plane, so you could just have a kind of floating icon in place instead of an actual object to represent the Grand Star.

bouncymischa said:

To be honest, if all you really want is some kind of a marker that hovers over a tile showing "A Grand Star is here!", then that should be pretty easy. Experimenting with my miasma effect lately, I figured out how to put a custom texture on an invisible flat plane, so you could just have a kind of floating icon in place instead of an actual object to represent the Grand Star.

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Well, ideally I would want an actual model, but if that becomes an obstacle to release for too long (same with figuring out the UU model) then I'll go with the marker method.

So, most of the last week has involved me talking with DarkScythe - a big thanks to him - to get the TSL Serializer saving the data I wanted, and generally making sure my Lua was working correctly. The only thing I haven't tested at all yet is the logic for when a city is captured, but other than that, I've managed to get everything working nicely, though there's still some things I'll probably be changing soon (I haven't tested all the possible situations for multiple Luma players' units being present around a Grand Star, though). I also managed to fix my art defines for Grand Stars so they'll actually show up (and disappear) properly on the map.

Therefore, there isn't much I can actually show you, but here's what grabbing a Grand Star looks like at the moment.

Also, a question about CityCaptureComplete() - when does the "capital" parameter become true? If it's an original capital, or just the current capital of the player who lost the city? I'm currently assuming that the latter is true, but if it isn't I'll have to rethink how I handle it. It shouldn't be difficult to keep track of all the Luma players' capitals as well as their Grand Star count if that's needed.

Oooh, that's cool! How'd you get that light effect to go off when you collect the star?

Well, I send a notification - as you can see - whenever one is collected, and it shows which tile the Grand Star was on (if you're not the player who grabbed it, only if you've seen the tile already). It's essentially the same as any other notification that has a location attached to it. No crazy Lua trickery needed to do that, thankfully.

Typhlomence said:

Well, I send a notification - as you can see - whenever one is collected, and it shows which tile the Grand Star was on (if you're not the player who grabbed it, only if you've seen the tile already). It's essentially the same as any other notification that has a location attached to it. No crazy Lua trickery needed to do that, thankfully.

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Ooooh, I see... I'm still trying to learn my way around notifications, and haven't gotten the hang of passing the coordinates for a specific tile to it. Nice work!

Typhlomence said:

Also, a question about CityCaptureComplete() - when does the "capital" parameter become true? If it's an original capital, or just the current capital of the player who lost the city? I'm currently assuming that the latter is true, but if it isn't I'll have to rethink how I handle it. It shouldn't be difficult to keep track of all the Luma players' capitals as well as their Grand Star count if that's needed.

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CityCaptureComplete returns the bCapital boolean as true whenever the City being captured is any Civ's Capital at the point of capture. I don't believe it makes any distinction between original Capitals or not.

You can set up a test/listener function to check if you want. Firetuner makes doing this pretty easy, but looking through my list of old/test functions I have one where I have to specifically call pCity:IsOriginalCapital(), which should mean that the hook fires for any Capital.

So, what's been going on since my last update?

Well, nothing much on the technical side. I do want to check how multiplayer compatible my Lua code will be (my main concern is the placement of Grand Stars) but otherwise I haven't really touched it. Grand Stars, however, will not spawn within five tiles of each other, unless there isn't any room left on the map (unlikely).

I'm also still a bit stuck on what to do for her unique bonuses. As I've discussed previously, I wanted to make the bonuses for each Grand Star level correspond with the dome on the Comet Observatory that would become active in Super Mario Galaxy. Of course, though, they're kind of tricky to link to what can be done in CiV, so I might dispense with that somewhat.

Here's what I've been brainstorming with. Most of the effects are in the capital only since the capital is the Comet Observatory and where the domes would be - each city in the empire will still get +10% Production for each Grand Star, though.

• 1 Grand Star: Terrace - +5 Happiness, 1 Scientist slot. (the Terrace looks like an observatory inside, hence the Scientist slot. Happiness since it's the first dome you get)
• 2 Grand Stars: Fountain - +1 Culture for every regular building and great work/artifact in the capital. (one of the effects I considered was making the capital's tile count as fresh water, but that's a bit too situational in my opinion)
• 3 Grand Stars: Kitchen - +1 Food for every worked non-Strategic resource in the capital. 20% of the Food in the capital is carried over when a new citizen is born. (Kitchen > Food, obviously )
• 4 Grand Stars: Bedroom - Great Person generation increased by +25% in the capital, 1 Writer slot. (Rosalina wrote her own storybook, so writing > Writer slot > Great People. Not much else I think would make sense for the Bedroom...)
• 5 Grand Stars: Engine Room - Increases the Movement of all units in Luma territory by +2, +50% range for Trade Routes originating from the capital. (another one it's easy to find something that can be done)
• 6 Grand Stars: Garden - Increases Production of spaceship parts in this city by 100%, +100 HP. (to be fair, spaceship parts could make sense for the Engine Room in more ways than one, but I thought getting a boost towards a Science Victory would be best for the last Grand Star. 100 extra HP to help you keep the Grand Stars if the enemy's knocking at your door)

Yes, a bit over the place, I know.

Of course, this means that I'll have to change the second unique since I don't want the Kitchen twice. But I still would like the Star Bits luxury resource to be present. Since I think it would be a bit odd for them to come from a UB based on the Library or Garage, perhaps I could make a UB or even a UI that could be related to stargazing (outside of the vanilla Observatory building). If it was an UI it would supply Star Bits based upon how many were worked (like Holo's Apple Orchard).

However, I have been working on some of the visuals. First, here's the icons I made to signify the levels you can have your Beacon at, from 0 to 6:
I actually went out of my way to measure the size differences between each of the centre spheres, use the correct colours, and make sure the ring and top/bottom cones were close to the actual ones in the in-game model (I based it on this picture). A bit overly anal for something that will rarely be seen (and in the end might only be shown as a small icon in MCIS), but I'm happy with the result - simple, but striking, at least in my opinion.

Some other things I've been working on are these original models as well. First is the Grand Star resource model, a basic model made from scratch by me and graciously imported by bouncymischa:
Because it would be pain to do all the possible models, the model will only appear if there's no improvement on the tile. You'll have to check by the icon if something ends up on top of it.

Secondly, after using this great tutorial to convert Civ 4 units to CiV, I went ahead and made my very own model and texture of the Starshroom from scratch. Even for a simple few hours work, I'm very pleased with the result:

Finally, if you're playing with ViceVirtuoso's WWTW, you'll get a special icon for Magical Girl Rosalina (I'll include an option for using it as the leader icon as well):

Honestly, even though Rosalina's one of my favourite characters in fiction, and I do want to ensure I do a quality job on her, I'll be happy to get her done as well, since there's plenty of other things I want to make civilizations of too. I didn't expect when I started out that I'd make her this complicated...

Aaaah! Those Starshrooms look incredible! Any idea what you're going to do for animations?