World History Mod development thread

As I attempt to scour South America for World Wonders from the area, I have come up with a few more ideas (also, if you need unit modding, I can help with that; I can mod in XML just fine, and will have time (TONS of time) within a month...if its not done by then):

I noticed you had advanced allies and alliance systems as a part of your change list. Thus...

Alliances
Permanent Alliance: Creates a new Civilization. Can only occur between 2 Civilizations. Merges Cities, Units, Improvements, and Civics/Religions into one Civilization with one Leader. (use this to create the Austro-Hungarian Empire or other things where 2 Empires peacefully merged)
Defensive Pact: Creates a Defensive Pact between two nations. If one nation is attacked, other declares war on enemy. Pact will be cancelled if a signatory declares war on a nation.
Offensive Pact: Creates an Offensive Pact between two Empires. Functions like a Defensive Pact, but other signatory will be in war if one signatory declares war on third party (like Triple Entente in a way).
Capitulation: Occurs in Wartime only. Nation A may capitulate to Nation B (its war enemy) if Nation A has lost 50% of its population OR 50% of its land OR lost 50% of its military at the start of the war. Creates Open Borders and cultural healing bonus for Nation B's units when in Nation A. Creates Offensive Pact between Nation A and Nation B. Cannot be 'redded out' by Nation A in Diplomacy. Nation A cannot declare war or trade without permission of Nation B.
Voluntary Vassalage: Occurs in Peacetime only. Nation A may become a Vassal of Nation B if Nation A's Power is less than or equal to 55% of Nation B's Power. Creates Open Borders and cultural healing bonus for Nation B in Nation A. Creates Offensive Pact between Nation A and Nation B. Can be canceled after 10 turns by either party.

I don't remember the normal Capitulation ending requirements, but I would use those for this form of Capitulation.

As I attempt to scour South America for World Wonders from the area, I have come up with a few more ideas (also, if you need unit modding, I can help with that; I can mod in XML just fine, and will have time (TONS of time) within a month...if its not done by then):

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It obviously won't The final form of the mod will be ready in a year and a half, I assume.

About your alliance stuff... sounds good. I'm not sure how I wanted it to change, but it seemed too straight-forward, rigid and silly. For one, I will be taking off permanent alliances. I really have no idea how to add in alliances but if I can I most definitely will add yours

And I think it would have to be Tomb of the Emperor, you know, cuz I don't know of any Terra Cotta Soldiers in Rome..

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lol

What would the CN tower do?

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No clue. Commerce?

On the topic of African/tribal/pagan religions, etc. I think they would be half religions, and yes they'd be there early on. No holy city. Spreads only through conquest and within your own empire. And it would probably be very general, so that I don't have a huge number of less-influential religions. So TAR (is that what it's called?) would be the tribal religion for all African civs. Do you think this would work?

No Madagascar, wahh! I always wanted to play them!

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Who said there'd be no Madagascar? As I said, if it's going to be included as it probably will, it'll be a modern civ, to represent that area of Africa. Just won't be the historic civ.

GO kevinman4404!! Giving Moral Support! ...I think i'll make that my sig

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Do I have a team? nope I'd be honoured to have one, but at least the mod has had a lot of enthusiastic input.

Results of my efforts later today I think.

And a question: where do you find the custom events? Apparently a lot of them are based on map plots, so it will be neccessary to find and fix them.

Kevin

Advanced Papal System:

In my mind, this would be a revised Apostolic Palace. It would rise with the Papal States in 781 AD, when Charlemagne took the land his brother Pippin had unofficially given to the Pope and created the territory of the Papal States.

The Pope had the power to:
Excommunicate Catholics (this would be banning the Civilization from having Catholicism as their SR)
Direct Catholic Foreign Policy:
Begin a Crusade- lead a Crusade against the Islamic Arabs! All Catholic nations must declare war on Arabia.
End a War - End feuding between Catholic states
Control Trade - A lesser form of the Crusade

I think the Papal States should recieve the power to annoint Bishops and other religious figures in cities with population 5 or above. They would get Line-Of-Sight into the city, but -1 with the Leader of that Civilization.

@Gooblah: that will work. I've added papacy to the list of key features. (EDIT: I also think a civ should have the ability to deny the powers of the papacy, like Louis and Napoleon did in France).

@everyone: My efforts to compatabilize the map have failed (though I won't let this distract me, there's more to be done ). I have sent a detailed PM to Rhye; keep your fingers crossed and pray that he'll have time and know what to do

Kevin

The issue with the Papal States is, who gets to play Pope? It's a hella lotta power for any one civ.

Would an alternative perhaps be to somehow have a leader unattatched to a Civ? So you could still converse with "The Pope" and make deals with him, but he'd be seperate from a less influential leader of the Papal States?

I'm just not keen on one civ having that much influence.

Kev, if you look back on page 6 (I think), I mentioned Papacy as an executive civic. I would encourage you to make this an executive civic. It would come with the title "Pope."

Okay, looked some more at my history books and other such things and came up with some Naval Stuff:

List of Units:


Also, came up with revised United Nations:
League of Nations becomes United Nations after WWII
United Nations will be represented by the Security Council, as it will be the easiest to set-up.
Powers:
Embargo- all members end trade with a nation; Nation can only be Embargoed if it has Defied a Resolution
UN Peacekeeping Mission- send units from all members (nations can choose how many) into any nation at war to prevent fighting
United States, Russia, France, Great Britain, and China can Veto a resolution, stopping it from passing; no Defiance penalty or threat of Embargo
10 minor members cycle every 10 turns

More good stuff Gooblah Thanks! (edit: though I am surprised at how close you came to the stuff already in the game or in realism mods )

@Mattastic: That was what I was implying when I said:

(EDIT: I also think a civ should have the ability to deny the powers of the papacy, like Louis and Napoleon did in France).

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Well, my point was, at least that way you don't have to let the pope bully you around.

@GeneralSpecific: Well, a papacy really is a huge part of Western history, and that seems really general. The idea I came up with (just this second in fact) is that there should be the papacy, as described by Gooblah, and then the civic is what a civ uses to either accept (civic chosen) or reject (civic not chosen) the rule of the papacy. It would be easy to do, and leaves nothing out. (Plus, if fits the "who should enforce the law" motto really well).

What do you guys think about that?

Anyways, I got a response back from Rhye, and it appears I have been doing it right. What's good is that I now know for sure the error is in the code (SDK).

Can anyone point me to a tutorial that can tell me how to debug SDK? I tried opening the dump file, and it doesn't seem to be useable

Alternatively, what I am doing now is commenting (deactivating) Rhye's modifications, bit by bit, until I find the problem. Unfortunately, being able to even start the mod requires some of the modifications, so it's not as easy as it sounds, not to mention any errors, which I hope do not pop up.

Kevin

Instead of creating this whole new "Papacy" why not just add these powers to the AP?

Comment on the quadreme: It should be able to lower city defenses slightly.

@Kevinman:

Yeah. For the most part, the game is pretty good about units. My history book is pretty basic, and most of my knowledge of ancient navies comes from Classical-centric texts; I'll try to study India, China, and Arabia to get more.

@Lord_joakim:

I agree with you on this.

Quadreme (3 STR, 2 MVM) :
- Can bombard city defenses (-5% per turn)
- Can carry 2 units
- Each Archery Unit onboard increases bombard by 2%

Kev, I am working on a new Military Civics list. It is tentative but I think you will find it to your liking. I have also defined the Foreign Civics from page 6.

Military Civics- How should the military be recruited?

Mercenary- Military service is contractual and for monetary gain.
Militia- Military service is local.
Fealty- Military service is ceremonial, usually with the exchange of property for vows.
Compulsory- Military service is mandatory for all citizens.
Conscription- Military service is forced upon demand.
Voluntary- Military service is voluntary.
International- Military service is supranational, meaning that it is an international military.

Foreign Civics- How should foreign nations be dealt with?

Subjugation- Foreign nations should be dealt with by force.
Imperialism- Foreign nations should be dealt with through military, economic and governmental imperialism.
Occupation- Foreign nations should be dealt with through peaceful and forceful occupation.
Unilateralism- Foreign nations should be dealt with without the consideration of the international community.
Interventionism- Foreign nations should be dealt with using all means above.
Multilateralism- Foreign nations should be dealt with on a multilateral diplomatic, military and economic basis.
Non-intervention- Foreign nations should be dealt with only on a diplomatic and economic basis.

kevinman4404 said:

@Mattastic: That was what I was implying when I said:

(EDIT: I also think a civ should have the ability to deny the powers of the papacy, like Louis and Napoleon did in France).

Well, my point was, at least that way you don't have to let the pope bully you around.

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That's all very good and well, except that if you annoy the pope enough, he can make life extraordinarily difficult for you. Suddenly being kicked out of the Catholics-only club would give you a huge diplomatic penalty with the rest of Catholic Europe, for example. Refusing to pay, say, the King of Denmark tribute means you get a penalty with him that might lead to war. Refusing to pay the Pope tribute means you get a penalty with everyone that could lead to half of Europe turning up with swords and axes at your doorstop.

This would all be fine when the Pope doesn't have a civilization to run, but as soon as he does you essentially have a country that owns Europe. Also, what would happen if you invaded the Papal States? Is that the end of the Papacy? In real life, the Pope or his successor would surely relocate. What happens if Italy is unified, and the Vatican, as part of Rome, falls under the leadership of another ruler?

@Matt,

Assuming that you are not in favor of a papacy system, for practicality in the game, the papacy cannot be a rotating one. I would propose that a nation could adopt an executive civic like Papacy, where nations of a similar faith could become the vassals of the papal host. Really, the papacy is just an advanced vassalage system with individual monarchal states who take orders from the pope.

You mentioned the situation where a foreign nation overruns and captures to capital of the papal state and the pope flees and establishes a new government to control what remains. How can we assume that the papacy, or any government for that matter, would have the potency to continue ruling after being kicked out of the papal state?

Perhaps being the Civ with the Papal means you have to give up all your cities but the capital. It seems like an appropriate trade-off for controlling europe to me

@Gooblah

Not sure if I agree with you on the Quadreme, primarily as it seems a little superfluous. Its basically a bigger Trireme and it performs much the same function as a classical age battleship (the idea of a seige-ship prior to the development of gunpowder is not very feasable*).

Could we also get rid of the stealth destroyer from vanilla?! Its inclusion always seemed a bit silly, I don't mind having a distinct modern destroyer (to supplant a late 19th/early 20th century one) but from a gameplay perspective you already have the submarine, why have another invisible ship?

And a couple of additions to your list:

Cog/Holk: I'd like to have a ship to bridge the gap between Trireme and Ship of the Line. Limit it to coastal and get it at the same time as the Caravel.

Ironclad: And I don't mean the weedy Monitor type ironclad*, I mean the 4-times-the-size HMS Warrior type. Same stats, new unit gfx and make it ocean-going.

Replace Landing Craft with Ocean Liner: the gfx would be cooler and it would better represent the form of the ship (ie large capacity and blue-water, instead of a 50 man cross-channel barge).

Redo Submarines: one early (WWI and WWII) and one modern (nuclear propulsion) model. Modern one is you're SLBM carrier, surely?!

*maybe incorporate and expand these concepts? Have a 18th century bomb ketch (seige-ship) that is superceided by a mid-late 19th century monitor (low freeboard, single turret bombardment/coastal defence ship). Both of which would have a duel function as cheap coastal defence (compared to ship-of-the-line) and seige-ship.

If I remember correctly, during the Peloponessian War, Athens was trying out Oxybeles on their ships. These were early Ballistae, the precursor to the Roman Ballista. They also tried Gastraphetes, however these were early crossbows and were not very powerful. Oxybeles were used for siege and attacking others ships.

Also, during the Punic Wars, Rome developed an early boarding system; a long wooden board wide enough for a man to run on and long enough to go across a ship was attached to Roman masts. it would be let go through a winch system, and would grab an enemy ship's mast, holding the ship tight. Legionaries would scramble on the board and attack the oarsmen, killing enough to stall the ship, run back, let go, and then ram the enemy, finally sinking them. I'll do some research to find out what the name was.

On the topic of African/tribal/pagan religions, etc. I think they would be half religions, and yes they'd be there early on. No holy city. Spreads only through conquest and within your own empire. And it would probably be very general, so that I don't have a huge number of less-influential religions. So TAR (is that what it's called?) would be the tribal religion for all African civs. Do you think this would work?

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Half-Religion? How would that work? Well, it's sounds alright, but maybe you should get a holy city if your able to keep your HR alive for a long time or something.
Hope you don't mind my sig <- most likely gonna go to waste since I don't post much

I know there's a lot of work to do and you can sure do without more requests but I was wondering if you're going to add the Tech Conquest mod? It would be realistic in a way.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=245593

Quick off-topic question:

Is there any way to increase/decrease the size of a map without editing the WorldbuilderSave in Notepad, or do i have to the gritty stuff? I'm trying to make a Middle-East Map where every tile is 30km, but I'm having a tad bit of trouble. It'll probably end up being something like 80/90 x 50 tiles or so. Is that small? Finally, how does the game calculate x and y (i.e, (0,0) is at which corner?)?

Thanks a lot guys!

Is there any way to increase/decrease the size of a map without editing the WorldbuilderSave in Notepad, or do i have to the gritty stuff?

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Download Civ4editor, open the map, make a blank new map in the size you want using atlas project, open that up in civ4editor too, then copy past from the first map to the blank map.

It'll probably end up being something like 80/90 x 50 tiles or so. Is that small?

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To me it is mind you thats cuz the map I'm using is 400000 tiles large.

Finally, how does the game calculate x and y (i.e, (0,0) is at which corner?)?

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Bottom-left.

Half-Religion? How would that work? Well, it's sounds alright, but maybe you should get a holy city if your able to keep your HR alive for a long time or something.

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Ideally.

Perhaps being the Civ with the Papal means you have to give up all your cities but the capital. It seems like an appropriate trade-off for controlling europe to me

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Although I doubt it was a serious idea, this could work (papal states were almost always small), as long as the civ has a few turns to relocate with a fleeing settler. This shouldn't be hard to do. Yet, there is little reason not to use either mine or GeneralSpecific's idea.

In real life, the Pope or his successor would surely relocate. What happens if Italy is unified, and the Vatican, as part of Rome, falls under the leadership of another ruler?

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My improved answer to this would be that the civ stay alive with a fleeing settler, and once resettled, should face a moderately long penalty.

Next up I am assembling an unofficial list of techs on the front page. This is just to get an idea of how many I will be dealing with and to be able to see and sort them. Then I will probably do goals, then units. This will happen over the course of the next few weeks, alongside troubleshooting and Shigg's map.

Hope you don't mind my sig <- most likely gonna go to waste since I don't post much

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It's much appreciated

Kevin