Any BTS mods for ethnically diverse cities?

Seriously, I can't belive the magazine and game site reviewrs didn't mention this major flaw. The only civs to get unique art are the Southern Europeans and the Asians. Wow, they could have fixed this for this expansion. Plus, it is silly that India has East Asia like cities. Is their a mod for BTS for art for the other civs including the new ones...

Need...Middle East, Mesoamerican, African, South Asian (india and Khmer), and Native American.

Rise of nations did it right.

Also ethnic units only last so long. Then its all generic. Half arsed I think it was.

Yeah, I think BtS fails to address the great big issue of flavor. Hopefully a mod will come out that supplies more ethinically diverse units and city art (without changing the gameplay mechanics <<;; )

Mods will undoubtedly make this game full. I think the big mods should receive some benefit from Firaxis as there are some of us civers who only stick around due to the modding communities efforts. At least they should receive free copies of the next installment in the series along with participating in the testing of it (I know some modders do become testers but clearly more testers are needed).

That's just silly. Most games don't encourage modding as much as Firaxis does, let alone allow it. Why should Firaxis give benifits to those who mod when modding is a privilage in and of itself?

It doesn't even seem as if all the ancient units have unique art. The Asian axeman, pikeman, and maceman look exactly the same as the generic ones. The Asian caravel is unique, but the frigate and privateer are generic (the privateer was probably designed that way, though).

I definitely agree. It would be nice to see a mod that added in the RoN-style unique units for the other civilizations, as well as city art, and extended the unique art into the Modern age. It's kind of dumb to see cities filled with European architecture in a game where all the civs were historically African and Asian.

Minoan said:

That's just silly. Most games don't encourage modding as much as Firaxis does, let alone allow it. Why should Firaxis give benifits to those who mod when modding is a privilage in and of itself?

Click to expand...

It is in FIraxis own self interest to allow this unparalleled modding. And by that same token it is in their own best interest to reward (motivate) future modding. And it is in everyones benefit to incorporate even more modders into the play testing of the next installment within this franchise. Simple not silly.

Do modder's really need more motivation? I mean, look how active the modding community is. Not just Civillization, but other games, like the Total War series, or Roller Coaster Tycoon (though, that series is pretty dead now).

No I suppose they dont. I actually think they dont need any motivation at all as they are driven to create for the purpose of creation. Would be nice if they were recognized for that which they add to the game though. Ida wondered about buying BtS at full retail if not for FfH specifically. I mighta been able to wait long enough to hear the fanatics of CFC report beofore I decided if I should wait to buy it or not. But then the FF demo intrigued me as did Ryhes mod. I knew it would be worth while for those alone. But after buying it I wait for patches before the epic game is ready for prime time. Then I will know if it was worth it as a standalone. But I know that if will be worth it solely for the next phase of FfH. And for that alone (not just me but for others) I think some few modders should be given a material token of appreciation from Firaxis.

From the outside looking in... I think that more testers who involve themeselves int he game with such dedication as the modders do.. are those kind of people we want being at the testing core. And if testers had some performance level to achieve which resulted in a free game then perhpas testing would be maximized more fully. Modders as testers getting a boxed copy of the game is just icing on the cake for what they give us and the developer. Games for testers are real motivators if given as marks of participation levels.

I really think they were skimpy on unit details also...but the spearmen, swordsman, workers, warriors, and knights had to be fixed. Dutch knights look awesome.

Try this one:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=234268
Not only do you get beautiful ethnically flavoured cities, but it also unlocks a bunch of unit graphics that was never implemented in the final release of BtS, so that every land unit up until gunpowder is flavoured!

I wonder why ethnically diverse units to gunpowder were not released if they were already made? And why was this a selling point which they marketed when it didnt even reach to half the units in the game? Cheese.

Un-related:

But there should be a few changes to the city diversity.

1. Mongol cities did not look like chinese cities. (they were tents and huts)

And about the unit diversity mod:
1. Ethiopian units are still white!!!!

White Elk said:

I wonder why ethnically diverse units to gunpowder were not released if they were already made?

Click to expand...

C.Roland said:

Lack of time, the lead artist have to review all the units before they get included and he didin't have tim to review all.

Click to expand...

(FYI, C.Roland was part of the team that made the unit graphics.)

All the graphics was put on the disc, so it's a simple matter of just pasting in some XML to get them out - and White Rabbit has already been so kind as to do that job for us. Hopefully, though, we'll be seeing them enabled by default in a future patch.

Each city set takes a month to create. Creating multiple city sets was not possible to do while still making the art for things like Final Frontier, Afterworld, etc. BTS includes nearly as much art as Civ 4.

Our lead artist approved what ethnically diverse units to include and not include in BTS. Those that didn't fit the quality or style of the units already in the game were not included. These guys take a while to make from scratch, and it's hard to make high quality units without doing so. Also, no art from other games can be included with an official release (a luxury modders fortunately have, as the FFH team knows well ), which makes it more difficult still.

Jon