ModCast #13: "Civs Getting Brutalized"

Unlucky thirteen. Plagued by missing hosts and lots and lots of technical difficulties, Episode 13 of ModCast, "Civs Getting Brutalized" (42m17s), is released with significant delay and a good chunk of Wouter's dialogue missing. Our apologies for this, but better late than never. Featuring core panelists Wouter "Locutus" Snijders, Tony "GarretSidzaka" Kiehl, Kenneth "Impaler[WrG]" Ferland and first-time guest host Blake "Blake" Walsh as emergency replacement for Ploeperpengel who had to drop out at the last minute (but we hope to have on in a future show).

ModCast is a bi-weekly ~45-minute audio production of Apolyton Civilization Site and is an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on Civilization modding; its sibling show PolyCast focuses on Civ strategy. To date, ACS is the only community on the web to produce its own Civilization podcasts.


Summary of Topics

- 02m22s | News
We talk about Soren Johnson discussing ModCast and mod mods in his blog, which quickly evolves into a discussion about Spore and its recently-released Creature Creator (Sporepedia, 1.7 million creatures and counting).
- 08m16s | Vault
A segment with Dale that was cut from episode 12 for legal concerns about the upcoming Civilization IV: Colonization which both Dale and Kenneth have/are working on.
- 17m52s | Upcoming Modders
We discuss davidlallen's post-apocalyptic Mad Max Fury Road mod (which includes the Unit Fuel Mod by Grey Fox discussed in Episode 7).
- 20m25s | Artist Sketchpad
Artwork for the Mad Max mod: Mad Max by GarretSidzaka, Motorcycles by Refar and Fire-Fighter by seZereth (including Chuggi's Punks and asioasioasio's Truck).
- 27m29s | Code Corner
Looking at classicthunder's Civilization Specific Tech Trees and the Gross Happiness Mod by cephalo (in between the discussion spirals widely off-topic towards difficulty levels and the Civ4 Vanilla Democracy Game).
- 38m10s | Outro
At the end of the episode we briefly discuss Blake's involvement in Civ4: Colonization and his future plans (which don't involve Civ).

thanks wouter

Oh! I'm so jealous of the guys who got in to the Colonization beta test. I really, really wanted to have a new version of PerfectWorld ready to go when release comes, but since I can only speculate what the new terrain and resources are, I have to wait...

Since Col is such an exploration heavy game, I think something alot like PW would be a good fit.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and thanks for the feedback on GNH. It's very weird that the very first feedback I got was on the modcast...

cephalo said:

Oh! I'm so jealous of the guys who got in to the Colonization beta test. I really, really wanted to have a new version of PerfectWorld ready to go when release comes, but since I can only speculate what the new terrain and resources are, I have to wait...

Since Col is such an exploration heavy game, I think something alot like PW would be a good fit.

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Does Civ : Colonization will be available on PC ? I was thinking it was made for consoles only.

Tcho !

Sto said:

Does Civ : Colonization will be available on PC ? I was thinking it was made for consoles only.

Tcho !

Click to expand...

No, no.... PC only. Muhahahaha.

cephalo said:

No, no.... PC only. Muhahahaha.

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Yes, great news. I've made a mistake with revolution. But this is based on civilization, colonization or both !? (unable to found good info)

Tcho !

Colonization. You can find a ton of info about the game here, courtesy of Dale: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=178099

cephalo said:

Oh! I'm so jealous of the guys who got in to the Colonization beta test.

Click to expand...

Beta testing is not all its cracked up to be. Most of the time it's unplayable due to crashes, horrendous inbalance or unfinished AI (you think release AI is bad, you should see a BETA AI!!!!).

I haven't "played" C4C yet in reality due to this, so I look forward to the final version too.

Locutus said:

Colonization. You can find a ton of info about the game here, courtesy of Dale: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=178099

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Thank you very much

Thanks for the link wouter, dale.

im looking forward to CIV:COL myself. it will be the first game i will buy in a long time.

Dale said:

Beta testing is not all its cracked up to be. Most of the time it's unplayable due to crashes, horrendous inbalance or unfinished AI (you think release AI is bad, you should see a BETA AI!!!!).

Click to expand...

I'm sure that's true. I would still be very excited to be part of the development process and influence the outcome in some small way.

Col1 was one of my favorite all time games, and one of the reasons I became interested in randomly generating stuff. I went all out on PerfectWorld to make sure there was a nice big 'New World' to explore, precisely because I missed that sense of mystery that you get when discovering new shores, and I hoped to apply that to Civ by extending the exploration phase of the game all the way to Astronomy.

I knew that someday a remake of Colonization would be made, and to be honest, I was hoping to prove my map scripting chops enough in time to get in there and make some maps for the official game. I could not have imagined that before PerfectWorld was even finished, the project was already under way!

Gah, they started without me! So, I'm like that master cigar maker waiting on the docks behind the master statesman and master gunsmith. "Sorry! ship's full." Heh, great..Have fun in the new world guys... *sigh*.

Hey, at least I can still mod it! Anyone looking for a serious map script for Colonization after release, look no further than here at civfanatics! I'm pulling out the stops for that one! You wouldn't dream of settling the new world without some of my hand made (uh, procedurally generated..) cigars!

cephalo said:

Hey, at least I can still mod it! Anyone looking for a serious map script for Colonization after release, look no further than here at civfanatics! I'm pulling out the stops for that one! You wouldn't dream of settling the new world without some of my hand made (uh, procedurally generated..) cigars!

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Hey, I'd be glad to have your maps/scripts in my AoDII mod.

I already have some big ideas, and maps is one area I've never gone into (too much to learn in the SDK ). So if you want to help, look me up after release.

hey dale you know i got your back when the time comes for a static map, too, my brotha

Dale said:

Hey, I'd be glad to have your maps/scripts in my AoDII mod.

Click to expand...

Sure, if you need something different on the map than what's in the normal Col game, just send me a PM and we can see what's possible.

Locutus said:

Unlucky thirteen. Plagued by missing hosts and lots and lots of technical difficulties, Episode 13 of ModCast, "Civs Getting Brutalized" (42m17s), is released with significant delay and a good chunk of Wouter's dialogue missing.[...]
- 17m52s | Upcoming Modders
We discuss davidlallen's post-apocalyptic Mad Max Fury Road mod (which includes the Unit Fuel Mod by Grey Fox discussed in Episode 7).

Click to expand...

Thanks for the publicity. One small correction. The "precious fuel" mechanic in Fury Road is my own development; it does not use the unit fuel mod. The ideas are similar but we have a cool "fuel tanker" unit just like Mad Max: The Road Warrior. Most people who want a World War II style mod do not want to worry about individual fuel tankers, but it is an important part of the post-apocalyptic feel.

oh, really. we didnt know!! very cool bro. so when are you coming onto the show!!??

GarretSidzaka said:

Thanks for the link wouter, dale.

im looking forward to CIV:COL myself. it will be the first game i will buy in a long time.

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?

Arrrrrrrr!!!

Loving the shows so far. And you guys have made fairly decent mention of the fact that there are mod-mods of Fall from Heaven & Final Frontier and a few others. But so far I haven't really seen you spotlight any of them...

Anyway, my hopes for future shows would be that you feature some of the people who have really gone out of their way to introduce unique flavor and have forgotten to advertise themselves heartily.

I'd mention the Dungeon Adventures mod-mod, but that is on hiatus right now sadly (and you already brought it up at least briefly before), so instead I'll just point you at the near 2,000 post long thread now of Fall Further. Vehem has done quite a bit more than most people who have added Civilizations to base Civ with his project, and it has helped lead to quite a few other people devoting tons of time to fleshing out new Civilizations in a mod that emphasizes diversity in Civ playstyles



On a more selfish note:

Can you find out what on earth Grey Fox is up to, and probe him for information on when we can expect to play with it? (Looking at the screenshots I would almost say that he is making Advance Wars using Civ as a base... Way awesome)

From the same thread, maybe you could place Mattastic in the Artist Sketchpad sometime and see if it motivates him to finish the amazing work so far


Anyhow, whatever you guys talk about, I'm sure I'll be listening in on the next one