[MODCOMP] JAnimals: A Wild Wilderness

!! MOD RELEASED !! - November 11, 2008

Note: This is a BETA version and may have several balance issues and possible a few bugs. Please post any ideas, problems, or suggestions in this thread so I can fresh the mod out and get a final version posted.

This mod aims to add a little danger into the Colonization 2 world. Barbarian Animal Units will be randomly spawned based on various criteria set in XML. I have included various kinds of Animals, both those from the Americas and some from other parts of the world. This was done with African, Asian, and other possible Colonization Scenarios in mind.

What Animals Spawn in any given Tile is determined by what are called Animal Natives. Animals can have Terrain Natives, Feature Natives, and Bonus Natives. When a Random Animal needs to be Spawn, the Tile is checked and for each Native that the Tile has, Animals with those Natives will have their Spawn Value increased by a random amount (which is set in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml). The Animal with the highest Value will then be Spawned. If an Animal, such as the Elephant, Pig, or Dog, has no Natives set, then it will never be randomly Spawned.

Included Animals


Needed Animal Graphics



Requires: Colonization v1.00
Changes: XML, Python, SDK
Version: 1.001 Beta - November 11, 2008
Download: JAnimals Mod
Sources: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11177

1: This is a Screen Shot of the new Land Animals.

2: This is a Screen Shot of the new Sea Animals.

3: The new Game Options to disable Land and/or Sea Wild Animals.

4: An example of an Animal Unit Pedia Page.

Known Glitches:

None




Known Quirks:

1: The Elephant's Animations don't work. It causes and "Unidentified C++ Exception" whenever the Unit is placed In Game or the Unit's Pedia Page is viewed. I have disabled the Elephant's Animations until this is fixed and it will not be randomly Spawned.

2: The Sea Serpent's Model is not oriented right and it also suffer the same problem as the Elephant when its Animations are used. I have disabled the Sea Serpent's Animations until this is fixed and it will not be randomly Spawned.

3: All the Animal's Buttons are made for Civ4 and don't look quite right in some places in Colonization 2. I hope to get the Buttons remade at some point, or maybe a nice person will do it for me...




Planned Future Changes:

None

This is great!!! How will they act? As barbarians in Civ4?

It would be good to slow early exploration, and put some pressure in the pioneers and treasures.

How about them attacking all units, not been able to pass cultural borders, not been able to attack indian settlements.

And also how about the indians not attacking them, as respectin mother nature.

How are you going to spawn them?

Uh... elephants? Lions? hyenas? gorillas? In the Americas?

How about a Mountain Lion and Jaguar?

And is that a giant turtle?

Some american animals:
Grizzly Bears/Black Bears/Gray Wolves/Alligators/Bisons/Buffalos/Praire Dogs/Mooses/Turtles/Snakes/Python/Bees/Wasps/Scorpions/Spiders

Well, I was all set to release and I was doing some tests and the spawning wasn't coming out right on the various difficulties and World Sizes. I'm tweaking that a bit to get it work right with my OCD and I'm working on some documentation to how the various new XML values effect the Animals.

As for the types of animals included, I'm defenatly not limiting myself to only animals that are found in the americas, but bottom line is that I'm limited by the Unit Models I can find. If anyone can provide a link to other animals, I will see about including them.

Can't wait to see that roaring giant turtle attacking my caravel

Zuul said:

Some american animals:
Grizzly Bears/Black Bears/Gray Wolves/Alligators/Bisons/Buffalos/Praire Dogs/Mooses/Turtles/Snakes/Python/Bees/Wasps/Scorpions/Spiders

Click to expand...

The day my Scout is killed by a prairie dog, I'll start playing WoW instead!

Prairie dogs can be vicious...

EDIT: Also Pythons are not indigenous to the Americas. They're populating areas like the Everglades, but they were introduced by people who bought them as pets and dumped them in the swamp presumably because they realized a 15-foot snake was a little more responsibility than they were looking for.

While we are at it. Any dinosaurs? Or maybe mammoths? I mean would really give something extra for your explorer to find.

according to a rumor, an early explorer found found a pretty young fur of a giant sloth in a cave in argentina ! it was around 15..something and the furs age was estimated at 100 to 200 years. So such creatures have lived in south america until the dark ages !

Vadus said:

according to a rumor, an early explorer found found a pretty young fur of a giant sloth in a cave in argentina ! it was around 15..something and the furs age was estimated at 100 to 200 years. So such creatures have lived in south america until the dark ages !

Click to expand...

I've gone ahead and highlighted the most important part of that paragraph

Alright yall, I finally got a Beta Version, v1.001, uploaded and linked in the opening post.

I'm glad I took a few extra days before release, cause I had overlooked a few important things, such as saving variables in the save stream.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Jeckel said:

Known Quirks:

1: The Elephant's Animations don't work. It causes and "Unidentified C++ Exception" whenever the Unit is placed In Game or the Unit's Pedia Page is viewed. I have disabled the Elephant's Animations until this is fixed and it will not be randomly Spawned.

2: The Sea Serpent's Model is not oriented right and it also suffer the same problem as the Elephant when its Animations are used. I have disabled the Sea Serpent's Animations until this is fixed and it will not be randomly Spawned.

Click to expand...

it seems that in both cases the to the kfm corresponding nif is missing, try to make a copy of the model nif and rename this copy to the "NameOfkfm".nif (eg. elephant: warelephant.nif). The missing of the corresponding nif at least could cause in Civ IV this Unidentified C++ Exception. And perhaps with working animation the Sea Serpant could have the correct orientation (if the orientation is controlled there)

Stoped working on this?

Sad that Dale, Jeckel and Dom Pedro II all stoped the same time .

Yea, sorry, but I am out of the modding game for awhile. I'm currently dealling with C++ and that takes most of my time.. * insert long rant about how much I HATE C coding here*.. I always end up back here, but it may be after the new year before I get time to mod.

I need to make a Civ out of this... Either a "native" or something.