[MOD] Westward Ho

Just a quick note (having just started using the MOD): it seems to me that a new map ought to be created with little to no ocean, starting folks out with units on land. I think the feel of a large, inland map would make this adhere to a "Wild West" motif.

I'll keep playing a bit and give some other thoughts as they come up. Very nice concept, though, and I'm eager to delve into it.

master_akura said:

Just a quick note (having just started using the MOD): it seems to me that a new map ought to be created with little to no ocean, starting folks out with units on land. I think the feel of a large, inland map would make this adhere to a "Wild West" motif.

I'll keep playing a bit and give some other thoughts as they come up. Very nice concept, though, and I'm eager to delve into it.

Click to expand...

Yep, that's exactly what we plan.

The Great Plains mapscript from Civ 4 is going to be the basis of the new "WildWest" mapscript, but with some changes.

These changes, such as adding the mapscript, will probably be made either in some of the next patches or in the next release of the main mod. It is only a beta version, after all.

Whats is happening with the Home Cities on map? Koma13 hasn't updated that thread sense april. That mod though would solve the problem for sure.

Would the MOD creators be put off if I offered some alternative Founding Fathers that would be more applicable to the Wild West?

I would love to see what you have.

One quick thought: when I mentioned having Wagon Trains as the settlers, it didn't occur to me that you could essentially replace the regular Citizen with Wagon Trains, thus having a settler that way. Then Wagon Trains could be painted black (or something) and be called Stage Coaches. Thus you don't have to do too much reworking (right?).

Ok, here's a tentative list of just the Founding Fathers.

Updated (with benefits)
Founding Fathers (Wild West)

Exploration:
Meriwether Lewis - 50% less travel time to Home City
William Clark - Strengthens relations with natives
John Slidell (negotiated the southern border of Texas w/ the Mexicans) - -50% cost of native land purchasing
Nat Love (famous African-American cowboy and frontiersman) - Free promotion (Exploration 1, Exploration 2)
Zebulon Montgomery Pike (American surveyor; mapped much of S. Louisiana Purchase) - Provides one Wagon Train
Jedediah Smith (hunter/trapper/trader; explored the Rockies and American Southwest) - +1 movement for Wagon Train, Pioneer
Bartleson-Bidwell Party (also better fit here, as they essentially started the Oregon Trail) - Provides one Homesteader, Wagon Train
Sacagewea (explorer who aided Lewis & Clark on their expedition) - +1 movement for Scout
Christopher "Kit" Carson (frontiersman and guide) - 50% faster production of Fort, Fotress
Benjamin Singleton (frontiersman; brought African-Americans to the west) - Provides 3 Homesteaders

Religion:
Gijsbert Haan (Dutch-born missionary who traveled extensively in the SW) - Provides 1 Expert Missionary
Joseph Smith (founder of the LDS church) - +50% conversion rate from missions
Pierre-Jean de Smet - (as is)
James Augustine Healy (first African-American Catholic bishop) - Strengthens relations with natives
Mary Baker Eddy (founder of the Christian Science movement) - +50% education; +25% conversion rate from missions
Hyrum Smith (advisor and avid follower of Joseph Smith) - 50% faster production of Church, Cathedral
Francis Asbury (famous "circuit rider" pastor in the Methodist Church) - Strengthens relations with natives; +3 crosses for every Town Hall
Walt Whitman (writer and forerunner of Existentialism) - 50% faster production of College, University
Billy Sunday (famous evangelical priest, Prohibition supporter, and tent revival proponent) - +2 bells per Church; +3 bells per Cathedral
Joseph Brackett, Jr. (famous Shaker songwriter) - +3 crosses per Church and Cathedral
Nathaniel Hawthorne - (as is)

Trade:
Jim Bridger (trapper/frontiersman, guide and advisor to Brigham Young) - as is in game
Joseph Glidden (inventor of the barbed-wire fence) - +25% cattle production in all settlements
Leland Stanford (railroad tycoon, founder of Stanford University) - Free School in every settlement
William Mulholland (engineer in California) - -50% tools required for buildings
Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroad and steamboat tycoon) - 50% faster production of Textile Mill, Tanning Mill, Packing Plant, and Whiskey Factory (some thoughts for name changes for buildings, maybe?)
Levi Strauss (American inventor) - +3 hammers per Town Hall
John Jacob Astor - (as is)
James Marshall - as is in MOD
Edwin Drake (credited with the first successful oil rig in America) - +1 food on plots with 2 food; +25% sugar, cotton per settlement

Military:
Andrew Jackson (U.S. President; fought against Native Americans) - Free Stockade in every settlement
"Liver-Eating" Johnson - as is in MOD
Maribeau Lamar (Gov. of Texas; strongly anti-Native American) - Free Promotion (Grenadier)
Davy Crockett (frontiersman; fought for Texas v Mexicans) - Free promotion (Formation); +1 movement for converts
William Travis ((in)famous proponent of the Texas "War Party") - Free promotion (Looter)
William C. Quantrill (Confederate guerilla leader) - +50% strength for converted natives
Daniel Boone (frontiersman, explorer, fought for Texas v Mexicans) - Free promotion (Ranger 1, Mountaineer 1)
George Custer (American general) - +50% vs Natives
James Bowie (land speculator; inventor of the Bowie knife) - Provides 2 Veterans
Wyatt Earp (American lawman) - Increases gun production by the tax rate
John Coffee Hays - as is in MOD

Politics:
Thomas Jefferson (U.S. President at the cusp of the "Wild West" era) - +1 cross per town hall
Jim Beckwourth (famous African-American pioneer) - Strengthens relations with the natives
Samuel Clemens (writer) - as is in MOD
Kenneth Lewis Anderson (Speaker of the House in Republic of Texas Congress) - +3 bells per town hall
Francis Scott Key (composer of The Star-Spangled Banner) - Increases liberty bells production by the tax rate
James Henry Lane (fundamental in the organization of the Kansas-Nebraska Act) - Provides 1 Homesteader; -25% native land purchasing
Robert Livingston (American Ambassador to France; Negotiator of the Louisianna Purchase) - Increases hammer production by tax rate
William Jennings Bryan (gave famous "Cross of Gold" speech) - +3 crosses per University
Laura Ingalls Wilder (writer, early feminist, frontierswoman) - +1 bell per schoolhouse; +2 bells per college; +3 bells per university
Kintzing Prichette (lawyer and governor of Oregon Territory) - +3 guns per armory, magazine, arsenal
Harriet Tubman (famous Underground Railroad proponent) - Strengthens relations with Natives; Provides 3 Indentured Servants

Also, I was looking at the leaders, and I thought I might suggest some different ones (I know this would change your leader heads and stuff, but I thought these might be more authentic - thus making the MOD more awesome). I've included "kings" for territory, too, and an additional two territories.

Leaders: Wild West

Oregon Territory - James Buchanan, U.S. President at the time
Joseph Lane - initial governor of Oregon
George Law Curry - helped create Oregon as a state

Utah Territory (State of Deseret) - Zachary Taylor, U.S. President at the time
Brigham Young - founded Utah/Deseret
Caleb Walton West - governor of Utah Territory; help give Utah statehood

New Mexico Territory - Millard Fillmore, U.S. President at the time
James S. Calhoun - first governor of New Mexico Territory
William Mills - governor of NM Territory and justice on NM Territory supreme court

California Republic - Antonio Lopes de Santa Anna, essentially lost California
William Ide
John C Fremont

Republic of Texas - Sam Houston, president of Texas for two terms
Stephen Austin
David G. Burnet - interim president and first Sec. of State for Texas after annexation

(This one I'm totally cool with nixing; it was just around in the "Wild West" period)
Minnesota Territory (?) - James Polk, U.S. President at the time
Alexander Ramsey - first governor of Minnesota territory

master_akura: All of our existing (8) founding fathers were suggested by quantumf8 anyway. So yeah, I'd love to see what you have (as Flintlock said)

EDIT: This post has the FFs I implemented. I should really add that to this mod's first post. I don't want to mess around with adding new FFs (because of the graphical changes and image stuff, for instance all the ones I added use the same pictures but different names) unless they replace an existing one, for now.

One problem is that some things (like quantumf8 propose that Theodore Judah gave cheaper railroads, or that Pierre-Jean De Smets revealed all Sioux cities), I can't do, at least not easily.

Kailric: I have no idea, if you note the last post was in May I think, and he said he was still working on it. But koma13 also said that he discovered some "annoying bugs" in that post... and never updated again.

So I'm thinking we should test it throughly before releasing it.


You may have noticed me updating this in the first post, but as of now (5 days since release), we're at 54 downloads of the full mod, and 9 downloads of the patch. Pretty good for only a few days, especially for Colonization.

TC01 said:

Kailric: I have no idea, if you note the last post was in May I think, and he said he was still working on it. But koma13 also said that he discovered some "annoying bugs" in that post... and never updated again.

So I'm thinking we should test it throughly before releasing it.


You may have noticed me updating this in the first post, but as of now (5 days since release), we're at 54 downloads of the full mod, and 9 downloads of the patch. Pretty good for only a few days, especially for Colonization.

Click to expand...

So you are adding koma13's code to the mod yourself then? I can check into it as well at some point. Just so you know in the mod I am working on now I wanted to be able to "travel to Europe" from a city plot. I am thinking of making it so instead of "travel to Europe" you can "Trade with City" or "Sell Cargo", anyway something along those lines. But with just a few small changes to the code I was able to instantly bring up the Europe Screen with a ship setting in a City square. It arrives at the docks ready to unload, then when you hit "Sail to New World" the City Screen closes and the unit is back on the Map at the city again. I know I can make it take a couple turns to arrive but I was needing it to be instant.

That's basically what koma13's code should do except you must be standing on your "Home City" plot right, I have never used his code. So I bet thats where it probably gets "buggy" is putting those cities on the map. I am not sure at all what koma13's code does but it would seem to me that the easiest thing to do would be to create a plot "Feature", make it look like a "Home City", then making it so you have to be standing on that "Feature" to open the Europe Screen. That would be alot simpler than having to put a Kings city on a map then having the AI worry about that city.

But, if we can't work out the bugs then having Cargo units "travel to Home City" from a land plot would be the best alternative.

But yeah, this mod has a lot of potential in offering a different experience over the Vanilla game and I am looking forward to playing and helping out with its development.

I have to make some more buttons for my own mod today so I'll do some more for this mod at the same time and post them later this evening.

Thanks, they will go into the next patch.

My intention was to simply drop his DLL into the mod (since MareNostrum doesn't, or didn't, use a seperate DLL) and then merge in python, XML myself.

Yeah, I'm thinking that if that doesn't work, we make land plots able to travel to Europe. (possibly a "Road Home" or something).


Speaking of which, what should we call "Europe"? I'd say "America" if not for the fact that America is only one of the civs. Currently there are multiple European civs (so master_akura's idea doesn't quite work):
-Cascadia: English
-Deserets: America
-California: Spain
-Texas: Mexico

TC01 said:

Thanks, they will go into the next patch.

My intention was to simply drop his DLL into the mod (since MareNostrum doesn't, or didn't, use a seperate DLL) and then merge in python, XML myself.

Yeah, I'm thinking that if that doesn't work, we make land plots able to travel to Europe. (possibly a "Road Home" or something).


Speaking of which, what should we call "Europe"? I'd say "America" if not for the fact that America is only one of the civs. Currently there are multiple European civs (so master_akura's idea doesn't quite work):
-Cascadia: English
-Deserets: America
-California: Spain
-Texas: Mexico

Click to expand...

I may can devise a code thats more stable than his if it is buggy? Just have to test it out.

Hmmm, I am not up todate on my Wild West history but wasn't all the territories at this point tied to America or the US? If thats so then in this mod there should be only 1 "King" civ and that is America. What does the king art matter anyway but to raise your taxes? So I'd say just adjust the Civilization infos to to be CIVILIZATION_UNITED_STATES and the leader LEADER_US_PRESIDENT. Then it would be travel to "St. Louis", senes thats the only city they have listed.

What is the Victory Condition of this mod? To successfully create an independent State? Hmm, maybe this mod could benefit from the changes I am working on now. In my next Privateers mod update I plan to make it so a Leader can go Rogue so to speak in that it no longer has ties with his Home City but starts building his own Pirate Confederation. To enter the "Europe Screen" you must travel to a Friendly city other than your own. There you can trade with them useing their current tax rate. I haven't worked out all the finer points yet but I will. Once you go "Rogue" the "Home City Leader" will continue to build up his fleet in order to "Crush the Pirate Rebels". So you must hurry to build up your forces before the enemy arrives, much like in real history.

Anyway, I am headed out with family for a while but I'll take along my new book, its all about how the west was settled. I need to refresh my mind.. bbl.

Well, there's a problem with that.

I don't know if you've checked out the CivilizationInfos.xml, but there's no tag in the Civilization for it's mother civ. There is a tag in the Civlization for it's "daughter" civ, so under CIVILIATION_MEXICO there's this:


To make what you are suggesting work, I believe, you'd need to change the SDK so that was a list, not a string.

(this tag exists in regular Civ 4 as well, and I'm not quite sure what it does there)

I actually thought of having one King, but I found it easier just to go with four. For leaderhead art, I used Ekmek's Jackson for the US, and I think the Vanilla British and Spanish Kings are in. For Mexico, I planned on using Santa Anna, but Ekmek hadn't released it yet. (I think you can grab it now though.)

For the Europe screen, maybe we could call it "The East" or simply use "America" referring to the New World as a whole.

I know we discussed Victory Conditions in the old thread, but one idea I remember other than becoming independent was to achieve statehood. I made the Colony choices based on whether they were at one time or at least attempted to become independent.

So I was thinking that we could have two options: Independence (War) or Statehood (Peace). I think if there was also mention that there could be a statehood sentiment that would work the same as rebel sentiment, although I don't know how difficult it would be to have them side by side or how exposed that code is.

Edit: Have you heard from Thunderfall yet? (Maybe you should PM Ekmek to ask how he got his.)

No, I haven't heard back from Thunderfall yet, which is unusual since he's been active since I sent him my PM. I've been assuming he had a backlog of PMs... maybe he didn't get it?

Dale said that Thunderfall set up the AoD 2 forum (I found an old post somewhere saying that).

EDIT: Here's Thunderfall explaining how mod subforums are created:

A large pre-existing fanbase is not required. However, we do prefer modder to do some initial discussions, planning, and development using discussion thread first, before requesting the subforum.

As long as a modder is serious about improving his/her mod and plans to put the subforum to good use for the mod's development, we are happy to create the subforum. Subforum request should be made via PM.

Click to expand...

I didn't know Ekmek contributed leaderheads... I'll credit him. And the Santa Anna leaderhead I'll add in as well for the next patch.

TC01 said:

No, I haven't heard back from Thunderfall yet, which is unusual since he's been active since I sent him my PM. I've been assuming he had a backlog of PMs... maybe he didn't get it?

Dale said that Thunderfall set up the AoD 2 forum (I found an old post somewhere saying that).

EDIT: Here's Thunderfall explaining how mod subforums are created:

I didn't know Ekmek contributed leaderheads... I'll credit him. And the Santa Anna leaderhead I'll add in as well for the next patch.

Click to expand...

Well according to what Thunderfall said this mod deserves its own forum. Anyway, makeing all the Territories have America is as simple as changing their name and art files. Name them all "American President" and have them all have the same art files. That should work perfect right? Either way is probably fine cause the other territories where controled by other "Presidents" at some point or another.

Like a small west strip of Florida was under the control of Spain but they rebelled and founded the "Free and Independent Republic of West Florida" which lasted only 74 days before the US took possession. Go US!

That's true, didn't think of that.

So the reorganization of kings will look something like this?

America:
-State of Deserets/Utah Territory
-Cascadia Territory/Oregon Territory

Mexico:
-Republic of Texas
-California Republic

Any objections? Should we go with Utah and Oregon instead? (Cascadia used to be Oregon). Should we name the leaders or just go with ____ President?

You should be able to throw New Mexico Territory under Mexico, too. We fought against Santa Anna for that in between California and Texas.

Also, I vote Utah and Oregon Territories with President (whoever you choose) as the leader.

master_akura said:

You should be able to throw New Mexico Territory under Mexico, too. We fought against Santa Anna for that in between California and Texas.

Also, I vote Utah and Oregon Territories with President (whoever you choose) as the leader.

Click to expand...

Sounds good to me. I would call the Presidents something like "President of the United States" or "US President", much like kings are called "King of England". But its whatever there too.

I'm going to hold off on adding a new civ for a little. Certaintly not in the next patch, but yeah, Mexico should have New Mexico as well.

Since Flintlock was the one who named the civs (or maybe someone else did that and he went with them), I'd like to get his opinion on changing their names before I change them (though I think Utah and Oregon make more sense to players then Cascadia and Deserets).

I used Cascadia rather than Oregon because that was the name that was being used during their independence movement. I decided on Deseret also for the same reason, since those who petitioned for independence used the name Deseret instead of Utah.

My basic rational for naming and including each Colony was their position in trying to be independent rather than being a state. I prefer these names, but if no one else likes them, well, its really not up to me.

I also could find really any info on New Mexico trying to be independent, so that's why I never thought of them for the original.

Flintlock1415 said:

I used Cascadia rather than Oregon because that was the name that was being used during their independence movement. I decided on Deseret also for the same reason, since those who petitioned for independence used the name Deseret instead of Utah.

My basic rational for naming and including each Colony was their position in trying to be independent rather than being a state. I prefer these names, but if no one else likes them, well, its really not up to me.

I also could find really any info on New Mexico trying to be independent, so that's why I never thought of them for the original.

Click to expand...

My idea on this while I don't remember from school Cascadia or Deseret, Utah and Oregon are very much know to me. I would say that most of the American players would be like this as well... maybe? Anyway, Utah and Oregon seem more "familiar" so I would suggestion those for that reason alone. The players may feel more comfortable running a territory they actually heard of, just my thoughts.

It wasn't the New Mexicans that was trying to get Independent but the homesteaders and Pioneers from America on their Manifest Destiny ego trip that wanted independence or to be a part of the Union. The Mexicans thought to control the area and when they tired to "lay down the law" thats when things heated up and the Americans moved into action. Persident Polk tried to purchase the land but the Mexicans refused, so they just declared war and went in and took it. So really New Mexico Territory never actually fought for independence the US decided they wanted it and got it.

Edit: That being said the Mexicans or Spanarns themselves could be the ones fighting to get rid of the "Americans" if one should choose to play as New Mexico.