White Lies Black Ops v. 2 (3.19)

I've updated this mod to be compatible with the 3.19 patch, with the download available here. In addition, I've added features according to a traditional formula: what new horrors would I like to inflict or see inflicted over the course of a solo game.

If you are new to the mod, it consists of heavy code modifications in addition to some new units/screens etc. all designed to give the game a more robust, faintly darker feel. The primary additions are terrorism, black ops and shadow diplomacy (think Iran Contra, Gulf of Tonkin, etc.). The game also introduces hostages, work camps, native communities (the indigenous people most growing civilizations need to deal with), AI modifications and a few other changes in this vein.

Specifically:

* Terrorist Organizations are introduced into the game, which may grow and spread within civilizations. Terrorism becomes a continuing problem, and civilizations may opt to become terrorist states.

* Coalitions. You may form coalitions with other civs to make a concerted military or blackops attack on more powerful civilizations. By the same token, smaller civilizations may gang up on you if you grow too strong too fast.

* Black Ops are added; civilizations may take special military operations against various civilizations. Based on my e-mails, a fan favorite.

* Internal Security options, which may be used to manage a civilization's internal affairs.

* Hostages, which may be taken when attacking a city or pillaging certain improvements. Hostages can be publicly executed (driving up war weariness in the target civ), sold back or put to work in work camps.

* Indigenous People in a civilization, who may be exploited and eventually radicalized into terrorist groups. If treated well, they can benefit a civilization through random events. If treated badly, they will radicalize into terrorists.

* Respect, in addition to like and dislike, as an element of civilization relationships.

* A handful of new units (such as the Diplomat, with new, unique abilities), buildings, technologies and terrain modifications.

* New National Project: Religious School System. Raises the terrorism level in all other civilizations.

I've gotten plenty of positive feedback for the first version of this mod (thanks) and incorporated some suggestions that people have made into this version. Feel free to suggest further changes that you think are merited.

ooggbboo ?/! scldayt@hotmail.com

EDIT::

There's a display bug that was pointed out to me, resulting from my updating the python files to 3.19. In the city display, if you have a terrorist presence the terrorism level bar remains on the screen after you exit the city display. To fix it, go to the Screens folder (\WLBO 319\Assets\Python\Screens), open CvMainInterface.py and add, at line 1892, the following: screen.hide( "TerroristBar" )

So, it should look like this:
screen.hide( "GreatPeopleBar" )
screen.hide( "TerroristBar" )
screen.hide( "CultureBar" )

looks interesting, I try it

This is really good. I mean REALLY good.

Is there any way to turn down the frequency of attacks from terrorists and native people, like an option? I think i need to play on Easy if there is, just while i get use to this new gameplay. Im having huge trouble fighting wars with other civilizations, fighting natives and fighting terrorist intruders. Ive got the Vikings pounding my East coast, Zulus massing in the north, Terrorists cells dotting in and out of my boarders and my native people dont like me much either! Help

I just lost my capital to some advanced mech infantry unit that the terrorist cells are using! lol. They have some sort of ancient technology, how do i get that? Please could you put out an in depth guide to all these features.

oh and are the source files public? I would really like to merge this with AI Auto play and car mod.

Another edit -

Ive played a few games now and this has awesome feel to game. Suggestions i make :

1. Lower the frequency of Terrorist and Native attacks. Its too much to handle at the moment. Maybe one attack from each every 20-30 turns. Or add an option that allows player to increase and decrease it frequency.
2. I think the negative and positive attitude modifiers are unbalanced. +5 for marriage should be +1. Each event from black ops etc should be -1 or +1. At the moment i get a civ to friendly and few turns later it can be all out war and worst enemy status.
3. Diplomat can be exploited. I build 4 each turn and send them to cities, get very rich...
4. I dont fully understand how a coalition works. It seems slightly pointless only lasting for 8turns. In game time wars and slow and take many turns compared to fast pace of modern coalition wars in real life. I suggest increase it to 30 turns.
5. Need some information on what conditions terrorist cells spread.
6. Philosophy civics are way overpowered and need to be toned down a lot.
7. Be even cooler if the native and terrorists had their own unit sets.


I think a lot of people gona want to use this as a base mod ! awesome job

Just wanted to say that I've started playing a game with this mod, & am *really* enjoying it so far. Just a couple of suggestions for the time being:

-You might consider merging this mod with Influence Driven War & Dom Pedro's Pillage Mod. Also, I wonder how this Mod would work with RevolutionDCM? Might be worth looking at.

-I was thinking that certain civics might impact on the ways in which you can treat natives &/or the benefits/penalties involved in treating them various ways.

-I agree with the Philosophy civics being a bit overpowered, it might be worth looking at them again more carefully.

-Was thinking that you could have a black-ops missions allowing you to assassinate/capture Great People joined to cities as Super Specialists.

-The Diplomat-as it currently appears-seems under-powered. Perhaps the Diplomat could be sacrificed to improve relations, end wars or sour relations between two civs-either that or the diplomat could be joined to a foreign city to give you those options via Shadow Diplomacy (so that you can do these things without the rest of the world knowing about it ).

Something I did want to know, though, was how do you do intermarriages? I looked everywhere but couldn't find it.

Anyway, this is pretty amazing stuff, & I can't wait to see you expand it even further into the "Dark Side" of Civilization .

Aussie_Lurker.

All &#*$ing right! I loved WLBO, but 3.19 broke it. I'm definitely downloading this now.



I only have 1 suggestion. Release the source code. Some of these things are incredible, and I'm sure others would love to integrate it in their mods, or maybe merge it with other mods like BULL or CAR.

Yeah Voltage, I kind of agree with Diplomats. I'd actually take away their ability to generate money entirely. Personally I think I'd give them the following abilities:

1. Build Embassy: Can only be performed in a foreign city of a Civ you're not at war with. Gain +2 EP/turn against that city for future Black Ops & Spy missions. Is lost if war is declared.

2. Alter relations: Like missionary missions, these should not always be guaranteed. Each diplomat sacrificed can change relations between two civs (including your own) by +/- 2.
Can only be performed in the Primary or Secondary capital of a civilization. Must have open borders with the civ to perform this mission.

3. Shuttle diplomacy: By sacrificing a diplomat, you can open the lines of communication between two civs who're not currently talking to each other (including your own). This can be a good way of bringing a bad war to a swift conclusion.

A possible 4th option might be 4. Change Philosophy: Sacrificing a diplomat in the Capital of a foreign civ, you can alter any one of their civics to match your own-anarchy free.

Anyway, not sure how possible this is, but I definitely think this would add a lot to the game!

Aussie.

I really liked the first version of this mod, and will be sure to DL this new version and play it as soon as I get enough time to sit down and enjoy it. But I'd like to add nearly all of the features from this to my upcoming mod, and would also like to know what was edited and how I could go about merging this with something like NextWar for example.

I may also want to edit some of the names of the terrorist groups to match the new religions and stuff my mod will have, is that easily done or is it complicated?

If this is nearly as good as the last one I will be happy, if its better at all I'll be completely blown away. I doubt it could be worse. This is one of the coolest mods around man, great work!

Looks good, another niche filled

So far I'm loving this mod as much (if not more) as the 3.17 version. But I think I found a bug.

The Sparkling Lane organized in Spain, and soon spread to one of my cities. I wenr into the city screen, and when I left it, that red bar stayed:




Oh, yeah and it also seems i can't gift units anymore.



EDIT:
Oh, and I just thought of a new Black Op: False Flag Operation. Basically, you do some damage to their civ, but someone else takes the flak for it.

A few people have asked me for the dll code. I've posted the link in the comments section of the original download page. To save on scarce mouse-clicks (we all must do our part to save the planet), the code can be downloaded here.

Also, the GlobalDefines.xml file has a few .ini style global values you can modify to change the gameplay. They include the ability to: disable or enable terrorism; change coalition frequency; raise or lower chance of terrorism strike; and enable or disable black ops coalitions.

I'm curious to learn how coalitions are working for people. In the version I tested, only military coalitions existed and they worked pretty well. If one civ looked like it was going to run away with the game, lower-powered civs tended to form coalitions to gang up. I enabled the black ops coalition a bit late (coded but disabled) because it had some strange gameplay issues, and frankly I haven't really had a chance to test it (which is why you can disable it in the xml). My main worry is that civs will prefer it when a military coalition would make more sense.

I like that terrorists can make ancient tech units. Ancient Tech usually appears as a rare event if you have a very positive relationship with your native community. They basically share some weird, rare resource passed down among themselves which you can then exploit. It sometimes spontaneously appears, however, which never occurred to me but which is fine. When you sponsor a strike in another civ through the black ops attack, you're considered to share materiel: if you can make ancient civ units, they can use them in the strike. Again, never occurred to me but kind of funny. Al Qaeda in mechs is a bit of a threat.

I just checked the download myself (downloaded from USA Mirror #1) and I was able to download and extract it fine. Is anyone else having problems? Remember that it's compressed using 7zip.

I've just downloaded the archive from the UK mirror, and it unpacks without a problem (with 7z).

I will try it again then.

Mechaerik, I like your idea for the Black Op mission. Oh & I do like the whole idea of Native people's being able to grant your civ certain special "favors" if you're on good terms with them. Aside from helping to find resources, or granting units, perhaps they could also occasionally help a civ to advance a tech they're currently working on. Anyway, just a thought .

Aussie.

EDIT: btw, I really, REALLY enjoyed my first game using this mod-though I'm probably going to abandon the current game at 1350! No fault with your mod, its just those idiotic Romans have it in for me, & are determined to take me out , even though I'm not threat to them!. I wouldn't mind except I can see no way to beat them-even using a Coalition or Black-ops!

Not even with a coalition? Coalitions ROCK! When the blasted Spanish infidel declared on me (interestingly, i was Muslim and she was Christian CR on), I went off and formed a coalition with Bismarck and Zara (why the fluff does he keep showing up in my games?! hes been in my last 3!) and Sitting Bull. SB actually managed to capture some cities.



EDIT: It finished and it worked. After that previous attempt failed, i tried again and it worked much faster.

Wow, full-fledged Terrorist groups in the 11th century-I'm impressed-& a little scared . Spain must have been treating it's natives REALLY badly !

Aussie.

Spain got up to like 300 native anger, only competing with Holy Rome. By 1500, both had over 400. I on the other hand, was drifting towards terrorist statehood with 23.


FEAR THE FRENCH!!1

Hmmm, maybe I just don't have the hang of Coalitions yet! What annoys me is that we're both Hindu & I control the Apostolic Palace-& he still goes to war with me ! Might have to re-examine coalitions and see if I can make it work better for me.

btw, speaking of coalitions. Is there any way you could give them a really, *really* specific goal-like the liberation of certain cities?
On a similar topic, it'd be nice if you could have a Crusade type Coalition-organized through the Apostolic Palace. Banding together to Spread the Faith by conquering foreign cities & converting them !

Aussie.