New tech tree

The mod is no longer here.
Since I am now making changes that no longer involve the tech tree I have moved to a new thread. It's called
Fulano's MoO2Civ Minimod. Please follow the link to see it. I hope to make some good changes to the gameplay and have this minimod be included in a future version of MoO2Civ.



The new tech tree for MoO2Civ is updated to v1.2b!
All it needs is for everybody to play it and give feedback!

To Install:
-Download the latest attached ZIP archive of the XML folder. (Called New Tech Tree XML Folder v1.2b.zip)
-Unzip these files into the MoO2Civ 5.0b's XML folder. Found in this area "\Beyond the Sword\Mods\MOO2Civ 5.0 Beta\Assets\XML"
-The files already there will be replaced, so click yes when it asks if you want to overwrite.
(If there are any new folders created then it was probably unzipped to the wrong spot.)

Description:
In a nutshell, all of the units, buildings, and promotions were split up into individual techs, and they are kept in eight groups like the Masters of Orion 2 tech tree was. Some balancing tweaks were done hopefully improving the mod.

Hopefully this will be included in the next MoO2Civ update after v5.0b!

Be sure to use the research que buy shift-clicking on multiple techs, it makes choosing what to research next MUCH faster.


Edit (Feb/16/10): This will probably be my last major change to MoO2Civ's tech tree. I plan to do some clean up of the XML files and change the tech descriptions during the next few weeks. After that I plan to only update any bugs found or any improvements suggested if I'm still needed to maintain the files. Starting April I won't be able to work on much here until September.
Edit (Feb/17/10): I added the spreadsheet of all the techs that I used as my original plan. It's not completely up to date but it will help you see overall what was done. Just for any interested.

In Masters of Orion 2 a player is only allowed to choose one technology in a tech group. The other technologies can't be researched after that, you can only trade or spy to get the other technologies. I feel this adds a lot of depth to the game because you are using a different set of technology each time you play the game.

Too apply this to Moo2Civ the player will have to research each item like Masters of Orion 2 did. Instead of getting the automated factory, missile base, and armor troops out of the advanced construction tech you would have to research each one individually, each requiring the name number of research points as the whole tech currently costs. Players would need to skip techs they don't need so they don't get left behind. This will also make trading techs and spying much more important and interesting.

The AI can be given a weight for each tech with advanced construction each tech in that level will have a weight of 3, and the next tech level will have a weight of 4, so the AI will want to go forward more than research old techs. I am not sure if this feature is used by the AI though.

Please give me any thoughts you have on this idea on how to make it work or make it better.

Currently I am planning out how the current tech tree will be adapted to the new one. Once I have that done I will post the plan here so you guys can give it a good thrashing and then we can move forward with the plan. I hope have the plan posted before Tuesday.

I know how to edit the techinfo XML file but I'm not sure on how to do more than that in modding Civ4 techs. I haven't found anything that tells how to enable buildings and units though technology, is it in the unit's xml file maybe?

EDIT: Found it for units in the unitinfo.xml. What about buildings?

fulano said:

EDIT: Found it for units in the unitinfo.xml. What about buildings?

Click to expand...

Guess it . BuildingsInfos.xml

fulano said:

In Masters of Orion 2 a player is only allowed to choose one technology in a tech group. The other technologies can't be researched after that, you can only trade or spy to get the other technologies.

Click to expand...

The Psilons would have to be an exception to this rule: they can research any tech. (I can see this might be a problem...)

That said: good initiative!

I have thought of this before mostly regarding getting captured ships to give tech used in their equipment which works better if you have individual technologies. One issue is in civ4 you can't get a technology if you don't have the techs it requires, so you can't actually leap ahead by trading. So dividing techs up will make it closer to MoO2 but not all the way. Also if you have empty technologies that only lead to other technologies the AI might value it less. It should still work though, because the AI doesn't just pick from the techs available, it picks a goal and gets what leads to it. However the AI might not value advanced technology all that much. Likely it would get everything at the low levels rather than push forward, since there's nothing stopping it from staying to get those techs.
I have other notes I've thought of before, but I'll post them later. I would suggest you do one tech line all the way down to start rather than do them all at the same time. That way you can see if it will all work with the one completed line before you put too much work in.

The_J said:

Guess it . BuildingsInfos.xml

Click to expand...

You are so right! I didn't even realize they were in their own folder!

JEELEN said:

The Psilons would have to be an exception to this rule: they can research any tech. (I can see this might be a problem...)

Click to expand...

Maybe if the Psilons have like a 200% research bonus it would almost count the same, they would get all the techs because they can research them faster... No, if I played as them I'd just use that huge research bonus to go straight to titans and rock everybody. I always hated the Psilons. All they're good for is to steal techs from.

A tedious solution would be to keep a separate tech trees for them but that would be so much work difficult... Well maybe not too bad since you would just have to type up the settings once to block the Psilon tech tree and once to block the normal tech tree.

Maybe the dependencies could be set to keep a person from going too far in one area?

I'm not sure about this. Obviously a research bonus might work (I was thinking more of the 50% bonus the Humans now have) and would be much easier than setting up a tech tree specifically for the Psilons. (Technically I wouldn't know how to implement the MOO Psilon ability in Civ terms myself otherwise.) But this is a bit hypothetical; first we need to have an expanded tech tree, I think. (As far as I can see that would also make the game a bit harder, as the bigger ships would become available later.)

I was wondering about moving several of the new civics and a couple of the value founding techs (wealth and religion) to the sociology tech tree, they fit under the category better, as currently they almost seem randomly spread about the tech tree. Any thoughts on this?

I'm nearing completion on the master plan. I just need to map out the Force Fields tech tree then I'll make a few tweaks and post it here. Maybe today even.

The attached file is my plan for the new tech tree. Please look at it and please give me your feedback.

To explain my formatting:
Green: Things already in MoO2Civ
Red: Things not in MoO2Civ
Blue: Things in MoO2Civ that aren't in MoO2
Orange: New ideas I suggested
"?": I put this by everything I'm not sure about yet
Grouped items are all part of one tech (Like the techs in the beginning of MoO2)

I also put ideas next to things that weren't in MoO2Civ yet for ideas for future buildings and such.

I don't have the ship upgrades (like Titan II). I don't know if we should use them or not. MoO2 just used technology to make the ships better.

I didn't put battleships in yet because players start with the ability to build them in MoO 2, you just need a building to be able to build them (like the capital shipyard)

I think Destroyers and scouts should be a native ability too.

Edit (Feb/17/10): I added the more up to date spreadsheet to the first post.

Cool, fulano! Will have a look ASAP.

JEELEN said:

Cool, fulano! Will have a look ASAP.

Click to expand...

Well, you have plenty of time to take a look, as my computer is currently dead. The power supply burnt out and maybe one of the hard drives too. Hopefully in a week I'll be back. It'll give you guys lots of time to decide what will work and what won't.

Sorry to hear... (I've had my fair share of dead comps...)

Anyway, at first glance the proposed new tech tree looks OK to me - but I'll have a closer look to give a proper evaluation.

Hope you'll be able to sort the PC situation sorted out by next week.

I'm back! Still don't trust my motherboard to last as parts of it have stopped working due to a bad fan I'm guessing. Hopefully it will last so I don't have to spend any more money on it.

I'll probably start working on the new xml files today. I'm not sure how long it will take me yet, we'll see after I work on it a while.

That's quite alright. Glad to see you back.

So far I've got the outline for the Construction tech field done. It took about an hour to do. I hope to have the rest of the outline done by Thursday next week.

If you want to see it, just put the attached techinfos.xml in your "Technologies" folder and start a new game. (Back the origional up before you test it!) You will get a LOT of errors as the game is loading. I just held the enter key for a couple seconds to skip past them all. Please everybody, tell me what you think of it if you have time.

After the outline is done all the files for units, buildings, and promotions and such will need edited to reflect the new tech names. The text files will need edited eventually but I think they still work plenty well for now. In the very long run I'd love to see screenshots from MoO2 used as the icons but I'm sure I won't get that done.

I would love it if a few people could volunteer to help with editing those files once the tech outline is done. It really will not be very hard, just a lot of finding and replacing.

Edit (Feb/17/10): I removed the attached file because it is no longer needed

Cool - will have a look tomorrow.

I've got all but the last three tech fields in the file now. I've also tried to include the proper bonuses in the techinfo file to make the file as complete as I can my first time going through it to save time.

I did find and fix a bunch of errors in the techinfo file I posted earlier.

I've been researching the AI and I think I've found some ways to help it be a little more intelligent. Mostly by changing the <flavor> field. Currently all of the flavors are set to military. Are the AIs also set to only want military?

Once I get done with this first run through I'll need to go back and change the flavor and the adviser info. Also I think I want to change the AI trade value for the techs to try and make trading with the AI harder like in MoO2. Also to make it so the peaceful AIs will be less likely to help those who like fighting.

I'd still love to see feedback from anybody. Jeelen's too busy to do it all. Though I do appreciate your feedback too, Jeelen, when you have time for it.

EDIT (Feb/17/10): I removed the attached file because it is no longer needed

fulano said:

I've been researching the AI and I think I've found some ways to help it be a little more intelligent. Mostly by changing the <flavor> field. Currently all of the flavors are set to military. Are the AIs also set to only want military?

Click to expand...

Yeah I noticed that too. The AI personalities in Civ4LeaderHeadInfos.xml have no flavors set and actually everything else is the same so they all have identical personalities. I've actually put a lot of thought into how to reproduce MoO2 personality types in civ4 but didn't get to the editing files part.

fulano said:

I've got all but the last three tech fields in the file now. I've also tried to include the proper bonuses in the techinfo file to make the file as complete as I can my first time going through it to save time.

I did find and fix a bunch of errors in the techinfo file I posted earlier.

I've been researching the AI and I think I've found some ways to help it be a little more intelligent. Mostly by changing the <flavor> field. Currently all of the flavors are set to military. Are the AIs also set to only want military?

Once I get done with this first run through I'll need to go back and change the flavor and the adviser info. Also I think I want to change the AI trade value for the techs to try and make trading with the AI harder like in MoO2. Also to make it so the peaceful AIs will be less likely to help those who like fighting.

I'd still love to see feedback from anybody. Jeelen's too busy to do it all. Though I do appreciate your feedback too, Jeelen, when you have time for it.

Click to expand...

Good show - thanks. Will check ASAP. Keep it up!

Here's the completed techinfos.xml! I think I got all the bugs out but I'm sure more will be spotted.

I will now go through and edit <advisor> and <flavors>.

I am going to make up to the third column findable in goodie huts unless someone has a better idea. Maybe only the general techs should be findable in goodie huts?

Also, I think most of the hyper-advanced techs are pretty accurate on what they should do except for physics and force fields. In MoO2 they make ships stronger. I'd like it to add prestige to all new units but I don't know how that could be done. Any ideas on what to put there?

EDIT (Feb/17/10): I removed the attached file because it is no longer needed