[C3C] Help, i´m new

[Marcus1982]

Hello everyone:

I´ve been visiting this site for several months and i think it is the greatest thing i´ve ever seen. Because i´m a "conscript" in Civ modding, I have some questions:

1- I have the earlier and first version of Civ III: can be Modded only Civ 3 Conquest? It is posible to add more "Ages" besides the originals in the game?
2- Which are the tools needed to mod Civ 3 and where can i get them?
3- The units i´ve seen here are really marvelous. I´d like to make my own to contribute, so:
- What programs do i need to do so?
- Is there any site where i can download clothes, armor, horses, weapons?
*Of course i´ll study your tutorials first.

Anything else you want to teach me about, please
Thanks
afundora@fastmail.fm

[spryllino]

1. You can mod the old, basic, Civ3, if you want, but Conquests is cheap, and it's a great improvement.
2. A scenario consists of a .bic file (.biq for Conquests) and a folder full of other files (such as .txt and .pcx files). However, the simplest scenarios only have the bic or biq and don't have the other files. To edit bic files, you use the editor that comes with the game (found at C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Civ3Edit.exe ). On Conquests, you can edit biq files with C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Conquests\Civ3ConquestsEdit.exe , or you can use Steph's expanded editor, which can be downloaded here. To edit pcx files, you need a normal image editor (but paint won't do). txt files can be opened in Notepad, or, depending on the particular file, there are a variety of different editors that you can use instead.
3. There's an excellent tutorial for making units in Poser, by Utahjazz7. Other unit makers have used Bryce, or POV-Ray. Whatever modelling program you use, you need FLICster, and Steph's storyboard builder.

[wolf_brother]

1. Yes, its possible to mod vanilla civ3. However, there's a very large difference between the procedures for modding vanilla civ3 and modding c3c, which the majority of the community has and uses. Therefore the tutorials, helpful programs, and most of the graphics you'll find here won't be as useful to you if you had c3c. I highly suggest going out and getting c3c, through whatever means you can.
1b. No, you cannot add more ages. Steph has come up with a way to work around this, but AFAIK it is still in the testing stage.
2. That all depends on what you want to do. To make minor changes you should have the proper setup already; the editor that comes packaged with the game and a simple text-editing program like Notepad that comes with the Windows OS. To make changes to the graphics though, you'll need a proper PCX editing tool. Most users here on the forums use free programs such as GIMP and PaintShopPro. Flicster and Jasc Software are also recommended for working on editing/creating units. Obviously more 'professional' (ie, expensive ) programs such as Photoshop would be very helpful, as they can often times do more (not necessarily better, just more).
3. Poser, Bryce or POV-Ray are the programs most people here in the community use to make units.

[Steph]

I'm testing my mod, with 15 eras for the moment (although era 9 and later are currently "empty"), it seems to work well.

But you'll need my editor, and it works only with conquest.

[Moosezilla]

Yes, this is the place to start a thread for modding and welcome again Marcus 1982!

[Takhisis]

Originally Posted by Marcus1982

Hello everyone:

I´ve been visiting this site for several months and i think it is the greatest thing i´ve ever seen. Because i´m a "conscript" in Civ modding, I have some questions:

1- I have the earlier and first version of Civ III: can be Modded only Civ 3 Conquest? It is posible to add more "Ages" besides the originals in the game?
2- Which are the tools needed to mod Civ 3 and where can i get them?
3- The units i´ve seen here are really marvelous. I´d like to make my own to contribute, so:
- What programs do i need to do so?
- Is there any site where i can download clothes, armor, horses, weapons?
*Of course i´ll study your tutorials first.

Anything else you want to teach me about, please
Thanks
afundora@fastmail.fm

Conquests is very cheap (you can get it for under $20 if you look around) and I'd take that email address off (recode it, like in afundora at fastmail dot fm or similar) 'cos you might attract spambots.

[Marcus1982]

Hello you guys! Thank you for your kind explanations. Thank you Moozezilla for taking me to the right place.
I have further questions, lot of them. In fact, my head is full of questions now that I’ve found this great site and community. Please, remember that I’m a “conscript” modder, so many of my questions may seem obvious or foolish.
I’ve been playing strategy & war games since Warcraft II was the “greatest hit” back in the 90’s, from the old Talonsoft’s “Battlegrounds” to the ultimate Creative Assembly’s “Empire: Total War”. I think Civilization III (Vanilla, Play the World, Conquests) has such a potential that, with the right modding focus (like yours), can be the “non plus ultra” of empire-building games’ fans. I even regard it superior to Civ IV (although Civ IV features many excellent improvements in the game concepts). I must declare that I’ve never played Conquests, neither Play the World, but I’m working on it.
I’d like to preset to you these questions as follows, in order to gain perspectives of which are the potential limits to Civ III basic concepts modding. Please, be lenient, for I’m new.
Ok, is this (bellow) possible?

1-About the Army Unit: When you rule an empire, you expect to muster more than just a series of many independent units of different types and be bored by having to give them orders one by one. Instead, you would need to be able to organize and mass those units into armies. In Civ III you can only build armies after Military Academy is built, on a very late age, or randomly when a unit becomes elite through combat and a leader rises. Moreover, Armies can group only 3 to 4 units. I wonder if:

a)Armies can be made available in all ages, of course not at the very beginning but, let´s say hypothetically, maybe after “Iron Working ” is researched.

b)More units can be grouped together in armies so the civilizations organize their units into armies to wage war as the main –but not the only- strategy (of course, independent units may conduct raids, surprise attacks, specific missions, pillage, etc.) I also wonder if the AI can be modded to behave such way. Of course I think this concept should have a counterpart in order to preserve the game balance (for example, extra cost for units in armies –build and maintenance-, movement restrictions, make the Army it self more expensive). Once I tried this with my Vanilla Civ III Editor, but, among other things, on my mod AI workers became unable to function properly (they didn’t built roads, irrigations, mines) and I don’t know why, because I never modded them in particular.

c)Artillery type units (of course, in an advanced age)may be modded in order to allow their grouping into armies.

2-About military units generally: It is a great thing when you can give your military units their own name, but in Civ III all units of a given type are named the same. It would be great to have different names generated every time you build a unit. Also is awesome when you see across your empire, instead 1 soldier graphic representing each unit, lets say a group of soldiers graphic representing each unit. I wonder if:

a)Some idea, procedure or modding tool allows that every built unit (even of the same type) take a different name, maybe the one from the city where it was built. For example, for the Romans, instead of every built legion called just “Legion”, same for every Legion unit, maybe “1st Rome’s Legion” for a Legion built in Rome, or “3rd Cumae’s Legion” for a Legion built in Cumae. (is this possible to achieve?) Of course, if you can choose the name for your own –besides a default names database as proposed- that would be superb.

b)One can name the units in a generic form in order to represent a certain level of military organization. For example, a riflemen would be called “riflemen regiment” and, according to 2 a) above, “1st CITY NAME’s Riflemen Regiment”.

c)Units graphics represented by 3 (or 4) soldier graphics, not 1, in order to provide the feeling of being in charge of true armies all over your empire.

3-About game timeline: If game turns can be modded in order to make that, for example (hypothetically):

On very Ancient Age, 1 turn ₌ 100 years
After “Iron Working” is researched, 1 turn ₌ 10 years
After “Feudalism” is researched, 1 turn ₌ 1 year
After “Gunpowder” is researched, 4 turn ₌ 1 year
After “Industrialization” is researched, 12 turn ₌ 1 year
I will stop my questions right now, for I know this a lot for a single forum post, but please, understand, I am eager to learn. I will continue later on, if I may have your attention and I am not being boring.
Thank you so much

[Balam-Agab]

1a- you can move the military accademy to any place in the tech tree and then rename and such.

1b- just change the transport capaicity of the army unit in the units tab, although the AI doesn`t use armies very well at all.

1c- I don`t belive so.

2a & b- no.

2c- check out the Multi-Figure Units sub-forum in the Units Graphics sub-forum

3- You cannot change the timeline to corrispond to techs, but you can set the length of time for each turn for a certan number of turns, i.e. the first 100 turns- 100 years each, the next 100 turns 10 years each, etc.

Hope this helps.

[Steph]

Originally Posted by Marcus1982

1-About the Army Unit: When you rule an empire, you expect to muster more than just a series of many independent units of different types and be bored by having to give them orders one by one. Instead, you would need to be able to organize and mass those units into armies.

In theory yes.. But that's not how Civ is built. Unfortunately. That was how Call to Power was designed.
You have to imagine armies not as the main warfare mechanism of Civilization, but as a kind of "elite integrated units" managed by a Great general.

Originally Posted by Marcus1982

a)Armies can be made available in all ages, of course not at the very beginning but, let´s say hypothetically, maybe after “Iron Working ” is researched.

Armies are available when you have the required small wonder. If you make this small wonder available "from start", you will get your army much earlier.

Originally Posted by Marcus1982

b)More units can be grouped together in armies so the civilizations organize their units into armies to wage war as the main –but not the only- strategy (of course, independent units may conduct raids, surprise attacks, specific missions, pillage, etc.) I also wonder if the AI can be modded to behave such way. Of course I think this concept should have a counterpart in order to preserve the game balance (for example, extra cost for units in armies –build and maintenance-, movement restrictions, make the Army it self more expensive). Once I tried this with my Vanilla Civ III Editor, but, among other things, on my mod AI workers became unable to function properly (they didn’t built roads, irrigations, mines) and I don’t know why, because I never modded them in particular.

The AI seldom uses army anyway. And you have almost no way to achieve what you want, as you can control very little things in the army. In particular, you cannot change the AI...

c)Artillery type units (of course, in an advanced age)may be modded in order to allow their grouping into armies.

Will not work. AI doesn't use artillery properly, and doesn't use army very well, so artillery in an army?

2-About military units generally: It is a great thing when you can give your military units their own name, but in Civ III all units of a given type are named the same. It would be great to have different names generated every time you build a unit. Also is awesome when you see across your empire, instead 1 soldier graphic representing each unit, lets say a group of soldiers graphic representing each unit. I wonder if:

a)Some idea, procedure or modding tool allows that every built unit (even of the same type) take a different name, maybe the one from the city where it was built. For example, for the Romans, instead of every built legion called just “Legion”, same for every Legion unit, maybe “1st Rome’s Legion” for a Legion built in Rome, or “3rd Cumae’s Legion” for a Legion built in Cumae. (is this possible to achieve?) Of course, if you can choose the name for your own –besides a default names database as proposed- that would be superb.

b)One can name the units in a generic form in order to represent a certain level of military organization. For example, a riflemen would be called “riflemen regiment” and, according to 2 a) above, “1st CITY NAME’s Riflemen Regiment”.

Not possible. I could rename the units in my expanded editor, but only between two saves, and it would require reloading the game.

c)Units graphics represented by 3 (or 4) soldier graphics, not 1, in order to provide the feeling of being in charge of true armies all over your empire.

We have some "munits" graphics available here, but there is not automated way to force CivIII to make them from individual graphics.
So you need to make new graphics, built from individual graphics, and "saved together" in order to produce a new "individual graphics, made of several little guys".
Possible, but lot of work and not flexible (you always have 4 soldiers, you cannot have one "die" when you lose HP).

3-About game timeline: If game turns can be modded in order to make that, for example (hypothetically):

On very Ancient Age, 1 turn ₌ 100 years
After “Iron Working” is researched, 1 turn ₌ 10 years
After “Feudalism” is researched, 1 turn ₌ 1 year
After “Gunpowder” is researched, 4 turn ₌ 1 year
After “Industrialization” is researched, 12 turn ₌ 1 year
I will stop my questions right now, for I know this a lot for a single forum post, but please, understand, I am eager to learn. I will continue later on, if I may have your attention and I am not being boring.
Thank you so much

It doesn't work like this. You can say that the first 100 turns, 1 turn = 100 years, then next 200 turns = 1 turn = 10 years, etc.
Or you can say 1 turn = 1200 months for the first 100 turns, then 120 months / turn during 200 turns, ... and then 1 month / turn.
This way you'll end with 12 turn / 1 year in Industrialization.
But the change is linked to the number of turns (and so to the date), not to the technological level. So it cannot be triggered by "Iron working".

However, with my expanded game system, you can change the lenght of a turn with each era.

So bronze age = 10 years/ turn, modern age = 1 month / turn is possible, and then it will depends of your level, independantly of the year.

[Marcus1982]

Hello there!

Thank you, Steph. I´m having new views now. Mainly i wasn´t understanding very well which are the limits about modding CIV III.

If i´m not beeing annoying, i would like to make more questions:

1-Is this the right place to show some ideas on a new mod and ask for help?

2-I would like to contribute with unts of my own, but i guess it is easier when you have some database of 3D objects, i.e. clothes, weapons, armor, after which one can model, not just repeat them but us them as raw material. So, Is there any site with those things (already modelled clothes, uniforms, weapons, armour, maybe horse) available for free download, so i can use them modelling with Poser, Blender, 3DMax, etc, specially Poser?

Best Regards,

[Marcus1982]

Sorry, on number 2 above i meat: I would like to contribute with UNITS of my own

[Marcus1982]

Sorry, on number 2 above i meant: I would like to contribute with UNITS of my own

[Takhisis]

Marcus, at the right corner of your post there's an 'edit' button. Use it when you forget to put in something or you want to change the text.

[MacGalleo]

Originally Posted by Marcus1982

a)Some idea, procedure or modding tool allows that every built unit (even of the same type) take a different name, maybe the one from the city where it was built. For example, for the Romans, instead of every built legion called just “Legion”, same for every Legion unit, maybe “1st Rome’s Legion” for a Legion built in Rome, or “3rd Cumae’s Legion” for a Legion built in Cumae. (is this possible to achieve?) Of course, if you can choose the name for your own –besides a default names database as proposed- that would be superb.

In the game, when a city produces an unit (or when you want, the unit just need to be selected), you can rename the unit with "Ctrl + N".

[spryllino]

Really? I'm not sure, but I thought it was ctrl+shift+N.

[Moosezilla]

Every unit should have an "abc" button for re-naming the unit. The appearance in the current unit box sometimes is covered by part of the unit. Use space bar to adjust it.

[Takhisis]

The ABC button only shows up if you check the advanced unit button option in the Preferences (Ctrl+P) section.

[MacGalleo]

Originally Posted by spryllino

Really? I'm not sure, but I thought it was ctrl+shift+N.

Yes, I was wrong. I just try it : it's "shift + N" to rename the units.

[BadKharma]

Originally Posted by Marcus1982

1-Is this the right place to show some ideas on a new mod and ask for help?

Yes it is many others allready do so.

2-I would like to contribute with unts of my own, but i guess it is easier when you have some database of 3D objects, i.e. clothes, weapons, armor, after which one can model, not just repeat them but us them as raw material. So, Is there any site with those things (already modelled clothes, uniforms, weapons, armour, maybe horse) available for free download, so i can use them modelling with Poser, Blender, 3DMax, etc, specially Poser?

Best Regards,

There is a database here of available props and clothing to use for poser along with a simplified (human figure) called the paperdoll. This database also includes pre-made animations for attacks etc.
Poser comes with a horse, not sure what you are asking there.

[Marcus1982]

Great, guys!

I just entered Storm Over Civilization site, but i´m not quite sure where to find the clothes and other things for Poser. I´ll be looking for. Question: Do i have to register to acces the materials? Is this for free?

OK, this is just an idea, but i think it well deserves a new Mod development. I was wondering if you guys could help. There was a Revolution on the late XIXth century, almost unknown today for many. This Revolution brought three wars during a period of 30 years, three bloody and heroic wars, wars between brave and nearly unarmed revolutionaries and brave but ruthless and fully armed colonialists. I´m talking about the Cuban Independentist Wars against Spain between 1868-1898, which ended with US intervention and the not so well known Spanish-American War.

This were large scale wars, although not conventional ones between two great powers. In fact, Spain sent to Cuba the largest colonial armies never seen until the Boer War in 1899-1901. More than 250 000 spanish died in Cuba between 1868 and 1898, due to war and disease. The island itself was so ravaged, scorched, and the war so brutal, that cubans died in greater numbers. This was also one of the first wars in which modern arms were tested (i.e. machine guns, bolt action rifles, quick firing guns, telephone, etc.)

During this period Cuba rose as a nation. For those who have read good works on this wars, they would see that this history is heroic and inspiring. That happened to me, and i think it could make a mod worth.

So, this are basic ideas:

1-Three civilizations: Spain, Cuba and the U.S.
2-Turns sequence: if possible, 24 turns a year (each representing half month) or 48 turns a year (each representing a week)
3-Only Flavour units for each civilization and, of course, unique units for each.
4-Common techs & building and also, if possible, uniques
5-Advantages and handicaps depending on Civilizations

Finally, i have 2 more questions:

I-Is there a more precise link to download the clothes, arms, etc. for modelling in Poser?

II-If i wanted to ask to a any unit creator within this forum, to share with me the proccess of creating a unit in which i´m interested in order to develop a new one similar, would this be possible? How?

Thank you