[mod] the seven ancient wonders

THE SEVEN ANCIENT WONDERS

Version 6 - JUN 28, 2011

Available online or HERE

The mod is fully compatible with 1.383 patch
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The reasons behind the mod...
You should consider this mod from a historical point of view. Of course, CiV isn't a real historical game; it's a simple simulation, then we don't need to be pedantic.
Nonetheless, imo, some historical milestones should be respected. In the ancient era you can't see wonders like Great Library, Great Lighthouse and The Colossus which belonged to classical times. In the same way, Hanging Gardens and Oracle were built in the ancient times, not in the classical era.
You might say: "They are ancient buildings, some centuries more or less don't make a great difference. Who cares about it? ". At first glance you are right, but through a historical eye the difference is there.
At the beginning of the game, for example, while you are still producing Pyramids, another player completes the Great Lighthouse. You may think that it is acceptable. Unfortunately, between the two wonders there is a gap of 2.200 years. What do you think if, while you are producing chinese Great Wall, another player completes Apollo Program? There is the same temporal gap of 2.200 years between the two events, but in the latter case you wouldn't consider it as acceptable, right?
These are the reasons behind the mod and why I've shifted ancient wonders on techtree, simply following the historical timeline.

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This mod adds the remaining three of the seven ancient wonders not present into CiV:

Mausoleum of Mausolus
Statue of Zeus
Temple of Artemis

Furthermore it reorders all ancient wonders based on their historical timeline, shifting their positions on techtree, modifying their values accordingly
The Seven Ancient Wonders now produce 2 culture points instead of 1
See the table below for detailed infos on changes

The mod contains new splash screens and icons for the introduced wonders, historical quotes and full support for english and italian languages
The mod doesn't contain 3D building arts and speech audio files for the introduced wonders

Any feedback on the mod is absolutely welcome

Credits
Kael (for his modding tutorial)
asioasioasio (for his wonder mods that I used as guidelines)
Sukritact (for suggestions on wonder splash arts)
Sneaks (for city-states bug fix)
Civcivv (for 2nd tech bug hunt)

Changelog
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V.6 - Wonder costs aligned to latest patch
V.6 - National College NW moved to Writing
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V.5 - Wonder costs aligned to latest patch
V.5 - Halved Artemis and Mausoleum effects
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V.4 - Fix 2nd required tech for modded vanilla wonders
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V.3 - New splash arts for wonders
V.3 - City-State no more builds the introduced wonders


Screenshots

Den9510 has just produced 3D models for the new wonders above.
Thanks !!!

I'll include them in the next version

Any volunteers to translate mod text into french, german, spanish, etc... are welcome

So, 3D models can show up ingame now?

AWESOME!!! Great work on the mod, is it in the browser?

Yes, it is on the browser.

My first attempts to show 3d models in game have gone wrong
However I'll try again, and again, and again ....

Maybe also have the splash screens more like the oil paintings like asioasioasio's wonders instead of just pictures like the Call-to-power ones.

Pouakai said:

Maybe also have the splash screens more like the oil paintings instead of just pictures

Click to expand...

Oh yes, of course.
However it's really difficult to find a good oil painting picture for free.
I've chosen the better ones from the web and worked on them a bit. But I'm not a skilled artist.

There are lots of digital pictures around (like the Civ4 ones from firaxis movies), but they don't suit well in Civ5

Anyone having better picture inside private books is welcome

asioasioasio had a how-to on his topic for turning pictures into oil painting look-alikes.

Pouakai said:

asioasioasio had a how-to on his topic for turning pictures into oil painting look-alikes.

Click to expand...

It's matter of taste.
Try to compare the resulting picture from the tutorial with the wonder splash pics from CiV. It isn't a matter of simple oil painting transformation imo

It's still better than a regular picture IMO

Nice job with this! Looks great. If you want, you can send me the pictures, i can turn them into oil painting, send them back to you, and see what you think. Its not a biggie either way though, i don't mind the regular pictures.

Shiggs713 said:

Nice job with this! Looks great. If you want, you can send me the pictures, i can turn them into oil painting, send them back to you, and see what you think. Its not a biggie either way though, i don't mind the regular pictures.

Click to expand...

All my modding work is for free, like every modder should do.
Take my pictures from the pack and improve them at your pleasure. In addition, you may search images using google with the following input:
"Temple of Artemis"
"Statue of Zeus"
"Mausoleum of Mausolus"
You'll find lots of images for your choice, including the ones I started with

You (or anyone else) may attach the final artwork with a post in this thread; then the players community will vote the better for the mod.
It might be a great example of shared mod

There is another tedious issue with the mod, although it is mainly a CiV issue.
The game handles the "2nd required tech" for a building, but nowhere it shows a notice to the player about this feature. You see nothing in civilopedia, nothing in building tooltip, nothing into the city screen after you reach the main tech. You are completely unaware about the required 2nd tech, and you may think that it is a mod bug simply because you can't see the wonder in the building list after you discover the main tech.
In Civ4 the "2nd tech" was a full working feature, showed in red color into tooltip, pedia, ect... In CiV it works but nowhere it shows up to the player.

I'll try a workaround improving the help text. I don't want to remove this feature from the mod.

Maybe add it in to the description (Which may be the help text AFAIK)

Version 2 of the mod is out

Fixed quotes
Improved help strings for 2nd tech

Version 1 removed from database (after 18 DL)

I worked on splash screens a bit, revamping the existing ones (taken from the web) and producing a new batch (from Civ4 movies)

Obviously none of them is close to the 2K quality.
2K splash wonders look like watercolors more than oil paintings, imo.

Which do you prefer in the next mod version?

A
a
b

I found these while browsing the internet the other day, do you think they would work for the pictures?

Found a bug with your mod.

A city state (Oslo) completed the Temple of Artemis in my game just now. Normally City States do not build world wonders at all.

ambrox62 said:

I worked on splash screens a bit, revamping the existing ones (taken from the web) and producing a new batch (from Civ4 movies)

Obviously none of them is close to the 2K quality.
2K splash wonders look like watercolors more than oil paintings, imo.

Which do you prefer in the next mod version?

Click to expand...

Set B. Consistency is key, and they look the best together.

civcivv said:

A city state (Oslo) completed the Temple of Artemis in my game just now. Normally City States do not build world wonders at all.

Click to expand...

Was Oslo a free CS or was it conquererd by another civ at the completed time?
I'm really surprise about the issue.
I'll investigate more on it, although I've taken care about every details in the code
Thanks for your report