Anno Domini

Anno Domini for Civ V is now available for download. It's a large file for a Civ V mod, weighing in at 118MB; also it requires all the DLC apart from the Polynesian one. Enough about the constraints! Let's talk about what Anno Domini is all about .

It's a complete conversion of the Civ V "epic game" with 33 civs to play. Each of them come with brand new leaderheads, available for the very first time. The leaderheads, whilst being 3D models, are static. The civs spread from the Han in the east, the Nok and Punt in Africa, Brigantia, the Picts, Iceni and Corieltauvi from my homeland, the UK and lots of other civs geographically placed between them. These include the everpresent Romans (for ancient Med Civ games that is!), Egypt and Persia, as well as civs not in the epic game, such as the Iberians, Epirus and the Iceni. Each civilization's trait is unique.

There's lots of new techs, such as administration, maritime structures, woodworking and defence strategy; altogether, the tech tree has 55 techs to discover. All of them allow buildings, wonders, units and worker actions.

The mod has numerous wonders in it. They are available in the Civ III version, but many have not been in Civ V mods; Hipparchus' star charts, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Bacchanalia and the Silk Road come to mind.

Whilst the game is fully playable and available for download, at this point six civs still need a "Dawn of Man" piece to be written. The civilopedia is mainly complete, save a few items here or there (though all the information you require for the game is in the civilopedia).

The download for the mod is available here.

Installation
1. Extract the files to: C:\users\(your name)\documents\my games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\
2. Play Civ 5 and browse mods
3. Click on "install"

Please note: you will need to have all the DLCs in order for Anno Domini to work. Please do not post any issues if the reason is that you've not got all the DLCs.

Anno Domini is currently not compatible with any other mod, so please ensure it's the only one that's active when you play the game, otherwise the mod will not work.

There have been a couple of occasions when the mod has crashed at the point where a game is about to start, but is then okay if you restart the game. There have been no in-game crashes in playtesting.

*EDIT 13/01/12: There is, inevitably, a patch attached to this post. Please download it and put it in the same filepath as above, overwriting a handful of the files.

Credits
Whilst all the leaderhead artwork has been done by myself, I have plundered mercilessly from Putmalk's ancient world, Ambrox62 & Numitor's Mediterranean civilizations and Hukkak's extra civilizations. Thanks to all those guys for all their hard work and excellent content, and for allowing me to use it in my mod.

Thanks also to:
sputtnik (the Celts)
Lonegamer (Scotland)
Cyon (Kingdom of Kongo)
Solver (Hebrews)

If you see any of your work in my mod that has been uncredited here, please let me know .

Should anyone wish to use anything I have created for Civ V in their own mod, then I would be honoured and there's no need to ask.

Some of the Anno Domini leaders

Reserved for updates

Kongo?
Lol, we're compiling that into a new mod, too (the one I pm'd you about a while back).
Haven't downloaded it yey, but your leaderheads are amazing.

Good job, Rob! An amazing, well-anticipated mod.
However, I have some critiques.
1. The time it takes to reveal resources is very long. In the beginning of each game I go through a happiness crisis because I have no resources to improve upon.
2. Lars Porsenna or the Kongo aren't in my game, and I though Leonidas was going to be Agis I.

Rob,

Should you be able to clear forest, jungle or marsh without having researched them?

Is there a map for this mod or can you recommend one?

Thanks

I can create a map for this mod, if you'd desire, Rob.

Something akin to Mediterranean. If you really have 33 civs to play, then I wouldn't mind making a super huge map. XD


Okay, well I didn't get to play the game since it crashed. I think I know the reason behind the crash but I'm not about to go bugfixing.

I think the crash is related to: A civilization's leader scene info isn't working correctly, so when the game tries to load that leader the game crashes immediately. Recheck your scenes and make everything is linked correctly, and that all the scenes are set to be VFS true. If what you say is true in the OP, then when you reload the game is choosing a new civ that isn't affected.

I was just checking the civilization select screen. Here are my quick thoughts:



Good luck on the mod. I would've loved to have tested the technologies and the game but it crashed on game start and I want to continue my other project. Oh well.

CivOasis said:

Kongo?
Lol, we're compiling that into a new mod, too (the one I pm'd you about a while back).
Haven't downloaded it yey, but your leaderheads are amazing.

Click to expand...

Thanks! Kongo isn't in the mod...but some of the graphics are.

jmelnick said:

Good job, Rob! An amazing, well-anticipated mod.
However, I have some critiques.
1. The time it takes to reveal resources is very long. In the beginning of each game I go through a happiness crisis because I have no resources to improve upon.
2. Lars Porsenna isn't in my game, and I though Leonidas was going to be Agis I.

Click to expand...

The length of time to reveal resources is deliberate and part of the aim is to make it tricky at least at first - possibly even to the point that you can't build new settlers (due to unhappiness). It forces the player into making decisions about building happiness buildings, such as the storyteller, which might go unused otherwise.

In terms of the leaders, things change during development. I saw Lars more as a good Hektor with a different background and changed Agis' name to Leonidas.

tonymak said:

Rob,

Should you be able to clear forest, jungle or marsh without having researched them?

Is there a map for this mod or can you recommend one?

Thanks

Click to expand...

There's not a map at the moment, but I'm happy for anyone to make one should they wish. In the "epic" game, you cannot clear forest, jungle or marsh without research either. Again, the player has to make decisions about what to research instead of being given some "desirables" from the beginning.

Putmalk said:

I can create a map for this mod, if you'd desire, Rob.

Something akin to Mediterranean. If you really have 33 civs to play, then I wouldn't mind making a super huge map. XD


Okay, well I didn't get to play the game since it crashed. I think I know the reason behind the crash but I'm not about to go bugfixing.

I think the crash is related to: A civilization's leader scene info isn't working correctly, so when the game tries to load that leader the game crashes immediately. Recheck your scenes and make everything is linked correctly, and that all the scenes are set to be VFS true. If what you say is true in the OP, then when you reload the game is choosing a new civ that isn't affected.

I was just checking the civilization select screen. Here are my quick thoughts:

Balance
- Boudica looks, from the naked eye, to be insanely overpowered; every unit of theirs can simply overpower every other unit due to the nature of two attacks per turn.
- Carthage’s trait seems extremely weak compared to Minoan’s trait
- Solomon trait seems weak; consider increase to 100%

Presentation
- Trait text needs editing. This is one of the most important aspects of Civilization, choosing your desired civilization. Traits should always be clear. You have numerous spelling and clarity issues. I can clean it up pretty nicely if you’d like.
- Kanishka of Kushan: How much extra Gold from Pastures?

Please note that Illyria's and Saxon's trait both require the Denmark DLC, so if you don't specify that, the game will crash for them. It's the same issue I had with Carthage's UA in Ancient World.

Good luck on the mod. I would've loved to have tested the technologies and the game but it crashed on game start and I want to continue my other project. Oh well.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your comments. I did mention in the op that it has crashed a couple of times on game start. It's quite possible it is one of the civs' scenes, but I've not been able to track it down unfortunately.

I have made it clear that you require all the DLC (except Polynesia) to play that mod. Possibly Polynesia is required as well given Minos' trait.

On traits, first off, I copied the text for each trait from Firaxis' files. What are the "numerous spelling mistakes?" I don't need you to "clean it up" thanks; I am quite capable of doing that myself, but would like examples of what the spelling errors are. The extra gold from pastures for the Kushan came directly from Ambrox62 + Numitor's Ancient Med civs, though I can add how much extra gold to the description. Any others you feel need to be clarified?

Boudicca's trait is exactly the same as Japan in the "epic game". I think it's balanced, but let's see how gametesting goes!

I'd agree with Solomon's and Carthage's traits; all I can say is they mirror those used in other mods and are possibly a good starting point before the inevitable "tweaks".

Thanks for offering to do a large map, I'd welcome any maps, not wishing to become a mapmaker myself!!


Thanks again to everyone for their comments. I've already come across one little error that sneaked through the net and it's down to me deleting something in error yesterday. Darius' dawn of man defaults to the Firaxis original (I deleted the file which amended this). He's the image I've done if you meet him "in-game".

Please continue to let me know your thoughts about the mod. I'm in the process of moving house at the moment (hence uploading it before finishing the final "tweaks") so I don't think I'll have any serious time to devote to it for the next 4-6 weeks. It doesn't mean that I can't do some bits and pieces though.

Rob (R8XFT) said:

In the "epic" game, you cannot clear forest, jungle or marsh without research either.

Click to expand...

I guess I should have said I was able do this right from the start, without researching them. I take it that you have not encountered this issue then.

tonymak said:

I guess I should have said I was able do this right from the start, without researching them. I take it that you have not encountered this issue then.

Click to expand...

I haven't encountered that issue and thanks for bringing it to my attention. I've just checked it out and I'm still unable to chop forests etc until the research of pottery (marshes) and woodworking (chop forests/jungles). A screenprint is attached. Are you playing the mod combined with any other mods, as it will only work as a standalone mod?


EDIT: I now see what the issue is. Whilst it won't allow me to chop a forest, it will allow me to, for example, farm a tile that is forested, thus clearing it in the process. I believe I know where to look to correct this and will be the second thing to put in a patch! Thanks for letting me know.

It's good to see that the mod has had a few downloads and I hope people will stop by and let me know what they think. I'm well aware that this is not completely perfect, but remain confident that we can iron out any rough spots over the coming weeks.

Whilst I move house and settle in over the next few weeks, there won't be a massive amount done on the mod. However, that's probably not a bad thing in that it gives time for people to play it (should they wish) and for us to start discussing possible changes. I'd envisage doing a patch in perhaps a fortnight or so which would correct any issues that come up. So far, we have Persia's DOM screen showing the original Darius, workers being able to chop trees too early via being able to farm them and the occasional crash on load - if I can find out what's causing that. I might even beef up the patch by adding a bonus civ - so any suggestions on who that could be, please let me know. Thebes?..ok, then if someone can suggest a city list and how the DOM speech might go....

It would be good to see what direction Anno Domini will take. In the very first version, the timescales went up to around 1492AD; I can see probably the Dark Ages fitting in well with the mod. At the time (this is over at Civ III by the way), people felt that probably 1492 was a bit too far...Gilgamesh battling out with Caesar they could handle, but pitting the two of them with William of Normandy was probably a step too far...what do you think?

Should the mod be centred on "the Old World" or should it open up to other world cultures?

I have a website dedicated to Anno Domini, which currently looks at the Civ III version, but that will change this year to this version. How would you like the website to look? Should it be a "reference" site?

This year, I have booked a three-week holiday in June, primarily so that I can watch Euro 2012 in peace - however, I see it as a time where I can put out an improved version of Anno Domini. Leading up to that time, I would like to learn more about unit making or converting so that I can put some more unique-looking units into the mod. It will be interesting to see what output we get from Firaxis between now and then - maybe a couple of DLCs? Maybe the DLL? Also, I'll look to brush up on my knowledge of what is possible within Civ V modding - for example, it was only yesterday that I became aware that you could mod the game so that a city could only build one out of a pre-determined group of buildings, which might be useful in this mod.

I just played for a few minutes. I hope this mod becomes very popular. I haven't touched Civ V in a few months, this was a nice way to start playing again. I tried a game on a Large Earth map, epic speed. I started off in a cramped area that had very many neighboring civs and it got crowded fast. Also, three civs got conquered within 50 turns. Are there recommended settings for this mod? Thank you.

The mod has completely crashed each time I run it.... I have no other mods running. Is there going to be any other updates coming soon?

riddleofsteel said:

I just played for a few minutes. I hope this mod becomes very popular. I haven't touched Civ V in a few months, this was a nice way to start playing again. I tried a game on a Large Earth map, epic speed. I started off in a cramped area that had very many neighboring civs and it got crowded fast. Also, three civs got conquered within 50 turns. Are there recommended settings for this mod? Thank you.

Click to expand...

Thanks! There are no recommended settings for the mod, I think it's very much each to their own. I tend to use the standard or small map size with small continents or archipelagos so that I can build with (at least initially) little or no contact.

jmelnick said:

The mod has completely crashed each time I run it.... I have no other mods running. Is there going to be any other updates coming soon?

Click to expand...

I've done some investigation to track down why this might be happening. It would seem to be the Han civilization - I can account for every other civ being part of a successfully loading game, but the Han only seems to work if you select the Han to play. Every time this morning that I selected them as a computer player, the game would not load. I'm not sure at this stage why that is. Therefore, jmelnick, could I ask you to delete the Han folder, found at:

users/(yourname)/documents/my games/Sid Meier's Civilization 5/MODS/Anno Domini (v 1)/XML/Civilizations

Please then let me know in this thread if everything works.

now there are no Han though.....

however, I deleted the Han folder and the game was working fine.

Rob,

You didn't set LuScene.xml to be imported into VFS. That is causing the crash.

Go into the .modinfo and change "<File md5="854275B1471FB3D0C605153565CACB73" import="0">XML/Civilizations/Han/LuScene.xml</File>" to import="1".

Putmalk said:

Rob,

You didn't set LuScene.xml to be imported into VFS. That is causing the crash.

Go into the .modinfo and change "<File md5="854275B1471FB3D0C605153565CACB73" import="0">XML/Civilizations/Han/LuScene.xml</File>" to import="1".

Click to expand...

Incredible that I missed something as simple as that! Impressed with the knowledge of how to change it without using Modbuddy as well . It's strange though that it still showed the image when playing as the Han, I'd have thought it wouldn't have done that!

Here's the bit where you can have a laugh at my lack of technical knowledge . Because I didn't really know what to import into VFS and what not to...I just imported everything (clearly not the Han though) just to be sure. Is that why the filesize is so high?

Rob (R8XFT) said:

Incredible that I missed something as simple as that! Impressed with the knowledge of how to change it without using Modbuddy as well . It's strange though that it still showed the image when playing as the Han, I'd have thought it wouldn't have done that!

Here's the bit where you can have a laugh at my lack of technical knowledge . Because I didn't really know what to import into VFS and what not to...I just imported everything (clearly not the Han though) just to be sure. Is that why the filesize is so high?

Click to expand...

You have to import any file without <GameData>. So basically, scenes, images, UI files, etc. You do not have to import GameData XML files.

The filesize is huge because of the art assets (as I predicted before).

If you wanted to reduce it you can manually import all the icon atlases into individual atlases (such as Units, Buildings, Civilizations). Right now you just have a bunch of atlases combined which will increase file size incredibly.

Go ahead and remove the import from:

1. Every civilization's leader and text xmls.
2. A ton of these GameInfo xmls. More specifically, the ones with GameData in them.

Also you don't need ModBuddy to actually mod, it just does the hard work for you.

when playing as the Han

Click to expand...

You misunderstand what the scene.xml does. It defines the diplomacy screen for the civilization. If it's improperly linked, the game cannot load a scene and it crashes.

When you play as the civilization, you see their _DOM.dds and _MAP.dds (dawn of man and map), not their DIPLO.dds, which is defined in the scene.

If you have a scene properly linked but an image that does not exist, it will still work but give you an "IMAGE NOT FOUND" image when you open diplomacy screen.

so now is the Han working?
And why does Volisios of the Corieltauvi now have a beard?