Colonization of Africa Historical Mod from Dickinson College

bryantt

Chieftain
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Carlisle, PA
The Dickinson College Colonization of Africa mod is an exciting way to explore the different forces at play which allowed for the colonization of the continent in the 1880s. The game includes Africa and Western Europe. The map of Africa more closely follows the actual physical characteristics, whereas Western Europe is a bit exaggerated to accommodate the logic of the game. Other aspects of the various civilizations model history as closely as possible. Military units are based on actual proportions, as are population numbers and “gold” (as represented by historical Gross Domestic Products).

Most included civs are playable with the notable exception of the Mahdist army. The Mahdistsi have been included as a civ but represent something between a civ and a city state. They have no reachable cities (their only city sits behind a mountain range in the middle of the ocean). This is because the Mahdists historically were a powerful military force without much political organization. There are other unique features in the game. My favorite of these is that in the year 1890, all of the cows die to represent the formidable livestock disease, the rinderpest. Also, European forces lose health for every turn that they are in the jungle to represent the dangers of malaria.

Some features:
Playable civs: the Zulu, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Ethiopia, the Boers, Morocco, Portugal
Playable from 1876-1912 with turns every month to represent historically accurate travel time!
New Great Merchants, who have the powers of a Merchant of Venice to purchase city states, something akin to Cecil Rhodes
New policy trees including Economics, Militarism, Piety (same title as typical civ tree but with different content), and Expansion.
New proto-machine gun, Maxim Gun, units for all European civilizations
Barbette Battleships, ironclads with ranged strength, for the naval powers!

Check the ReadMe file with underlying research at http://bit.ly/1x3sqsP

Players interested in research based historical mods may want to also check out our mod on the western world in 1492, http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13652882.

Be sure to install the Mod and copy the maps to your Maps folder. If you're on a Mac, it's a bit tricky. Detailed instructions are here, http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2907414 When playing select the Dickinson College Africa mod on set up. Be sure to also choose the map on setup Map Type -> Additional Maps (bottom) -> Dickinson College Africa Map. You need the mod and map to play the scenario.

Update There was a bug when a Barbette Battleship engaged in combat, the game would freeze or crash. Download latest if you had this issue.
 

Attachments

  • DickinsonCollegeAfrica (v 1).zip
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  • DickinsonCollegeAfrica (v 3).zip
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  • DickinsonCollegeAfrica (v5).zip
    64.1 KB · Views: 428
Super, let me know if you questions/comments. I was starting to wonder if I had posted in the right forum.

Todd
bryanttATdickinson.edu
 
Sooo I played this game and here are some things I came across. You suddenly have -100 gold and -25 happines when playing England (I'm not sure if other Civs have this aswell) on emperor but not on lower difficulties, it makes things a bit to hard. I also don't really understand the shape of Europe and the Middle-East (no complaints on Africa, albeit a bit empty). Furthermore I would like to know why you made the decision to place the Europeans in the modern era, things like sieging and those modern day workboats kind of trow you out of the immersion, but that's just a minor complaint. Lastly, while it is fun playing as an European and I understand it has to be historically accurate, I do think if you let the Zulu's be playable (instead of making them like the Mahdi) you should at least give the player something to do with them, now you are just waiting turn after turn for your city to build something, which is especially frustrating because there is a horsehockyton to build in the industrial era and you have to go trough all of it. If you don't want to add pre-made buildings or disable wonders, might I suggest giving them something like workers at-least? That or some Impi's are still historically accurate right?

It is an interesting scenario to play with, but since Fireaxis already released the exact same scenario what was your initial goal building this one? Being historically accurate? If that is the case you might want to add a Belgian colony in the Congo so they will at least settle in the right place and it might be cool to add some Civs like the Somali Dervish state (and maybe copying Fireaxis map and building on that instead of having to build it from the ground up). Overall its a still a decent scenario, sorry that this doesn't come across in my comment but I thought you might like to hear about my points.

p.s Apostrophes are not visible in ingame texts of Civ 5.

Edit: I like your small additions like the jungle and cattle diseases, I'm really eager to learn about this part of history.
 
Thank you very much for trying it out and then taking the time to respond. One of our students created it, so I can't answer all of your questions, but I feel pretty confident with most of them. The mod will be used for a class here on imperialism, so accuracy is more important than game play. One example is the Zulus. While the Firaxis mod made it hard on them, in fact they were in a much graver situation, even hopeless. Other differences were even more significant. Egypt was nearly a puppet state at the time due to debts to European nations. The ironclads have an incredible amount of power in the Firaxis game compared to reality. (Taking over cities with an ironclad?) The map was made from the ground up for the same reason. Not just the outline but also resources allocated and in correct geographic location. There's no attempt to be "fair" to each, which makes some civilizations virtually impossible to play to win.

European geographic representation is less exact than that of Africa in part because Civ V dictates that a certain amount of land must be available to feed large populations. We tried to be very accurate with population since it greatly effects the power of the civilization and it's something we had generally concrete numbers for in the research. Advances in travel technology through modern roads and railroads is conveyed in the game and gives students a sense of the critical nature of this technology, especially in Europe.

We only tested extensively on Prince. It may very well be that more difficult levels increase difficulty too much or not enough depending.

The era was based on the technologies civilizations had at the time. If in reality they had a technology that Civ V has a being in the modern era, that's where they started.

The Belgium question is trickier, since I'm not an expert, but it started off as a personal estate of Leopold and only was taken over by the Belgium gov't later. Both started after 1876 when the mod starts. Belgium was also relatively weak compared to the European powers, so their decision to colonize was in many ways an odd one. The goal for us was not to have the game play out as it happened, but for students to recognize cause and effect results based on the situation but also what in many instances were illogical choices of European leaders.

If you want to read more, she (Shayna Solomon) spent a lot of time on the ReadMe, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XodBtOmL1Ynm7cbzJmyFyHJE72dj2cZbSURksE8e4Lg/edit
and if you want to get really crazy she also published the doc where she explains specific mod decisions based on the research, https://docs.google.com/document/d/19114NAbaATvH85CXagYMpwj6NuMfOFNMZMq3QX8oBc8/edit The more interesting stuff is near the bottom.

Thanks again for taking the time write.
 
When playing select the Dickinson College Africa mod on set up. Be sure to also choose the map on setup Map Type -> Additional Maps (bottom) -> Dickinson College Africa Map. You need the mod and map to play the scenario.

I tried playing as England.

When loading Mods, the Additional Maps option does not show up (but the maps do). However, starting date is 4000 BC, I have no clue where I am and find myself founding London just as in a regular game.

So I tried Custom Game (which shows Additional Maps), but then the mod doesn't work, and again I start in 4000 BC at an unknown location founding London.

Apart from that, have to wonder with OrderofOlav why the Scramble for Africa scenario wasn't used to make a more historically accurate mod.
 
Hmmm alright, all those points make sense to me, albeit that I think it is a bit weird to misshape Europe to be historically accurate about the population numbers haha. I do understand the importance of a big population though, I believe there is a way to give the Europeans extra food via a dummy building but I'm no modder so cant help with that:undecide:
A question I forgot to ask is why some European cities aren't placed on the coast? Kind of weird for England, and a great handicap overall for some Europeans (or not, I forgot if you could still create boats in those cities). Also, wouldn't it make sense to close the gap between Europe and the middle east with some more mountains?

I want to say it is really cool you try to teach your students this way and kudos to Shayna Solomon for all the effort, I wish they did that on my University haha. Also a thank you for linking those documents :goodjob:, its enlightening.
 
I tried playing as England.

When loading Mods, the Additional Maps option does not show up (but the maps do). However, starting date is 4000 BC, I have no clue where I am and find myself founding London just as in a regular game.

So I tried Custom Game (which shows Additional Maps), but then the mod doesn't work, and again I start in 4000 BC at an unknown location founding London.

Apart from that, have to wonder with OrderofOlav why the Scramble for Africa scenario wasn't used to make a more historically accurate mod.

Download and unzip the file here. In your My Games/Civ V folder you have a Map and a Mods folder. Pay attention to the name of the map so you can find it once you've loaded the mod. Put the folder you unzipped in the Mod folder. In the map folder in the there, copy the map and put it in your My Games/CivilizationV/map folder.

Load the Mod. Accept the you understand bit and Setup. Choose the map where you can select continents etc. Scroll down to where it says additional maps. Click that. This will show the maps you have in the directory we copied and pasted to. Once you've selected the map, you can choose to load scenario. Then the Civilizations should all be European or Africa. From here choose Civ, difficulty, etc as always.

Good luck.
 
Hmmm alright, all those points make sense to me, albeit that I think it is a bit weird to misshape Europe to be historically accurate about the population numbers haha. I do understand the importance of a big population though, I believe there is a way to give the Europeans extra food via a dummy building but I'm no modder so cant help with that:undecide:
A question I forgot to ask is why some European cities aren't placed on the coast? Kind of weird for England, and a great handicap overall for some Europeans (or not, I forgot if you could still create boats in those cities). Also, wouldn't it make sense to close the gap between Europe and the middle east with some more mountains?

I want to say it is really cool you try to teach your students this way and kudos to Shayna Solomon for all the effort, I wish they did that on my University haha. Also a thank you for linking those documents :goodjob:, its enlightening.

Since the game is played in Africa, I think she felt more comfortable fudging the geography of Europe to give the correct production/power to each civ. I take your point about England, though. I'm sure she chose major cities, then adjusted each population accordingly. As a naval power, though, we probably should have given them a major port in Europe.
 
There was a bug with the Barbette battleship in combat. If you download before Jan 12 2015, reinstall using the zip file in the top sticky post.
 
since the recent update of the game [fall 2014], cocoa being added as a "standard" resource for BNW, the following error occurs:
Code:
[570209.890] column Type is not unique
[570209.890] While executing - 'insert into Resources('Type', 'Happiness', 'Description', 'Civilopedia', 'ResourceClassType', 'ArtDefineTag', 'PlacementOrder', 'ConstAppearance', 'MinAreaSize', 'MaxLatitude', 'RandApp1', 'RandApp2', 'Player', 'Flatlands', 'GroupRange', 'GroupRand', 'IconString', 'PortraitIndex', 'IconAtlas') values (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?);'
[570209.890] In XMLSerializer while inserting row into table insert into Resources('Type', 'Happiness', 'Description', 'Civilopedia', 'ResourceClassType', 'ArtDefineTag', 'PlacementOrder', 'ConstAppearance', 'MinAreaSize', 'MaxLatitude', 'RandApp1', 'RandApp2', 'Player', 'Flatlands', 'GroupRange', 'GroupRand', 'IconString', 'PortraitIndex', 'IconAtlas') with  values (RESOURCE_COCOA, 4, TXT_KEY_RESOURCE_COCOA, TXT_KEY_CIV5_RESOURCE_COCOA_TEXT, RESOURCECLASS_LUXURY, ART_DEF_RESOURCE_SPICE, 3, 50, 3, 90, 25, 25, 67, 1, 3, 15, [ICON_RES_SPICES], 17, RESOURCE_ATLAS, ).
[570209.890] In XMLSerializer while updating table Resources from file XML/Terrain/[COLOR="Red"]CIV5Resources.xml.[/COLOR]
[570209.890] column Type is not unique
The entire highlighted file will be discarded.

This also is a problem:
Code:
[570224.796] Invalid Reference on Units.ObsoleteTech - "TECH_TELEGRAPH" does not exist in Technologies

The other issue is not a code issue but is in fact a "aesthetic" sort of a choice that borders on a code error. Namely, placing cargo ships within landlocked cities is not a good choice.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nor really, would I consider placing London in such a way that it is not a seaport adhere to anything I would define as historical accuracy. Plus, in terms of gameplay both as a game and as a teaching tool presenting London as a land-locked city is a poor choice. It is true that London sits far up-river from the coast. But it is equally true that part of the Thames River is for all intents and purposes functionally no different than an inlet or a bay. During the entire period of the "African Scramble" London was the world's busiest seaport.
 
Thanks for the FYI for the resources. Cocoa is fixed and other custom resources now appear. Order of Olav mentioned London as well, and I agreed, so it has been moved to the sea along with the cargo ships.

The tech tree is disabled in the mod, so that shouldn't effect game play. If it does, let me know.
 
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