Apocalypse Mod Discussion Thread

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Nov 12, 2005
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I'm starting a mod/scenario that begins right after the Apocalypse, with newly formed groups setting out to recolonize, rebuild, and conquer the energing new world in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. This thread is for discussion of ideas, reports on creation progress, and a rallying call for all those interested in helping. For this mod to reach it's full potential, I'll need as many good GRAPHICS modders as I can get.

Current Ideas (All are open to change):
- The earth has been ravaged by a hail of meteorites, volcanic eruptions, and natural disasters of biblical proportions. This premise is still open to change, however. Nuclear war is a possibility, but only if we can come up with a good explanation for people nuking the entire world.
- Civs will be in the form of factions defined by their goals for the new world.

- Current Civs:
- Survivalists (focus mainly on not dying, no real political agenda)
- Environmentalists
- Zealots (Religious fundamentalists who believe the apocalypse was the wrath of god. Already found a perfect UU here
- Socialists (The end of the world is the perfect opportunity to rebuild it and form a "dictatorship of the proletariat". Capitalist corporations are gone, so the workers just have to fill the void)
- A government/order oriented faction, focusing on rebuilding the world in essentially the same way it was before. No name yet.
- The _____ Corporation (Just like the socialists, all a corporation has to do to rule is to fill the void. No name yet. Should it be real or made up?)

ALL of these ideas are completely open for discussion, and I am not hard set on any of them.

CURRENT ISSUES:

Terrain
I converted the grassland terrain to a volcanic ash/dust, but it's not merging correctly with other terrains (see screenshot). Anyone know how to fix this?


Units
To make most of the units I want, they need to be new models. Unfortunately, I can't get 3ds max to work on my comp.
So, if anyone who can model is interested in helping out, I'd need:

- A Survivor unit (Tattered clothes, no armor or helmet, and an assault rifle)
- A fast attack vehicle or dune buggy type unit with a turret
- Any other units you think would be appropriate

Any of these units would help out a lot. Thanks!
 
Robo Magic Man said:
- Syndicalists (Basically envisions new world as a group of mafia-type gangs or syndicates, maybe crime-based, maybe not)

Syndicalism has traditionally referred to the political position that labor unions should control the economy (not mafia and gangs). It's been the politics of several mass movements like the Industrial Workers of the World, the One Big Union, and the International Workers Association. What you tend to here about most commonly these days is it's anarchist variety Anarcho-Syndicalism based on the relative success of that movement in Spain, Cuba, Sweden, etc...

The most publically known advocate of Anarcho-Syndicalism these days is Noam Chomsky.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicalism
http://www.anarchosyndicalism.net
http://www.iwa-ait.org/
http://www.iww.org
http://www.cgt.es/
http://www.cnt.es/
http://www.sac.se
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19760725.htm

As much as I might hope that syndicalists survive the apocalypse and such a doom day scenario might give them a chance to in their old slogan "make the new world in the shell of the old"; I think you might want to choose a better word to represent a coalition of gangsters (who presumably are just warlords from what were previously illegal criminal organizations, like drug cartels, etc...)
 
Niccolo said:
Syndicalism has traditionally referred to the political position that labor unions should control the economy (not mafia and gangs). It's been the politics of several mass movements like the Industrial Workers of the World, the One Big Union, and the International Workers Association. What you tend to hear about most commonly these days is it's anarchist variety Anarcho-Syndicalism based on the relative success of that movement in Spain, Cuba, Sweden, etc...

Ok, I actually knew a fair amount of the Anarcho-Syndicalists from my work on the Second Revolution mod. I basically got the meaning I used from the anime show Cowboy Bebop, which obviously isn't the most factual source, but it sounds cool and I couldn't think of any other good names for a group like that.
Any suggestions for a name or alternative group?
 
Thasis said:
I think you could create an organization called "The Cabal" who want to run behind the scenes manipulating the people through a new media and various appointed leaders who are brainwashed with their beliefs. Mixes Conspiricy Theory with Apocolypse.

Actually I was thinking about mixing this sort of thing in with the corporate group. Corporate control would have to be behind the scenes and media-based. After all, no one wants to be governed by a company, but when they charge just 99 cents for a 12-pack of tube socks, people are happy to give them all their money. Some people say they wish they could just have their paycheck go straight to Wal-Mart, because that's where they do all their shopping.

Btw, ever see a Wal-Mart shareholder's meeting? It's like a Nuremberg rally, with special salutes, yells, and everything.
 
I think that Civs should have Techs randomly wiped out. It would be possible to have say a transport but not a gun.

You should also find a way to make city ruins give you Techs.

There should be reminants of past civs. Maybe abandoned cities, railroads, abandoned units (like finding an old military base would give you a tank)

Great idea!
 
Terrain
I converted the grassland terrain to a volcanic ash/dust, but it's not merging correctly with other terrains (see screenshot). Anyone know how to fix this?

The quick and easy solution is to first open up Civ4artdefines_terrain.xml in the xml/art folder. You will see something like this:
Code:
<TerrainArtInfo>
			<Type>ART_DEF_TERRAIN_GRASS</Type>
			<Path>Art/Terrain/Textures/GrassBlend.dds</Path>
			<Detail>Art/Terrain/Textures/GrassDETAIL.dds</Detail>
			<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/BaseTerrain/Grassland.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/BaseTerrain_TerrainFeatures_Atlas.dds,3,1</Button>
			<LayerOrder>4</LayerOrder>
			<TextureBlend01>8,0</TextureBlend01>
			<TextureBlend02>1,0</TextureBlend02>
			<TextureBlend04>6,0</TextureBlend04>
			<TextureBlend08>5,0</TextureBlend08>
			<TextureBlend03>2,0</TextureBlend03>
			<TextureBlend06>10,0</TextureBlend06>
			<TextureBlend12>12,0</TextureBlend12>
			<TextureBlend09>9,0</TextureBlend09>
			<TextureBlend07>3,0</TextureBlend07>
			<TextureBlend14>14,0</TextureBlend14>
			<TextureBlend13>11,0</TextureBlend13>
			<TextureBlend11>4,0</TextureBlend11>
			<TextureBlend10>7,0</TextureBlend10>
			<TextureBlend05>13,0</TextureBlend05>
			<TextureBlend15>15,0 16,0 17,0 18,0 19,0 20,0 21,0 22,0 23,0 24,0 25,0 26,0 27,0 28,0 29,0 30,0 31,0 32,0</TextureBlend15>
		</TerrainArtInfo>
change the 4 in: <LayerOrder>4</LayerOrder> to a 1. Then scroll down in the file to this:
Code:
<TerrainArtInfo>
			<Type>ART_DEF_TERRAIN_TUNDRA</Type>
			<Path>Art/Terrain/Textures/TundraBlend.dds</Path>
			<Detail>Art/Terrain/Textures/TundraDetail.dds</Detail>
			<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/BaseTerrain/Tundra.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/BaseTerrain_TerrainFeatures_Atlas.dds,1,2</Button>
			<LayerOrder>1</LayerOrder>
			<TextureBlend01>8,0</TextureBlend01>
			<TextureBlend02>1,0</TextureBlend02>
			<TextureBlend04>6,0</TextureBlend04>
			<TextureBlend08>5,0</TextureBlend08>
			<TextureBlend03>2,0</TextureBlend03>
			<TextureBlend06>10,0</TextureBlend06>
			<TextureBlend12>12,0</TextureBlend12>
			<TextureBlend09>9,0</TextureBlend09>
			<TextureBlend07>3,0</TextureBlend07>
			<TextureBlend14>14,0</TextureBlend14>
			<TextureBlend13>11,0</TextureBlend13>
			<TextureBlend11>4,0</TextureBlend11>
			<TextureBlend10>7,0</TextureBlend10>
			<TextureBlend05>13,0</TextureBlend05>
			<TextureBlend15>15,0 16,0 17,0 18,0 19,0 20,0 21,0 22,0 23,0 24,0 25,0 26,0 27,0 28,0 29,0 30,0 31,0 32,0</TextureBlend15>
		</TerrainArtInfo>
and change the 1 in: <LayerOrder>1</LayerOrder> to a 4.

This will solve the problem if the only terrain texture you want to change is grassland. If you want to change more terrain textures you will have to modify your *blend.dds files for the texture you changed so it blends into the other terrain properly.
 
I have found an explination for the world getting nuked
Click Here
(warning: this may take a while to load)
(warning #2: some explict content, dont view if you dont want to)
 
Of course, how could I forget :D.
 
Just an addition to this melting pot of ideas...:p

There is no conspiracy theory that is complete without the Illuminati!:mischief: Yes, their flag could be their traemark one-eyed pyramid!:goodjob:
Unluckily :sad: I can't help you because I'm unskilled in the art of programming, so good luck Robo Magic:salute: ! Work some of your magic on this mod!. :yumyum: :yumyum: :yumyum:
 
BFD8656 said:
I think that Civs should have Techs randomly wiped out. It would be possible to have say a transport but not a gun.

You should also find a way to make city ruins give you Techs.

There should be reminants of past civs. Maybe abandoned cities, railroads, abandoned units (like finding an old military base would give you a tank)

Great idea!

The easiest thing to do for this would be to have some abandoned buildings lying around acting as goody huts. Unlike cIV, units popped from these huts would be decent ones (easily moddable just from GoodyInfo XML). Also, the chances of getting different rewards would have to be altered too, most likely (again, just go to the HandicapInfo and insert a few lines)--I doubt that anyone would appreciate getting a map of the freshly-scorched world!

Speaking of maps of the freshly-scorched world, are you assuming that these people have some basic geographical skills? You may want to consider giving everyone a free tech with the <bMapVisible> property (or just attach that property to all the starting techs, if you'd rather not make a "dummy" one), to represent basic knowledge of how the earth used to be--don't worry, it doesn't show cities or borders, so they won't know where anyone else is--unless, of course, the apocalypse has completely altered the face of the planet, tearing continents apart and sinking mountains into the sea, which is a touch farfetched.

Hang on, is this a scenario or a mod?
 
I think a fully visible map would be a good idea, and yes, altered continents would be a bit far-fetched. This is definitely going to be a mod, possibly a scenario, depending on whether we decide making earth the setting would really add much. Since the civs are just going to be factions anyway, we might just use the generated maps with a mod.

Btw, I'm starting the major xml work tonight, but I really need some strong graphics help to make this mod a good one. To all the modelers out there, I need your help!
 
matthewv said:
This will solve the problem if the only terrain texture you want to change is grassland. If you want to change more terrain textures you will have to modify your *blend.dds files for the texture you changed so it blends into the other terrain properly.

Sorry to say, that xml stuff didn't work at all. And looking at the blend files, they don't seem to have much to do with blending, because they look like the unblended parts of their corresponding terrain. If you know another way to fix this, please let me know.
 
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