Generic SciFi Mod

[Tholish]

The idea is a mod that can be used to create Science Fiction scenarios.
The tech tree is set in the future based on quasi realistic projections of possible future technology and stock sci fi cliches. Thus it is not specific to any one scenario.

It has about 4 terrain types for each terrain type, mostly depending on whether you have some kind of atmosphere and/or sunlight. Ocean is space, while coast is sea. The default generates a planet with atmosphere and air, but the air is poisonous and many of the terrains are quite hostile. The sea is a chemical bath, the only vegetation is a mutant jungle. The other terrains exist exclusively for scenarios, so that those interested can depict planets of any design.

You can also do solar systems. What I have done is make space an impassable land terrain and make spaceships able to pass impassable. The idea is that scenario makers will use long maps with Y wrap, and planets will be vertical straight edged bands 16 tiles wide. Thus all spaceships, which move at least 18, can entirely skip planets by going in one turn from the space on one side to the space on the other. To keep the "edges" of planets from being significant to space, scenario makers must use the terrain Ocean for the first few tiles adjacent to planets. The remaining space can be Ocean2, Ocean3, or Ocean4 depending on what you want.

Once I get done posting the mod itself, I will post some scenarios in the second post.

Without further ado, here is the latest version. Currently I am uploading it in segments of less than 5 mb so I can upload it to CivFanatics servers until I get something better.

Assembly instructions:
First download this, unzip it, and put the inner Solaria1B folder in
your Mods folder.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Solaria1B.zip

Then download this, unzip it, and put the inner Art folder in
Solaria1B/Assets/

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Art.zip

Then download these, unzip them, and put the inner folders in
Solaria1B/Assets/Art/
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/ArtInterface.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/ArtLeaderheads.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/ArtTerrain.zip

Then download this, unzip it, remove Yuck, YuckGrids, Mars, and MarsGrids from the folder and put them in
Solaria1B/Assets/Art/Terrain/Textures/

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/ArtTerrainTexturesAdd.zip

Finally, download this, unzip it, and put all unit folders from it in
Solaria1B/Assets/Art/Units/
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/ArtUnitsAdd.zip

 

[Tholish]

This is where I will post my scenarios based on Solaria1B.

I will use WordPad and the Replace function to
1. Update my Solar System map to use all the new terrains.
2. Adapt all the planet maps out there to realistic terrain types.
3. Maybe even merge some planet maps, once again by just cutting and pasting the World Buildier text and replacing. Earth and Luna with space in between might be a good one.
4. Make imaginary new solar systems. One good intro scenario might be a planet with two moons, with different mixes of sun and air, but otherwise varied terrain. A sunny airless ice moon and a sunny airless rock moon orbiting a clouded over planet with chemical seas ands varied rocky terrain and even icy poles.

Also there should be some map scripts. I don't yet have the skill to do them, but I find that the regional map types given x and y wrap work great. I like Highlands, Great Plains and Oasis--just give them x and y wrap. My favorite is Highlands with Seas. Regular maps come out with a regular array of tiny islands, due to there only being one water terrain. Lakes works ok though.

 

[Tholish]

This is where I will post a Things to Do list for Solaria 1B.

I've been having real loading problems. My desktop computer will not load the mod if I have modified it on the desktop computer, but will load it if it is modified on my laptop and my laptop will play it if it is modified on my desktop. My laptop will not load the mod if it starts with the configuration file, so every time I play the mod I have to delete that file and let the computer add it in and then it runs fine.

The building Supercollider is totally missing, thought the art and xml are there.

I need small leaderhead art instead of the Mona Lisa. Just haven't got around to resizing and cutting and pasting.
I need to give antimatter generators, vr nodes, solar collectors, outposts, colonies, fission and fusion reactors, refineries, factories, biodomes, mutant plants, ve plants, mutant plantations, mutant pastures, mutant wineries, and mutant hunting camps icons, as well as updating the icons for rocket ship, space fighters and rovers. Saucers need to be entirely replaced with the correct unit, as do beam tanks, though both will do as is.

I tried to fix the little rel icons over the city bar, but got a refusal to load.

No shame about the sameness of tech icons. What's important is what it does.

I dream of messing with Formations and making like little teams of 3 units for all infantry types and setting all sizes to comparable scale.

And of course playtesting, screenshots, scenarios, more design and balancing, partially alternate tech trees (depending on techs that can only be free not earned, for scenarios).

But I'm not going to do any of that because
1. it is pointless to improve this mod, or ftp it up, since it is inexplicably finicky about loading. however, I hoped perhaps it would influence other sci fi mods which I hope to play. if this loading problem was something i could predict, or reacted to something, i could analyze what was causing it, but it just happens. it tends to load first thing in the morning for example. once.
2. i have gotten warlords and am going to start over anyway. having already started, in light of my work on the current mod, i realize the main thing I NEED for this one is a mod component so that building an improvement CAUSES a resource to appear
3. my employer is sending me someplace where I may or may not have decent internet access. maybe I'll come back with something fantastic.

 

[Leif]

It sounds utterly awesome, can you post some screenshots?

 

[Popcornlord]

Looks cool!
Going to try out

 

[Civ4newbie]

I followed the instructions and tried loading the mod but a xml error occurred,
it said this:

Failed Loading XML file xml/GameInfo/CIV4religionInfo.xml. [.FXml.cpp:133]Error parsing XML File-
File: xml/GameInfo/CIV4ReligionInfo.xml
Reason: Element content is invalid according to the DTD/Schema.
expecting {x-schema:CIV4GameInfoSchema.xml}Adjective.

Line: 12,17
Source: <Civilopedia>Religion in Solaria represents life from preference. To disambiguate, Human life form, and thus its presence represents the presents of humans.</Civilopidia

what must I do to fix this problem?

 

[keldath]

well...this mod was posted two years ago..............

its probably only works with the first civ4 version.......

 

[Popcornlord]

My guess would be to go to
"'place where you put it'/assets/xml/GameInfo/CIV4religionInfo.xml"

and add a > to the end of

"<Civilopedia>Religion in Solaria represents life from preference. To disambiguate, Human life form, and thus its presence represents the presents of humans.</Civilopidia"

that should take care of that.
If you perfer i could do it and post the file here.

 

[Tholish]

I hate to bump this old thing, but resolution is required. I just happened to see this while I was waiting for the 3.13 patch to load on my new computer. After BtS came out I tried to start this project from scratch (its down there somewhere in the general discussions) and eventually gave up. I wish what I imagined could have been but I have given up attempting to mod Civ IV. Obviously it can be done as evidenced by the number of excellent mods, but I lack the skill and/or time to do it right. Typos come from simply trying to do so much. I gained a decent grasp of the XML, but reverse engineering the whole thing is just too vast. I don't like python and while I am now taking courses in C++, which would enable me to better predict what things will do, I have come to the conclusion that starting from scratch is the best way to go about it. So I'm trying to create the game of my dreams using Game Maker. Maybe I will post it in one of the off topic forums. Also it looks like Popcornlord is up to some great stuff.

 

[Popcornlord]

Also it looks like Popcornlord is up to some great stuff.

What do you mean? I'm not taking up another mod.