NEXT LEVEL MOD: pack with all the CivArmy's civilizations

[CivArmy s. 1994]

I'll check all the suggestions fellows ASAP! And try to correct this flag problem, I promiss

 

[marshallstack]

I just got the remix mod to unzip for me and the author seemed to have fixed the issue with "white flag issue".

 

[Jecrell]

• XML reformatting and optimization - XML programming and information are integrated seemlessly into the game's XML (as if they were included with the original game)

• Civilopedia Entries - As you can see from the screenshots, many of the CivArmy elements do not have Civilopedia entries. The Remix mod has Civilopedia entries and strategies for every civ, leader, and unit, based on entries from Wikipedia and other credible sources.

• Cultural Changes - Some unique unit names hav been changed to reflect actual historical units (example - PolynesianBoat changed to Catamaran)

• Fix of the dreaded White Flag Problem

Jecrell - Maybe your ideas and mine can be combined somewhat, with you working on the custom dialogue and art, and me focusing on the XML and Civilopedia. Let me know what you think.

Well you don't effectively need to create a seperate remix mod -- we could simply combine our efforts between all three of us and create something better. I'm sure CivArmy applauds the behavior of improving his creation, we just need ensure that he publishes our colaborative changes/improvements and everyone is better for the experience.

And -- man -- I absolutely agree with strategic entries among other things. There are so many methods for polishing these created Civilizations while CivArmy creates his excellent leaderheads -- I'm sure splitting the workload would not hurt the project.

If you're working on it this week -- contact me this weekend with your progress and I'll get to work on dialogue and propose several fixes that I've already contemplated as far as XML and art is concerned.

... I really don't like it when people outreference certain XML files when all that is available are single lines of text in English only. There are really simple implementation abilities available to Civilization modders to resolve this. Appending text to the existing files isn't really recommended when you can create new files as far as XML text referencing is concerned. This results in smaller things for people to download -- and more effecient referencing.

 

[battles.14]

Jecrell - Are you talking about creating just one file for all the text XML? I downloaded and studied your Carthage mod and that's what it seems like you did. If that's the case, I can fix what I've already got and pass that on to you (hopefully by this weekend, or ASAP) and you can add your new art and diplomacy info to it. How's that sound?

 

[Jecrell]

Jecrell - Are you talking about creating just one file for all the text XML? I downloaded and studied your Carthage mod and that's what it seems like you did. If that's the case, I can fix what I've already got and pass that on to you (hopefully by this weekend, or ASAP) and you can add your new art and diplomacy info to it. How's that sound?

Well it sounds just fine -- just remember to put the city info into the Civilization XML file directly rather than using TEXT_KEY references. Having a single entry for every city in that Text XML file would be rather wasteful.

 

[battles.14]

Well it sounds just fine -- just remember to put the city info into the Civilization XML file directly rather than using TEXT_KEY references. Having a single entry for every city in that Text XML file would be rather wasteful.

First of all, I'm all about making it look seamless, so I kept the TEXT_KEY references. But I met you halfway, creating a separate info file just for the cities, with each set labeled. It's an extra 20+ K, but for me, it's worth it to make everything look more solid.

Secondly, I've got about six civs done right now. Do you want me to send you what I've got now, or wait until I've got all the civs done from my end?

 

[anjf]

Jecrell, for your Carthaginian mod there had to be something installed, can you do that for this mod aswell since my comp. doesn't ''sees'' whats inside a mod if it isn't installed. All ready thanks

 

[battles.14]

Jecrell, for your Carthaginian mod there had to be something installed, can you do that for this mod aswell since my comp. doesn't ''sees'' whats inside a mod if it isn't installed.

Anjf, that's going to be the plan once we're done. The file we end up with is going to be pretty big, and both Jecrell and I have a installer maker that will do the trick.

 

[Jecrell]

First of all, I'm all about making it look seamless, so I kept the TEXT_KEY references. But I met you halfway, creating a separate info file just for the cities, with each set labeled. It's an extra 20+ K, but for me, it's worth it to make everything look more solid.

Secondly, I've got about six civs done right now. Do you want me to send you what I've got now, or wait until I've got all the civs done from my end?

Meeting me half-way won't please me on this issue. It's smaller and faster to put the city text directly into the CIvilization files unless they have multilingual backing. If they're multilingual, by all means, put them in their own file, but if you're unwilling to do this operation because "it looks nicer to me", I think that's just silly. Get a hold of yourself man!

Send me what you have finished on Sunday. That way I can get some rest done when finals are over and you should be mostly complete.

 

[battles.14]

At the end of the day, it's really not going to make that much of a difference. It's not about making it look nice. It makes made more sense to have the city names seperate for the same reasons that the rest of the info is. That way, if we need to change them in the future (or add multilingual support) they're easy to find.

As far as smaller and faster goes, it's going to be a tenth of a meg larger when it's all said and done. And with an installer, it's like a fraction of a second for an XML file. That's worth it for me for the actual information we add to be more accessible and liquid. I'm going to do it both ways and see what the difference is when all the civs are in.

 

[Jecrell]

At the end of the day, it's really not going to make that much of a difference. It's not about making it look nice. It makes made more sense to have the city names seperate for the same reasons that the rest of the info is. That way, if we need to change them in the future (or add multilingual support) they're easy to find.

This is an example of argueing for the sake of arguement. Yes, multilingual support makes sense, but it is not "easier" to manage cities by placing text references and making a new file exclusively for single-line english names. Nor is it any easier to find the city names, in fact, it's probably more difficult considering the length of text involved. Then you'd need to get to modifying both the references (TEXT_KEY_CITYNAME) in the two files and the original text (Cityname), it's three times the work of a single city name <City>Cityname</City>.

For things like leadership titles (King, Queen, Emperor, ect), we should have leaders in our multilingual text reference files, like our Civilization names and Civiliopedia entries. A lot of these things are multilingual, so I have no problem with including them, but if we can simplify the project, I don't see what the problem is.

If there are multilingual city names, then reference them and extrapolate into their multilingual forms. But there arn't that many multilingual city names that translate radically different from each other when comparing English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

As far as smaller and faster goes, it's going to be a tenth of a meg larger when it's all said and done. And with an installer, it's like a fraction of a second for an XML file. That's worth it for me for the actual information we add to be more accessible and liquid. I'm going to do it both ways and see what the difference is when all the civs are in.

Faster as in -- download-wise and XML callup-wise. If we can make the file that much smaller, I'm sure there's at least one man with 56k saying "thanks a lot for making things easier for me."

There is absolutely nothing bad about my suggestion, so there is no need for defense or arguement unless you know if anything we're dealing with is multilingual. If it is, let's isolate those cities and prop them up for multilingual support.

But doing it both ways is wise of you, and I must applaud that decision, because it is the right way in-case we do need to fall back and create multilingual files.

 

[battles.14]

Jecrell, I ran into a problem and was wondering how you're thinking about handling things from the art end...The UU for the Khmer civ is the Phakak, which I don't think exists. It's an upgrade of the spearman, but I think the Ballista, which was actually used and would be a replacement of the catapult, would be a much better idea. Do you know how (or would you be willing) to create this unit, or should I just go with what's there? From my angle, it's hard to create a civ article for something that doesn't exist, and there are tons of schematics and info on the ballista.

 

[anjf]

Anjf, that's going to be the plan once we're done. The file we end up with is going to be pretty big, and both Jecrell and I have a installer maker that will do the trick.

Thank you I can't wait! Also thanks to you Jecrell

 

[MourinhoPortuga]

Hey Civarmy, great job man, this has been really impressive. I was just wondering how those updates on the Portugal civ were going?, some really cool stuff was thought and brought up, hope you manage to make those changes, cause i'm sure it will make the game a lot more fun, thanks a lot dude.

Portugal - Brasil World Cup 2006 Final

 

[Samon]

all my flags colors is white... WHY? Help me plz...

 

[Samon]

YES.. My all flags is white

 

[Fintilgin]

It looks like it may be a problem with the Civ4PlayerColorsInfo.xml where all the secondary colors are assigned to white. I just removed this file and the old colors came back with no problems. YMMV.

 

[battles.14]

Guys, just bear with the white flag problem for now...When Jecrell and I come out with the updated version, that will be fixed.

 

[Barak]

Do we know what causes the white flag issue? In some mods I get the flags....other times white flags.

 

[battles.14]

Yes, I know what causes the white flag issue. There are two steps that need to be taken to fix the problem, but one of them involves a program that you guys probably don't have. Here are the two steps.

1) Load up the flag's .dds file in a DDS program and change the alpha channel from all white to all black.

2) Open the XML file called ArtDefinesCivilization. Go to the civ in question and change the bWhiteFlag value from 0 to 1.

If you understand that, great. Do it. If not, then it's better if you wait for the updated version to come out. Don't forget, the game has civilizations that you can use. All those flags work.