Strategic Rivers Mod

[Inyah]

MOD: STRATEGIC RIVERS

Version 1.0
Euphrates, Tigris, Nile, Jangtseekiang, Danube, Mississippi, the Amazon. These rivers have entered the cultural memory of nations and have marked the history of their residents. Wars were fought to control rivers. Whole armies were drowned in its waters. Trade and culture followed their course. Rivers are the lifeblood of humanity.​

This mod tries to give the strategic importance of rivers in the game Civilization validity.

New features:

Ships now can sail on rivers. Uses your fleets to explore new terrain, to quickly move troops and units, and to block the trading of your opponents!

Rivercrossing for units is now limited. Find and conquer the few river fords where your armies can cross rivers. Teach them to swim or build bridges to conquer those proud waters!

Build mighty river forts to protect your cities from foreign fleets!

Utilizes the diversity of life in the rivers. Fish, crawfish, alligators and the famous sturgeon caviar are important resources, that will make your cities richer and your trade prosperous!

Download here: http://www.atomicgamer.com/file.php?id=98722

Details:

Two new resources: alligator and caviar.

Two new strategic resources: beach (required for the construction of swimming areas) and river ford (allows the crossing of rivers).

A new promotion: river crossing. Allows units to cross rivers. Requires the technology "fishing".

A new building: swimming area - Gives all new units the promotion “river crossing”. Requires either a beach in the city vincinity or an aqueduct. Requires the technology "fishing".

A new wonder: “National project swimmingclasses”. Adds a swimming area to all cities.. Requires the technology "military tradition".

A new unit: river workers. Can work riverfields. Requires the technology "Mathematics".

Two bridges - wooden bridge and railway bridge. They allow uits to cross rivers and give the same bonus to unitmovement as roads or railways. Note: Can only be built at a distance of 3 fields to each other!

New improvement: river fortress. Gives a defensive bonus and can only be built on the river areas. Note: Can only be built at a distance of 4 spaces to each other.

Small rule changes:

Spoiler :

No cityfounding on rivertiles - except on river fords.

Ships have twice as many movement points. Oceancrossing now takes two movement points.

Ships movement on rivers is not diagonal, but they generally follow the river course (unfortunately there are execptions to this rule unter certain circumstances – e.g. When two rivers flow directly next to each other)

Ships can also blockade rivertiles and plunder on them.

Mines can not be built on the river areas.

Fish and crabs can also occur in rivertiles. Accordingly, work boats can build fishing on rivertiles.

The construction of fishing nets no longer kills work boats and river workers.

Cities next to rivers can also train ships. They can also build various buildings such as ports and dry docks.

Land units cannot fortify and sleep on rivertiles unless there is a riverfortress.

Forts and riverfortresses now spread your cultural imfluence (Superfort Mod).

Forts and riverfortresses flow can be bombarded (Superfort Mod)

Disclaimer / Warning:

The AI ​​understands and uses the rule changes and implications. However, the game becomes quite slow, especially if the maps are large and the AI is involved in ​​many wars.

This mod can be used like you wish in other mods, please give credit to me.

To Dos / Help wanted:

This mod is working progress. Ideas and help are much appreciated! Especially with graphics...

Spoiler :

The AI configuration must be revised, since it tends to be very slow.

I'm not a graphic designer, therefore I would be grateful, if someone would look at the graphics of various elements (in particular fishing nets on rivertiles, the graphics for the beach, river ford, swimming area, etc.)

As english is not my motherlanguage, there may be mistakes in the texts for the civilopedia and such. Other languages except german arent yet included. So if someone feels like helping here...?

Potential future enhancements:

Spoiler :

Different rivertiles and -graphics, such as for example: Waterfalls, rapids, dams, etc.

Straightening of the river - over time most of the rivers have been straightened to make them navigable. This could also be done in the game.

River pollution: Due to the industrial revolution rivers were heavily polluted. This could also be in the game, e.g. by penalty points for food and trade. Should have appropriate graphics.

Cultural growth: culture should spread faster on riverbanks and grow more slowly when crossing rivers. This simulates that rivers often are natural boundary lines.

More ...?

Credits:

Spoiler :

Special thanks to Red Key for his Super Forts Mod: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=444512&highlight=Super+Forts - a great inspiration and a basis for various elements in this mod!

Thanks also to Orion Veteran, Patar and Refar for their Sea Bridge Mod, the basis for the bridges in this mod! Thank you!

Thanks to Walter Hawkwood for the new fortress, which is used in this mod!

Thanks to The Coyote for his carp resource, which is the basis for the caviar-resource.

vincentz made the alligator, so a big thank you for that!

If I have to thank other people whose work I have used in recent months, without thinking about it now, then please send me a short message!

Finally, a thanks to all who have written the tutorials. 6 months ago I had no idea of ​​modding and didnt know any programming. Only thanks to you I've gotten the motivation to sit and learn this stuff and do this mod!

Download: http://www.atomicgamer.com/file.php?id=98722​

Any comments, bug-reports, helping hands, ideas are highly welcomes

 

[Inyah]

reserved

 

[Inyah]

reserved

 

[Inyah]

also reserved

 

[Cruel]

Reminds me of a request I made in 2007!
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=185668&page=5

The only problem here is that boats can navigate the whole river... would be interesting to divide between Big Rivers and rivers, allowing only the first entry of boats and the second not (or only small boats).

 

[Dumanios]

Looks pretty cool!

 

[dacubz145]

Reminds me of a request I made in 2007!
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=185668&page=5

The only problem here is that boats can navigate the whole river... would be interesting to divide between Big Rivers and rivers, allowing only the first entry of boats and the second not (or only small boats).

Not sure what would determine a small rive or big river

But yes you should have restricitons on boats, like battleships can't

I think your next thing should be adding some new xml tags, expecially for units. Here are some ideas:
1)Attack/defend river bonus (for boats)
2)Can't enter river
3)Can't leave river(possibly have the above, so having 1 in there means can't enter, 0 means neither, and -1 means can't leave)
4)+/- movement on rivers (for boats)

any chance you see of removing the lag?

 

[The_J]

Looks great .
I think this is probably one of the most requested mods ever. Nice to see that someone took the challenge .

 

[mourndraken]

How has the river gone from being a tile border to being the tile ?
This looks great ! Innovative ! It can create a new type of game.

 

[Cruel]

I really enjoyed the mod. You have a nice work and have only six months of modding.

Some considerations:

*Sturgeon is restricted in the northern hemisphere, it is not present all over the planet.
*The idea of ​​promotion "navegable in river" could be worked: battleship not enter into rivers, and only some types of destroyers or smaller boats do. So there is no need to create another type of river.
*I liked of promotion "river crossing" but not everything related to swim - I believe that these units do not swim to cross but use rafts and things of the genre ... you can use the name fluvial training or something. It's more a matter of nomenclature, not the effects of the swimming buildings.
*river workers - you can use a promotion instead of a new unit.
*Why no cityfounding on rivertiles?
*Land units cannot fortify and sleep on rivertiles unless there is a riverfortress - why?
*I realized that rivers that come in contact you can go to the other. This is intentional?

 

[Inyah]

thank you all for your kind words. I hope you are enjoying playing the mod

How has the river gone from being a tile border to being the tile ?

that was quite tricky... you'll notice, that there are now 4 .nifs per original river-nif-file, one for every direction the river flows. I had to move the datablocks with nifviewer. Hard to explain, problably Best to have a look at it in the XML and the nif-files. So if someone wants to include this mod, you would need to copy this as well.

*Sturgeon is restricted in the northern hemisphere, it is not present all over the planet.

It could be limited to one continent only (thats already in the XML-Tags), otherwise you can only limit it to certain latitudes on the south AND northhemisphere. Propaply could think about including your suggestion, but I dont see, thats really improving the mod that much

*The idea of ​​promotion "navegable in river" could be worked: battleship not enter into rivers, and only some types of destroyers or smaller boats do. So there is no need to create another type of river.

it could be done, even quite easily. I considered this when develloping the mod, but I didnt see the point. It would be fun to do, if it were possibly to have different types of rivers (e.g. bigger and smaller ones) or if with further technology progress, players could widen and deepen rivers, as its done in real life (so rivers would have different levels...). For this I quess one would need 1. different graphics and 2. dive even further than I have into how exactly rivers could be changed in their own quality and appearance.

*I liked of promotion "river crossing" but not everything related to swim - I believe that these units do not swim to cross but use rafts and things of the genre ... you can use the name fluvial training or something. It's more a matter of nomenclature, not the effects of the swimming buildings.

I*ll consider this. I was myself not really happy with the idea of the units "swimming" across rivers. I was going for the effect, which was important (not being able to cross - allow some units to cross - basically allow all units to cross)

*river workers - you can use a promotion instead of a new unit.

yes, but workers dont gain experience. And I wanted to make sure, every Players understands that now they are able to really work rivertiles with their workers...

*Why no cityfounding on rivertiles?

Because settlers cant move there. And more importantly, you wouldnt be able to defend the city, because your units cant move there - at least in the first part of the game.

*Land units cannot fortify and sleep on rivertiles unless there is a riverfortress - why?

The idea was, that they cannot stay on rivers for to long, because they would drown at some point. Actually I wanted to add some events in a future version, that there is a certain chance that units will drown, even though they have the ability to cross rivers.

*I realized that rivers that come in contact you can go to the other. This is intentional?

No, thats something I couldnt find a way arround yet. I modified the way rivers are created, so that they dont go parallel very often, but sometimes they do. I believe it could be done to prevent them from going from one river to another, but it would involve quite a bit of codework which would propably slow down the game even further. But I am open for suggestions and ideas how to solve this problem...

any chance you see of removing the lag?

well I was hoping for some AI-Expert to come arround and look at the code I have done my best, but I think, the problem is, that this mod adds a lot of "coast" to the game, as all riversides are also coast with potential landingsides for armies with transporters.

 

[Cruel]

It could be limited to one continent only (thats already in the XML-Tags), otherwise you can only limit it to certain latitudes on the south AND northhemisphere. Propaply could think about including your suggestion, but I dont see, thats really improving the mod that much

It really was a suggestion like: - look, this kind of luxury resource is not all over the planet... And thinking about it, I think river pearl would be more appropriate, but of course no great relevance to the mod.

it could be done, even quite easily. I considered this when develloping the mod, but I didnt see the point.

In the early ages this has no relevance, but as we build larger ships, I believe this to be necessary. Another example is the transport or submarine, not all types come into rivers.

It would be fun to do, if it were possibly to have different types of rivers (e.g. bigger and smaller ones) or if with further technology progress, players could widen and deepen rivers, as its done in real life (so rivers would have different levels...). For this I quess one would need 1. different graphics and 2. dive even further than I have into how exactly rivers could be changed in their own quality and appearance.

Yes, it is an interesting idea. A good appearance to the rivers need to be developed: the mouth of the river, it does not merges seamlessly into the sea - until now.

I*ll consider this. I was myself not really happy with the idea of the units "swimming" across rivers. I was going for the effect, which was important (not being able to cross - allow some units to cross - basically allow all units to cross)

Adopt another naming is interesting because there are other methods of crossing:
like acrossing where the river is straight, because where it does curve tends to be more profound and other tecniques.
Update: you can create amphibious I (the river crossing) and amphibious II (the regular amphibious)

yes, but workers dont gain experience. And I wanted to make sure, every Players understands that now they are able to really work rivertiles with their workers...

Instead of a promotion or a new unit, maybe is more elegant to allow this work to all workers through a technology. So no need complety new specialized unit.

The idea was, that they cannot stay on rivers for to long, because they would drown at some point. Actually I wanted to add some events in a future version, that there is a certain chance that units will drown, even though they have the ability to cross rivers.

This does not seem very real, are often fortified troops positioned on the banks of the river just to defend it. Maybe one promotion can do this.

 

[Isabelxxx]

Because settlers cant move there. And more importantly, you wouldnt be able to defend the city, because your units cant move there - at least in the first part of the game.

Cities could behave as bridges to solve that. There should not be too much difficulty adding bridge effects to cities found in rivers with the DLL, free building or anything else.

No, thats something I couldnt find a way arround yet. I modified the way rivers are created, so that they dont go parallel very often, but sometimes they do. I believe it could be done to prevent them from going from one river to another, but it would involve quite a bit of codework which would propably slow down the game even further. But I am open for suggestions and ideas how to solve this problem...

Every standard river created in the map should have a river ID assigned. Be sure that the unit can not move into tiles with different river ID and add any other necessary check.
Also, creating a river map at the start should help. Not sure how you replaced the old rivers, but you should be able to check every tile at the start (or during map generation) and obtain a map of all rivers placed in the map. That would help you to manage the allowed routes or anything else. Note that this map would not be changed later, so it's only necessary to create it once and cache it.

That would work like climate maps in map scripts.

 

[vincentz]

The alligator was sort of my creation (took a seamonster and transformed it with new texture and shape)

Really nice mod. will definately try it out

 

[Inyah]

Every standard river created in the map should have a river ID assigned. Be sure that the unit can not move into tiles with different river ID and add any other necessary check.

yes, rivers have IDs. I will try to include this in a second version. But it wont solve the problem of "irregular" movement, when its the same river that flows parallel to itselve (like a shortcut).

Also, creating a river map at the start should help. Not sure how you replaced the old rivers, but you should be able to check every tile at the start (or during map generation) and obtain a map of all rivers placed in the map. That would help you to manage the allowed routes or anything else. Note that this map would not be changed later, so it's only necessary to create it once and cache it.

hmm I didnt understand that. Sorry

The alligator was sort of my creation (took a seamonster and transformed it with new texture and shape)

then my thank you goes to you and I will add that in the credits

 

[Keinpferd]

 

[Isabelxxx]

yes, rivers have IDs. I will try to include this in a second version. But it wont solve the problem of "irregular" movement, when its the same river that flows parallel to itselve (like a shortcut).

Exactly, if the flow is parallel you should be able to know it. I'm sure there is some way to know the flow direction of a river, since you have to use that to add your own graphics for ex.

hmm I didnt understand that. Sorry

Have you tried to create a matrix by checking every plot of the map? You can store the info of all river plots into a multi-array and then use it for your own... that's what is called a map, in this case of the rivers.
You would do that at the start (before replacing rivers), I think. Then you could easily put any logic you want to forbid some paths.
Have in mind that parallel flows require necessarily a perpendicular flow...

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[Cole98]

Awesome but I have a suggestion
Make it so that you can build a river, like a canal

 

[Cruel]

Awesome but I have a suggestion
Make it so that you can build a river, like a canal

Remember, this can be a problem for AI.

 

[Inyah]

Remember, this can be a problem for AI.

yes that would be my biggest concern too. it could probably be done for human players but to teach the AI to use canals in a rational way seems "challenging".