The Sword of Islam 1.0 Discussion

[embryodead]

The Sword of Islam 1.0

It doesn't feel quite right to finally release 1.0 version after 3 years of development, but that's my fault for starting with 0.1

This version doesn't bring a lot of changes - it's mostly a refinement of the last beta release, with bugfixes and some new graphics.

My focus will now shift elsewhere, but it's not necessarily the last release of SoI.

Download me!



1.0 Release notes:

- Enabled full yield bonus for cities built on resources
- Reduced the Harbors requirement for the Harbormaster quest from 6 to 4
- Added Sulfur, Sheep and a Forest in Transjordan
- Added the missing tooltip text for Royal Saint piety level
- Fixed the broken Sunni Religious Victory (URV1)
- Fixed the bug with mercenary maintenance occasionally including costs for some dead mercenaries
- Fixed the bug from BBAI that sometimes caused the AI to disband old units when approached by hostile forces
- Fixed the UI glitch that allowed players to use a Great Saint's new ability after the unit has already been sacrificed
- Fixed some issues with Persecutor AI getting stuck in holy cities and persecuting cities in wrong order
- Added a tweak from K-Mod that reduces late-game stuttering associated with selecting units
- Updated the leaderhead art of Harun al-Rashid, Baldwin and Guy of Lusignan (Novator/edead)
- Updated the unit art of Indian Worker (Bakuel)
- Updated the building art of the Hagia Sophia, Rani Ki Vav and Stepwell (edead)
- Updated the building art of the Prophet's Mosque (stolenrays)
- Added proper special effect for Orthodox and Shia Missionary activation
- Added regional music capability from DoC (Christian and Hindu playlists are slightly different from the rest, especially early on)
- Added 4 new songs to the soundtrack

 

[Sovietof17]

"Enabled full yield bonus for cities built on resources"

Does this mean that settling a city on a resource would allow you to get the same benefit as improving it? Would there be any advantage to not building a city on a resource, besides city placement/strategy?

 

[embryodead]

Does this mean that settling a city on a resource would allow you to get the same benefit as improving it?

Yes.

Would there be any advantage to not building a city on a resource, besides city placement/strategy?

No.

 

[alpav]

This mod is honestly beautiful.
Probably the most polished CIV 4 mod.
Congratulations.

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

Great! Hagia Sophia minarets always bugged me since Civ IV was released...

Do the Greek Catholic & Roman Catholic soundtracks differ? Catholics could just use generic Medieval music from the vanilla.

 

[Qiu]

Congratulation! I think Chinese version will be available soon.

 

[embryodead]

Do the Greek Catholic & Roman Catholic soundtracks differ? Catholics could just use generic Medieval music from the vanilla.

No, there are 3 sets: Muslim, Christian and Hindu. I think it's better to have music different from vanilla. For Crusaders something more Middle Eastern sounds more appropriate than European church music (Christian set is Middle Eastern music mixed with Byzantine/Syrian/Templar chants and Armenian duduk pieces).

 

[Jusos2108]

Downloading later today!

 

[The Turk]

I just wanted to say how proud I am of your work Embryodead. I still remember that faithful summer day when I was paroozing through the RFC forums and found your new mod, that had only been released a couple hours ago. Since then its come a long way, with lots of changes (for the better of course), to make it what I would consider to be the best mod I have played for Civilization IV.

I can't wait for your future release (not sure if you've announced it yet ), as I'm expecting even greater works for the future!

So... and !

 

[2phunkey4u]

Mighty congratulations on the 1.0 release of this truly marvelous and outstanding mod - brilliant work. I wish you luck for future projects, but it's good that you seem to have reached some closure with SoI.

- Enabled full yield bonus for cities built on resources

I guess Cairo 1S will be an instant favourite (but I've liked it even before). It's inviting to experiment with new city placement schemes, especially in Mesopotamia, Caucasus and Sindh.

peace..

 

[2phunkey4u]

I guess Cairo 1S will be an instant favourite (but I've liked it even before)

Indeed, I think the new "full yield for the city tile" feature has made the Fatimids become too easy. Founding Al-Qahirah 1S on wheat gave me an enormous kick-start. The whole game was a pushover and I had the best time/score ratio of all my Fatimid games.

 

[srpt]

since people are saying thanks I'll say so as well. thanks for many fun games and for such a great example to work with. I came at this without any kind of background or support and I made something that works and its basically your mod with the names changed so cheers for that. can't wait to check out the samurai mod! (I hope you find time to work on it)

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

Indeed, I think the new "full yield for the city tile" feature has made the Fatimids become too easy. Founding Al-Qahirah 1S on wheat gave me an enormous kick-start. The whole game was a pushover and I had the best time/score ratio of all my Fatimid games.

Leoreth made a nice compromise with the City-on-resource bonus not applying for food resources.

Are the Buyids ever going to be playable?
Although honestly I know little more than what is in the Civiliopedia; they must at least be as deserving as the Samanid Emirate, they do get all the major Persian cities as their core afterall. I'm sure some people would love to play a pre-gunpowder Persian Civilization that isn't based in Central Asia.

 

[hangman]

I noticed the road and paved road buttons are still not showing up correctly...

 

[embryodead]

I noticed the road and paved road buttons are still not showing up correctly...

You mean in WorldBuilder only, or during gameplay?

 

[hangman]

in the WB

 

[embryodead]

Are the Buyids ever going to be playable?

Very unlikely, though if I ever have to prepare anything like 1.1, there's got to be something new in it, rather just a few tweaks. But Buyids... Apart from the fact that they're a scripted event (armies spawned next to Abbasid borders to harass them), the problem with Buyids is that they only lasted 120 years (60 years less than Samanids). Since Seljuks spawn in 1037, this means you'd have only 68 turns of gameplay before Seljuks come and flip 90% of your Empire. Not fun.

 

[srpt]

I've had some very fun games as the Buyids. I deleted the scripted stacks and focused on Mesopotamia until after the Seljuk spawn. playing a native persian civ resisting the turkish onslaught is ahistoric but fun. for goals I went for Commander of the Faithful and Shahanshah at the same time and making Shiism dominant. they are the only civ with a core in Fars, and that makes them unique.

 

[The Turk]

Well if we are in the business of expanding SoI one last time for v1.1, I'd be much more interested in developing the international trade aspect of the game, by adding trade routes to Europe, Bengal, Sri Lanka (Chola Empire), South East Asia (where Islam was spread to), East Africa (Zanzibar) and China. Controlling these ports would be extra wealth and resources, and we can remove the ahistorical resources placements such as Silk around the Byzantines, to represent trade with China.

Buyids are done well as a scripted event, and should stay as such, they do a good job as a challenge to the Abbasid player and they do a good job at collapsing to make the Seljuks more fun playing.

 

[2phunkey4u]

The silk resources near Constantinopolis seem to be there for an ok reason: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_silk#Development