1492: Global Colonization. Mod development

[M07]

Hi KJ Janson,

I would be glad if Dale as the author of AoDII or somebody from modders will find something interesting and useful in my mod.

From what I saw, your mod seems to be very interesting. If I understand correctly, the mod is not yet available,when it will be downloadable I will try it.
If items interest me, you can be sure I will throw a glance .
Anyway good work! I look forward to this mod.

 

[KJ Jansson]

Serious changes are introduced in the "Professions" sections of the "1492: Global Colonization" mod. I combined here the "Professions Mod: Journeyman" by Kailric with the simple logic of my mod. I suppose that each colonist arriving from Europe in New World knows only few basic options outside the city. He can build road, farm, lodge, remove forest. Probably he can also build mine and carry. And nothing more.

I guess all my changes are clearly visible on screens therefore I give only very short comments.

Let's take a Colonist and check what he can do on bonus (tobacco) tile.



The Colonist can only "Build Logde", "Build Farm" and "Build Road". The Colonist cannot "Build Tobacco Plantation" because he don't know Tobacco at all. Tobacco is absent in Europe, it's a product from New World.

Now we have two possibilities: or to search the native village where our colonist can study Tobacco speciality, or to leave our colonist in the city on bonus tobacco tile. Let's take the second variant.



Income from such "uneducated specialist" is only +3 tobacco. Not so much...., but after few turns we can check our colonist and find that



he has a progress in Journeyman (tobacco planter) education.

And after few turns our Colonist has been promoted to Journeyman Tobacco Planter.



Important to note that outside the city such "partially educated" colonist has no new functions, they are the same as before his education.



However, now our Journeyman Tobacco Planter in the city can harvest 5 tobacco units from the bonus tile.



After a number of additional turns our Colonist will be promoted to Expert Tobacco Planter, if we permit to our unit to continue his education on bonus (tobacco) tile.



Now our Expert Tobacco Planter can harvest +6 tobacco inside the city. A little better...



However, now our Expert Tobacco Planter has a new function outside the city. He knows a lot of about tobacco and he can "Build Tobacco Plantation" on tobacco bonus tile.



This operation required a lot of time



however when Tobacco Plantation is ready we have +5 tobacco from bonus tile.



Our Expert Tobacco Planter can return in the city and harvest from the same tile already +10 tobacco per turn.



Thus, our uneducated colonist after a number years of work (or education) on tobacco tile received the Expert Tobacco Planter speciality and open a new function "Build Tobacco Plantation".

Thank you very much, Kailric, for the great "Professions Mod: Journeyman" mod!

 

[kaibayashi]

Hey KJ, your mod is looking really cool, and I like all the things you are doing with it. The time to build a Tobacco Plantation seems a bit long tho? 42 turns is a hell of a lot! In that same time the Expert Tobacconist could gather 252 tobacco instead. By my calculations it would take a further 63 turns to catch up that amount (at 10 tobacco per turn), which basically means it would take 100 turns to see any improvement from it!

 

[KJ Jansson]

Hey KJ, your mod is looking really cool, and I like all the things you are doing with it. The time to build a Tobacco Plantation seems a bit long tho? 42 turns is a hell of a lot! In that same time the Expert Tobacconist could gather 252 tobacco instead. By my calculations it would take a further 63 turns to catch up that amount (at 10 tobacco per turn), which basically means it would take 100 turns to see any improvement from it!

Really, the time to build a Tobacco Plantation is equal to 42 turns. However my Expert Tobacco Planter must
1) remove light forest and only then
2) to build tobacco plantation.
That is 2 long operations. This is a first moment.

The second one: the game started in January 1492. Turn 60 is only December 1496. Here 1 turn = 1 month. Thus, during 5 years I could educate my first colonist to Tobacco Planter profession and my new specialist could build his first Tobacco Plantation. To my opinion this is correct time.

To simplify the game for all players I "open" all building functions for the Pioneer unit.





Absolutely all functions are available for the Pioneer unit, including "Build Pasture", "Plant New (and Valuable) Forest", "Plant Vine", "Build Winery", "Build Brewery" etc. Some of them are shown on screens.

Moreover, in the version that I will publish, each European civilization will have one Pioneer as a Free unit. I'll do this for normal players.

In my personal version of "1492: Global Colonization" my Pioneer will have only basic building functions. I don't like "fast" games when I start and finish my game during one - maximum two days. "1492: Global Colonization" mod is a long-playing game.

 

[GoodGame]

This looks like a very interesting mod. Is there any possibility of some influences from "Victoria" or "Europa Universalis"?

Like:

Casu Belli (suffer reputation hit if your diplomacy doesn't give you a legitimate reason for war).

Class consciousness: e.g. Laborers, Farmers, Capitalists, Aristocrats, middle class types, etc...

Militancy and Consciousness to the individual colonists. E.g. like Laborers / Statesmen feel alienated by society, and more likely to have an uprising.
Consciousness being approximately equal to unhappiness in Civ4.

 

[kaibayashi]

Really, the time to build a Tobacco Plantation is equal to 42 turns. However my Expert Tobacco Planter must
1) remove light forest and only then
2) to build tobacco plantation.
That is 2 long operations. This is a first moment.

The second one: the game started in January 1492. Turn 60 is only December 1496. Here 1 turn = 1 month. Thus, during 5 years I could educate my first colonist to Tobacco Planter profession and my new specialist could build his first Tobacco Plantation. To my opinion this is correct time.

To simplify the game for all players I "open" all building functions for the Pioneer unit.





Absolutely all functions are available for the Pioneer unit, including "Build Pasture", "Plant New (and Valuable) Forest", "Plant Vine", "Build Winery", "Build Brewery" etc. Some of them are shown on screens.

Moreover, in the version that I will publish, each European civilization will have one Pioneer as a Free unit. I'll do this for normal players.

In my personal version of "1492: Global Colonization" my Pioneer will have only basic building functions. I don't like "fast" games when I start and finish my game during one - maximum two days. "1492: Global Colonization" mod is a long-playing game.

Ah I see, i didnt realise that 1 turn was 1 month.

 

[KJ Jansson]

This looks like a very interesting mod. Is there any possibility of some influences from "Victoria" or "Europa Universalis"?

Like:

Casu Belli (suffer reputation hit if your diplomacy doesn't give you a legitimate reason for war).

Class consciousness: e.g. Laborers, Farmers, Capitalists, Aristocrats, middle class types, etc...

Militancy and Consciousness to the individual colonists. E.g. like Laborers / Statesmen feel alienated by society, and more likely to have an uprising.
Consciousness being approximately equal to unhappiness in Civ4.

Probably later. At the moment I'm working on "1492: Global Colonization. Resource Pack", which, as its name implies, will be introduced several new resources, such as spices, cocoa, tea, gems and many others. For the production of each of the resources I introduce new units and new professions, for example, Pearl Hunter (pearls = new resource "Gems") or Walrus Hunter (tusks = new resource "Ivory"). New professions can be studied for a long time doing this activity or, if possible, find a native village and educate the specialist among the natives. A number of new resources such as incense or drugs, yet are introduced only as commodities that can be found/harvested/produced and sold.

Here I show couple new improvements for Incense and Drugs production. As I mentioned earlier I "open" all building functions for Pioneer unit, therefore here I use my Pioneer to build both improvements.

Incense Post:







Drugs House:







I hope that the appearance in the game such products ("incense" and "drugs") will improve in the future the crosses generation system (incense) and introduce the concept of "Health" for each city that will be absolutely necessary when various diseases will be introduced in the game.

 

[GoodGame]

Sounds interesting again. I look forward to a more realistic 'health science' tech tree than has been done in past games. If you want any help along those lines, I'd be happy to suggest some techs and improvements.

 

[Stacmon]

The mod really seems to be taking shape and looks great. It seems you are including a lot of new but logical game concepts that most players will be quite pleased with.

Have you created a "civilization" list yet with your expected empires?

I assume many of the large ones will be there and I recall you mentioned Sweden. Have you put together a more or less complete list yet? How many countries do you expect to include and will there be any non-European playable powers?

Any plans to include the Ottomans for example?

 

[KJ Jansson]

Sounds interesting again. I look forward to a more realistic 'health science' tech tree than has been done in past games. If you want any help along those lines, I'd be happy to suggest some techs and improvements.

Thank you, GoodGame. I would be very glad to have any help, however only after publishing "1492: Global Colonization. Resource Pack". And of course, if the ideas in this mod will be interesting for players.

At the moment I'm testing the game balance and stability of "1492: Global Colonization. Resource Pack". Here the screen from my game.

The mod really seems to be taking shape and looks great. It seems you are including a lot of new but logical game concepts that most players will be quite pleased with.

Have you created a "civilization" list yet with your expected empires?

I assume many of the large ones will be there and I recall you mentioned Sweden. Have you put together a more or less complete list yet? How many countries do you expect to include and will there be any non-European playable powers?

Any plans to include the Ottomans for example?

Here two screens with Colonies/Natives



and Leaders that now are present in the mod.

 

[Stacmon]

It looks very promising.

I noticed the Chinese and Ottoman colonies. Do you have any concern that there will be limited competition to colonize particular parts of the world such as South and East Asia, or are you hoping that European players are willing to go far to establish settlements there?

Also, do you plan to take any action that prevents less realistic colonization or will you make anything possible? For example, it makes sense for the Chinese to expand into other parts of Asia, particularly modern day Malaysia and Indonesia, but will there be any obstacles from them to expand into Africa, North America or South America?

Lastly, I noticed the native list currently only includes natives of the Americas. Do you have any plans to create local "natives" for other continents?

One other suggestion, possibly for the longer term since it may not be as much of a priority for you as some of the others, could be the inclusion of the Inuit in North America. Many current maps, exclude the Northern reaches of the continent but your world map is much more comprehensive. With the inclusion of new resources, such as Walrus/Ivory and just to overall improve the variety of natives, this could be a great addition. I'm not sure if an appropriate leaderhead is currently available however (or the unit graphics, you wouldn't want to use generic native graphics for Arctic dwelling people!)

Here is an overview of where the Inuit live:

 

[KJ Jansson]

I noticed the Chinese and Ottoman colonies. Do you have any concern that there will be limited competition to colonize particular parts of the world such as South and East Asia, or are you hoping that European players are willing to go far to establish settlements there?

Also, do you plan to take any action that prevents less realistic colonization or will you make anything possible? For example, it makes sense for the Chinese to expand into other parts of Asia, particularly modern day Malaysia and Indonesia, but will there be any obstacles from them to expand into Africa, North America or South America?

Lastly, I noticed the native list currently only includes natives of the Americas. Do you have any plans to create local "natives" for other continents?

One other suggestion, possibly for the longer term since it may not be as much of a priority for you as some of the others, could be the inclusion of the Inuit in North America. Many current maps, exclude the Northern reaches of the continent but your world map is much more comprehensive. With the inclusion of new resources, such as Walrus/Ivory and just to overall improve the variety of natives, this could be a great addition. I'm not sure if an appropriate leaderhead is currently available however (or the unit graphics, you wouldn't want to use generic native graphics for Arctic dwelling people!)

The development of "1492: Global Colonization" mod is divided by at least two stages:
Stage 1. New resources and new units/professions.
Stage 2. New civilizations (nations) and their specific units.

At the first stage:

The game will take place on the map of the Earth, created by the map generator. The introduction of new civilizations at this stage is not planned. Full list nations and their leaders you can see in my previous post. The location of "European" and native civilizations on such map will be rather chaotic and native American (Maya) could appears for instance in Sahara or in Siberia.

Here for me it's much more important to find on the map all the new resources and see how my mod works. I need here the stable and correct work.

This weekend I played on the world map of about 500 turns, and only about 10 percent of the land territory has been explored by all players.

At the second stage:

The game will take place on a real map of the world, where the location of the nations will meet their real location in the late XV th century. I do not plan to add new "European" civilizations.
However, a number of native civilizations will be added: 2-3 African, 2-3 Asian (incliding 1 for Siberia), 1 for Polynesia and 1 for Australia. Location of each such civilization will strictly correspond with its historic location on the map of the Earth.

Similarly, will be made and resources. They will be located the same place where they actually are: Coffee in Middle East, Cacao in America, Spices in South Asia, etc.

Such distribution of civilizations and resources can only be done on a real Earth map through the scenario.

I suggest to use a single Northern native civilization (for instance "Inuit"), who will settle in the northern latitudes above 70 in North America, North Europe and North Asia.

 

[Stacmon]

Great, that all sounds quite good. Thanks for clarifying.

I also agree with you that a logical approach would be to use the Inuit throughout the North.

 

[KJ Jansson]

"1492: Global Colonization. Resource Pack"

Short description (full text and new game screens will be added later)​

What's new is included in "1492: Global Colonization. Resource Pack":

- a number of new resources (tea, cocoa, precious stones, ivory, precious wood species, pearls and much more)
- a number of new units and new professions for the collection or production of new resources (Pearl Hunter, Incense Collector, Walrus Hunter, etc.)
-a number of new improvements outside the town of the screen (new plantations, mines, quarries, breweries, wineries, etc.)
- and many other things that I will describe in later.

Plus a number of features like:

- treasures cannot discover a map,
- possibility to take some money as credit,
- selling ships in Europe,
- possibility to bypass King's embargo in Europe,
- return from Europe in the required city,
- civilians refuse to destroy goods after the King's embargo to buy/sell,
- original city infrastructure system where no building except Basecamp is available in the beginning,
- each building required wood, tools and some special materials to be constructed,
- modified system of European prices and their changes,
etc. etc....

This release fully or partially incorporated elements from the following mods:

- 2-Plots City Radius,
- Professions Mod: Journeyman 1.3,
- Not Allow Specified Professions per Unit,
- Plantation Economy v0.9 BETA - released june 15 2009,
- some civilizations from Russian America mod,
- Toltecs civilization from Toltecs mod,
- some elements from Triangle Trade mod,
- some elements from Dawn of a New Era mod,
- some elements from Age of Discovery II, ("More Buildings 0.04 addon to AoD2 1.06"),
- Europe Screen Release 5.0 beta 1,
- a number of ideas from Americo's Mod,
- a number of elements and ideas from "Terra Incognita" mod,
- graphic works of King MB, Writing Bull, Fankman aka Terence Hill from German forum.

My special thanks to Kailric, NeverMind, Aymerick, Dale, Dom Pedro II, TC01, koma13, M07, Dazio, Androrc the Orc, Deliverator, Jeckel, King MB, Writing Bull, Fankman aka Terence Hill and many others, whose mods, ideas and suggestions were used to create "1492: Global Colonization. Resource Pack".

Installation:

1. Unpack in \Mods directory.

Sample:

Spoiler :

C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Colonization\Mods.
If Mods directory is absent, please, create it.
Correct location is here: C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Colonization\Mods\1492 Global Colonization.

2. The loading through "Advanced" and "Load a Mod".

This is fully English version. Last official 1.01 patch must be installed to play "1492: Global Colonization. Resource Pack".

Full list of features and new opportunities, and found graphic glitches, will be made later.
Critical bugs that lead to the crash to desktop (CTD) and the inability to complete the game, were caught and corrected. However, sometimes CTD occur, but restart from the save game mode (or auto-saves) allows you to play again. The CTD has almost the same frequency as in normal colonization without mods.

Download here
Size: 176388 KB

Only for modmakers :

Spoiler :

Full set of source codes can be download here
Download here
Size: 16272 KB

Only sourse codes (*.cpp, *.h) can be download here
Download here
Size: 1144 KB

Screenshots​

1. Units



2. Professions



3. Buildings



4. Base terrains



5. Goods and materials



6. Terrain features



7. Resources



8. Improvements



9. Colonies and natives



10. Leaders



11. Europe screen



12. World map



13. City screen

 

[Stacmon]

Great job with all of this. It won't surprise me if there is some interest from other modders to incorporate some of your new resources and unit types into their projects.

Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas)!

 

[Dazio]

Good work KJ ! Congratulations !

 

[Crime Doesn't Pay]

When ever I start a new game with this mod, it says I have no colonists and the king keeps increasing my tax rate.

 

[KJ Jansson]

When ever I start a new game with this mod, it says I have no colonists and the king keeps increasing my tax rate.

Please, try this combination:

Map: Earth31
Size: Huge

All parameters as you like.

"The king keeps increasing my tax rate" effect sometimes happens when you try to play on small size map or on scenario when your ship is accidently located on the land tile.

 

[Gadrel]

I'm having the exact same problem, even using map Earth31 and size HUGE. I've tried altering the number of AI players and other parameters, to no avail.

Edit: Fixed. I had extracted the .rar file directly to my mods folder with the option to create a directory named after the .rar file. Working fine now that I moved everything out of that folder.

 

[KJ Jansson]

Couple first screens from next version of "1492: Global Colonization" mod.

1: Main game screen with "Rectangular map" and "Cross generation indicator".



These changes are based on NeseryozniyVET mod.

2. Modified "JTradeRoutes: An Improved Interface" by Jeckel.



Plus one additional principial change. Now "1492: Global Colonization" is modular. At least both "Professions" and "Custom Civilizations" are included as two modules.