Colonel Kraken
Deity
This has been a wish of mine for a very long time, and I know a wish of many of you as well. I could never figure out how to use the existing limitations of the game to have workers make another type of Irrigation or Farms later in the game.
Now, we all know that no more worker actions can be added, but what about modifying an existing one? How would one accomplish this? Please forgive me if some of you veteran mod and scenario makers have already figured this out and/or implemented it in some of your awesome mods that are out there, but I just had to tell you guys what I found because I think it's so cool.
First of all, this would only work in a scenario. You'll see why later.
Secondly, you have to choose an overlay terrain to discard. Marsh? (Don't know if it works for Marsh, yet, but it should) Jungle? Your choice.
Thirdly, you have to do some PCX editing.
How many of you use the Pla(n)t Forest worker action? Hmm . . . didn't see many hands, not even the AI's hand. Thought so. Ok. This function replaces Plant Forest!
Here's how it works:
Take your sacrificed terrain and turn it into Forest. I used Jungle. All Forest stats were moved to Jungle (in the editor). The Jungle terrain pcx (found in grassland forest.pcx) was turned into forest. Forest terrain was turned into Farms (also turn plains forests.pcx into farmland)! You'll also have to modify Tundra Forests. This could prove sticky (as the AI/Player will still be able to plant forest (Farms) on Tundra), but some scenarios might not take advantage of Tundra terrain anyway.
The below picture is grassland forest.pcx. The part that now has Forest terrain used to have Jungle terrain. The Farms are where Forest was.
I also had to change the graphic for the Plant Forest action. I found a hand-dandy one left over from vanilla Civ 3. (On the right the "old" Plant Forest. On the left the "new" Plant Farmland.)
You also need to change the button's description. That's found in the Text folder: "labels.txt". Find the entry for "Pla(n)t Forest" and change it. I changed it to "Pla(n)t Farms" (because I can still use the keyboard shortcut [n] to make farmland!) That'll be the text displayed when rolling the mouse over our new Farmland button.
So, now in the editor, you change the name of Forest terrain to Farmland. Change it's stats. You can modify Food, Shields, and Commerce. Forest will overlay base terrain and "take over" the base terrain stats. That means that Grassland with food 2 will be erased and start over with whatever stat you put in for Farmland (Forest). I chose 6 food (just messing around for now). Then, of course, any bonus resources you feel should stay when planting Farms (Wheat, etc.) will add their bonus. Make sure you select all allowable resources for Farms (Forest).
Change the name of the worker job "Plant Forest" in the editor to "Farm" or whatever and change the "Order" name to "Farm" or however you wish to name it.
Keep in mind that your new farms will not be able to be planted on Hills, Floodplains, etc. because it's hardcoded what terrain can have Forests (at least I think it is). But that's cool anyway. Only good producing farms can be produced on certain types of terrain. So, you'll have Irrigation on some terrain and Farmland on others.
Why do I say you can only use this in a scenario? Well, when a random map is generated, the computer still thinks your cool new farmland is forest terrain. You'll see farms all over the map where forests would be. So, you have to make your own map, removing all the farms, using Jungle to make Forests (Jungle is your new Forest terrain). Voi la. All new map. You won't have any Jungle, but who likes Jungle terrain anyway? Again, not many hands.
Ok, so that's about it. I apologize for stating this in such a way as to assume you already know quite a bit about making scenarios and modifying things. I leave it to the rest of you to work out the details. I haven't tested to see how the AI uses this. Time will tell . . .
Below are a couple of in-game screenshots.
Now, we all know that no more worker actions can be added, but what about modifying an existing one? How would one accomplish this? Please forgive me if some of you veteran mod and scenario makers have already figured this out and/or implemented it in some of your awesome mods that are out there, but I just had to tell you guys what I found because I think it's so cool.
First of all, this would only work in a scenario. You'll see why later.
Secondly, you have to choose an overlay terrain to discard. Marsh? (Don't know if it works for Marsh, yet, but it should) Jungle? Your choice.
Thirdly, you have to do some PCX editing.
How many of you use the Pla(n)t Forest worker action? Hmm . . . didn't see many hands, not even the AI's hand. Thought so. Ok. This function replaces Plant Forest!
Here's how it works:
Take your sacrificed terrain and turn it into Forest. I used Jungle. All Forest stats were moved to Jungle (in the editor). The Jungle terrain pcx (found in grassland forest.pcx) was turned into forest. Forest terrain was turned into Farms (also turn plains forests.pcx into farmland)! You'll also have to modify Tundra Forests. This could prove sticky (as the AI/Player will still be able to plant forest (Farms) on Tundra), but some scenarios might not take advantage of Tundra terrain anyway.
The below picture is grassland forest.pcx. The part that now has Forest terrain used to have Jungle terrain. The Farms are where Forest was.
I also had to change the graphic for the Plant Forest action. I found a hand-dandy one left over from vanilla Civ 3. (On the right the "old" Plant Forest. On the left the "new" Plant Farmland.)
You also need to change the button's description. That's found in the Text folder: "labels.txt". Find the entry for "Pla(n)t Forest" and change it. I changed it to "Pla(n)t Farms" (because I can still use the keyboard shortcut [n] to make farmland!) That'll be the text displayed when rolling the mouse over our new Farmland button.
So, now in the editor, you change the name of Forest terrain to Farmland. Change it's stats. You can modify Food, Shields, and Commerce. Forest will overlay base terrain and "take over" the base terrain stats. That means that Grassland with food 2 will be erased and start over with whatever stat you put in for Farmland (Forest). I chose 6 food (just messing around for now). Then, of course, any bonus resources you feel should stay when planting Farms (Wheat, etc.) will add their bonus. Make sure you select all allowable resources for Farms (Forest).
Change the name of the worker job "Plant Forest" in the editor to "Farm" or whatever and change the "Order" name to "Farm" or however you wish to name it.
Keep in mind that your new farms will not be able to be planted on Hills, Floodplains, etc. because it's hardcoded what terrain can have Forests (at least I think it is). But that's cool anyway. Only good producing farms can be produced on certain types of terrain. So, you'll have Irrigation on some terrain and Farmland on others.
Why do I say you can only use this in a scenario? Well, when a random map is generated, the computer still thinks your cool new farmland is forest terrain. You'll see farms all over the map where forests would be. So, you have to make your own map, removing all the farms, using Jungle to make Forests (Jungle is your new Forest terrain). Voi la. All new map. You won't have any Jungle, but who likes Jungle terrain anyway? Again, not many hands.
Ok, so that's about it. I apologize for stating this in such a way as to assume you already know quite a bit about making scenarios and modifying things. I leave it to the rest of you to work out the details. I haven't tested to see how the AI uses this. Time will tell . . .
Below are a couple of in-game screenshots.
, similar to what I've made in my mod. I've renamed desert/floodplain to wasteland/darkland, and renamed plains to desert. Hm, just realised that I should maybe allow irrigation in desert, and make some nice gfx for that? *goes away thinking hard*
Of course we can use LM Forest as the actual Forest because we're doing this on a scenario map. Ok, cool. I'll have to tinker with this.
