raystuttgart
Civ4Col Modder
Hi guys,
now that a new year has started I looked back again how this all started.
And thus also history of how WTP became what it is today.
And yes, it is also partially also my history as a modder ... and I admit also an important part of my life.
So please excuse if some stuff is about some anonymous modder called "ray" ...
----
So here we go, this is the story from TAC to WTP as I remember it.
Some may be blurred by almost 14 years of time so please forgive if not all is correct.
I can only tell the story from my own perspective.
Hearing the perspective of others would also be interesting.
----
Early days of 2008, when Civ4Col was released
Puh, many of you may probably not remember but we were utterly dissappointed in Civ4Col Vanilla.
So much potential wasted, so poorly implemented, so many feature of original from 1994 simply forgotten ...
But maybe that was also the reason why we modders started modding ...
And at least Firaxis gave us the source code and all we needed to create our mods.
And today I feel that this is a great game if you use mods.
So still thanks to Firaxis but especially to all the modders and the complete community.
Most of you guys may never have heard of the first modders of Civ4Col modding - but they were true pioneers.
(@Dale , @Netbandit , @koma13, @Kailric , @TC01, @Aymerick, @Ekmek, ...)
They started the first mods and figured out how we others could even do all the stuff we wanted.
They broke the ice so we others could follow in their path.
2008: The days of the first big mod projects, TAC
"Age Of Discovery 2" (by @Dale) was the first big mod that inspired many of us other modders.
It showed us what was possible and thus created ideas, desire and dreams in us others.
Almost in parallel some modders over at the German speaking CivForum started "The Authentic Colonization" and the enthusiasm in this project soon lead to a considerable amount of young modders.
In my eyes "TAC" was a great success.
The team was large, really motivated and skilled and thus also successful and efficient in creating and improving content.
(@Writing Bull, @Stoepsel, @Willi_Tell, @Fankman, @koma13, @melcher kürzer , @Schmiddie ... just to name a few. For the rest: Read WTP credits)
Of course there were many other mod projects around, but I would be writing too much, if I tried to tell their stories as well.
Thus I will continue to focus on the modding history that is related to WTP.
2011: Despair turning into Hope, birth and success of RaR
Sadly at some point TAC team decided to officially end the "TAC main project".
Most other small projects had also already failed - often without ever actually having a proper release.
Some modders however were still motivated and did not want to stop modding Civ4Col.
However, there was no common vision, nothing that could unite the remaining modders under one common project.
There were several smaller offspring project of TAC, e.g. called "TAC Werwolves", "TAC Tortuga", "TAC Iso Mod", "TAC little Venice" ...
As you see there were too many "little TAC modmods" which in my opinion was the cause that none of them could gather enough modders to stay alive for long.
One of those guys - let us call him "ray" - also started a collection of feature prototypes based on ideas already discussed in TAC which could not be implemented before TAC ended.
The project was called: "Ray's Wishlist" and was mainly intended to convince former TAC members to unite again and continue TAC for e.g. one or two more years.
However at first none of the former TAC team members could be convinced to join - although many supported his project.
For some time "ray" feared that his vision of creating the "biggest and best Civ4Col mod ever" would fail.
But "ray" was stubborn and still dreaming to create his "perfect colonization game".
So "ray" turned to modders over at CivFanatics and found cooperation partners.
@KJ_Jannson a great modder and creator of the mod 1492: Global Colonization
@Robert Surcouf also a great modder and creator of the mod Winds and Storms
@Androrc the Orc also a great modder and creator of many mod components (e.g. Domestic Market and LivestockBreeding)
@orlanth also a great modder and creator of Colonization 2071 (which he continued for quite a while)
...
After a few weeks of discussion and vision sharing, RaR was officially founded by the 2 modders "ray" and @Robert Surcouf.
Just a few weeks later almost all the known-modders above also joined in and RaR was suddenly the biggest mod project in town.
Over the course of the next months and years more modders joined the team while some of the first team members left again.
It was a constant coming and leaving for some time. Many talented young modders did not stay for more than a year.
Still RaR was successfully developed for several years and became in fact the biggest and also most popular mod in pure numbers of downloads.
We were going crazy creating new concepts and implementing new features. Creativity had no limits.
Whenever somebody asked about most popular mods for Civ4Col, the most common answer was:
"Try TAC if you want to stay close to original or try RaR if you want lots of new content."
mid 2017/ beginning 2018: Hard times, end of RaR
Now I have to name especially @Schmiddie, @Nightinggale and @devolution . Although they had joined later than the first RaR team members, they were the modders that stayed longest with RaR and also carried it to its last release, after "ray" had also given up modding due to private issues.
(@Schmiddie had joined about half a year after RaR had started still in 2011 if I am correct. @Nightinggale in 2013 if I am correct and @devolution I think in 2017.)
@Schmiddie had taken over RaR-team-organisation in the last years, which must have been hard since all original project member had left. Also as I said, modders like @Nightinggale or @devolution and others were also still part of RaR team and even several RaR modmods like the one of @Commander Bello existed but it was not the same anymore as in the early days.
RaR suffered from the same problems as TAC had suffered from in the last years.
Too many different visions and not enough common goals.
RaR main project officially ended and splintered into submods, like e.g. RaR - Extended.
"ray" had officially left the project and just continued minor support until beginning 2017.
When seeing that RaR had faced the same end as TAC, he felt guilty and disappointment in himself and later lost interest in the project completely.
mid 2018: revival of Civ4Col moding, birth of WTP
But somehow the remaining modders joined forces again and the RaR mod-mods were united under one common project again.
The main reponsibles - "saviours of Civ4Col modding" (first core members of WTP) were @Nightinggale, @devolution and @Schmiddie.
Sorry if I do not write more about this, but I was simply not there and can not tell that part of the story.
I do not really know what happened. (Maybe @Schmiddie , @Nightinggale or @devolution can tell more.)
beginning of 2019: a "lost child of modding" returns home
After almost two years of complete absence (beginning 2017 till end of 2019) "ray" wanted to see if Civ4Col modding community was still alive and to his suprise he found "WTP" still being active.
To be honest "ray" had really not expected this but was really happy to see that the modders still working on the mod were very skilled and experienced.
There was no doubt that WTP was better in technical terms (e.g. stability and performance) than RaR ever was.
And of course also many improvements had been implemented but since the days of RaR only few new features had been added.
To be honest "ray" really wondered if "WTP" could regain the glory of the first years of "RaR".
Would the new "owners" of the mod, the "heirs of the power" want to continue implementing new features once again?
Would those guys even want an old modder to return although he had already abandoned the scene?
For several weeks he asked himself many times if he could join in again. Fear, old frustrations, hope, guilt, obligation ...
In the end "ray" knocked on the door of the new team and said asked "May I join in again? Could you need an old modder like me on board again?" and thankfully the team said "Yes.". "ray" got a second chance.
mid 2019 till beginning of 2022: looking back proudly on many great releases
To be honest, we had rough times as well but also many good times.
Many people joined the team and some left again.
The "core team" even though some of them take breaks sometimes.
(They dedicated so much of their life to the mod that I can not call them anything else.)
(Sorry if I will not name all supporters and contributers here, I will focus on "still active team".)
(Sorry again if I do not name everybody who contribued recently, I will focus on "still active team".)
There were times when the mod team seemed to break apart but then we pulled it together again.
There were times when it seemed that we would never finish a release, but then we did.
There were times when huge features (e.g. "Large Rivers") seemed to never work but then they did.
There were times when motivation suffered due to job problems, health problems or simply lack of time.
But in the end, this is also a story of friendship, hard work and lots of great times as well.
For me this is also story of perseverance, commitment, loyalty, belief and dreams.
For me this is simply part of my life ...
Often our personal tastes differed, often we disagreed and sometimes we did not get what we wanted.
Many features were challenged, many design decisions questioned, many ideas rejected.
But in the end we found consense.
The "vision" slowly but surely shaped itself.
We created several great releases and I still feel they are the best we ever had.
(2.7.4, 2.8, 2.9, 3.0)
January 2022: Today, we are still here!
Well we are still here !
2 great branches in development one of them the biggest we ever had.
This will become the biggest and best expansion I can currently imagine.
Old modders currently need to take a break due to private life.
Things are changing, things are moving on, ... that is life.
As long as there are still dreams, fun and friendship in modding there is nothing to fear.
---------------
Last words:
As long as there are still motivated modders this project will continue.
As long as one of us still finds the motivation at least some others will follow.
But whatever happens I was part of it - and at least in my heart I always will be ...
We created something that we can be proud of - maybe it is lasting, maybe it will not be forgotten ...
Best regards
ray
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
now that a new year has started I looked back again how this all started.
And thus also history of how WTP became what it is today.
And yes, it is also partially also my history as a modder ... and I admit also an important part of my life.
So please excuse if some stuff is about some anonymous modder called "ray" ...
----
So here we go, this is the story from TAC to WTP as I remember it.
Some may be blurred by almost 14 years of time so please forgive if not all is correct.
I can only tell the story from my own perspective.
Hearing the perspective of others would also be interesting.
----
Early days of 2008, when Civ4Col was released
Puh, many of you may probably not remember but we were utterly dissappointed in Civ4Col Vanilla.
So much potential wasted, so poorly implemented, so many feature of original from 1994 simply forgotten ...
But maybe that was also the reason why we modders started modding ...
And at least Firaxis gave us the source code and all we needed to create our mods.
And today I feel that this is a great game if you use mods.
So still thanks to Firaxis but especially to all the modders and the complete community.
Most of you guys may never have heard of the first modders of Civ4Col modding - but they were true pioneers.
(@Dale , @Netbandit , @koma13, @Kailric , @TC01, @Aymerick, @Ekmek, ...)
They started the first mods and figured out how we others could even do all the stuff we wanted.
They broke the ice so we others could follow in their path.
2008: The days of the first big mod projects, TAC
"Age Of Discovery 2" (by @Dale) was the first big mod that inspired many of us other modders.
It showed us what was possible and thus created ideas, desire and dreams in us others.
Almost in parallel some modders over at the German speaking CivForum started "The Authentic Colonization" and the enthusiasm in this project soon lead to a considerable amount of young modders.
In my eyes "TAC" was a great success.
The team was large, really motivated and skilled and thus also successful and efficient in creating and improving content.
(@Writing Bull, @Stoepsel, @Willi_Tell, @Fankman, @koma13, @melcher kürzer , @Schmiddie ... just to name a few. For the rest: Read WTP credits)
Of course there were many other mod projects around, but I would be writing too much, if I tried to tell their stories as well.
Thus I will continue to focus on the modding history that is related to WTP.
2011: Despair turning into Hope, birth and success of RaR
Sadly at some point TAC team decided to officially end the "TAC main project".
Most other small projects had also already failed - often without ever actually having a proper release.
Some modders however were still motivated and did not want to stop modding Civ4Col.
However, there was no common vision, nothing that could unite the remaining modders under one common project.
There were several smaller offspring project of TAC, e.g. called "TAC Werwolves", "TAC Tortuga", "TAC Iso Mod", "TAC little Venice" ...
As you see there were too many "little TAC modmods" which in my opinion was the cause that none of them could gather enough modders to stay alive for long.
One of those guys - let us call him "ray" - also started a collection of feature prototypes based on ideas already discussed in TAC which could not be implemented before TAC ended.
The project was called: "Ray's Wishlist" and was mainly intended to convince former TAC members to unite again and continue TAC for e.g. one or two more years.
However at first none of the former TAC team members could be convinced to join - although many supported his project.
For some time "ray" feared that his vision of creating the "biggest and best Civ4Col mod ever" would fail.
But "ray" was stubborn and still dreaming to create his "perfect colonization game".
So "ray" turned to modders over at CivFanatics and found cooperation partners.
@KJ_Jannson a great modder and creator of the mod 1492: Global Colonization
@Robert Surcouf also a great modder and creator of the mod Winds and Storms
@Androrc the Orc also a great modder and creator of many mod components (e.g. Domestic Market and LivestockBreeding)
@orlanth also a great modder and creator of Colonization 2071 (which he continued for quite a while)
...
After a few weeks of discussion and vision sharing, RaR was officially founded by the 2 modders "ray" and @Robert Surcouf.
Just a few weeks later almost all the known-modders above also joined in and RaR was suddenly the biggest mod project in town.
Over the course of the next months and years more modders joined the team while some of the first team members left again.
It was a constant coming and leaving for some time. Many talented young modders did not stay for more than a year.
Still RaR was successfully developed for several years and became in fact the biggest and also most popular mod in pure numbers of downloads.
We were going crazy creating new concepts and implementing new features. Creativity had no limits.
Whenever somebody asked about most popular mods for Civ4Col, the most common answer was:
"Try TAC if you want to stay close to original or try RaR if you want lots of new content."
mid 2017/ beginning 2018: Hard times, end of RaR
Now I have to name especially @Schmiddie, @Nightinggale and @devolution . Although they had joined later than the first RaR team members, they were the modders that stayed longest with RaR and also carried it to its last release, after "ray" had also given up modding due to private issues.
(@Schmiddie had joined about half a year after RaR had started still in 2011 if I am correct. @Nightinggale in 2013 if I am correct and @devolution I think in 2017.)
@Schmiddie had taken over RaR-team-organisation in the last years, which must have been hard since all original project member had left. Also as I said, modders like @Nightinggale or @devolution and others were also still part of RaR team and even several RaR modmods like the one of @Commander Bello existed but it was not the same anymore as in the early days.
RaR suffered from the same problems as TAC had suffered from in the last years.
Too many different visions and not enough common goals.
RaR main project officially ended and splintered into submods, like e.g. RaR - Extended.
"ray" had officially left the project and just continued minor support until beginning 2017.
When seeing that RaR had faced the same end as TAC, he felt guilty and disappointment in himself and later lost interest in the project completely.
mid 2018: revival of Civ4Col moding, birth of WTP
But somehow the remaining modders joined forces again and the RaR mod-mods were united under one common project again.
The main reponsibles - "saviours of Civ4Col modding" (first core members of WTP) were @Nightinggale, @devolution and @Schmiddie.
Sorry if I do not write more about this, but I was simply not there and can not tell that part of the story.
I do not really know what happened. (Maybe @Schmiddie , @Nightinggale or @devolution can tell more.)
beginning of 2019: a "lost child of modding" returns home
After almost two years of complete absence (beginning 2017 till end of 2019) "ray" wanted to see if Civ4Col modding community was still alive and to his suprise he found "WTP" still being active.
To be honest "ray" had really not expected this but was really happy to see that the modders still working on the mod were very skilled and experienced.
There was no doubt that WTP was better in technical terms (e.g. stability and performance) than RaR ever was.
And of course also many improvements had been implemented but since the days of RaR only few new features had been added.
To be honest "ray" really wondered if "WTP" could regain the glory of the first years of "RaR".
Would the new "owners" of the mod, the "heirs of the power" want to continue implementing new features once again?
Would those guys even want an old modder to return although he had already abandoned the scene?
For several weeks he asked himself many times if he could join in again. Fear, old frustrations, hope, guilt, obligation ...
In the end "ray" knocked on the door of the new team and said asked "May I join in again? Could you need an old modder like me on board again?" and thankfully the team said "Yes.". "ray" got a second chance.
mid 2019 till beginning of 2022: looking back proudly on many great releases
To be honest, we had rough times as well but also many good times.
Many people joined the team and some left again.
The "core team" even though some of them take breaks sometimes.
(They dedicated so much of their life to the mod that I can not call them anything else.)
- @Nightinggale - programmer, technical lead
- @devolution - programmer, AI and pathfinding
- @raystuttgart - programmer, game design
- @Schmiddie - graphical modder, graphical design
(Sorry if I will not name all supporters and contributers here, I will focus on "still active team".)
- @Mr. ZorG our most reliable tester, finding lots and lots of bugs before we release
- @Kendon persistently improving our texts in great quality and huge amounts
- @Raubwuerger creating many great events and also great improvements in UI
- @Ramstormp having contributed lots of great improvements from his modmod
(Sorry again if I do not name everybody who contribued recently, I will focus on "still active team".)
- @FlaviusBelisarius who works on our MapScripts and other difficult implementations
- @Moandor who has helped us a lot with 3D graphics recently
- @jooe who supported us with bugfixinign recently
- @Fürstbischof who improved and translated incredible amounts of texts for the mod
There were times when the mod team seemed to break apart but then we pulled it together again.
There were times when it seemed that we would never finish a release, but then we did.
There were times when huge features (e.g. "Large Rivers") seemed to never work but then they did.
There were times when motivation suffered due to job problems, health problems or simply lack of time.
But in the end, this is also a story of friendship, hard work and lots of great times as well.
For me this is also story of perseverance, commitment, loyalty, belief and dreams.
For me this is simply part of my life ...
Often our personal tastes differed, often we disagreed and sometimes we did not get what we wanted.
Many features were challenged, many design decisions questioned, many ideas rejected.
But in the end we found consense.
The "vision" slowly but surely shaped itself.
We created several great releases and I still feel they are the best we ever had.
(2.7.4, 2.8, 2.9, 3.0)
- Happiness, a great success
- Challenge, a great success
- Large Rivers, a great success
- Lakes, a great success
January 2022: Today, we are still here!
Well we are still here !
2 great branches in development one of them the biggest we ever had.
This will become the biggest and best expansion I can currently imagine.
- Plains ---> It is simply massive ... Lots of new bugfixes, improvements and features
- Yields ---> Our newest baby ... We have not yet shown much of it to community
Old modders currently need to take a break due to private life.
Things are changing, things are moving on, ... that is life.
As long as there are still dreams, fun and friendship in modding there is nothing to fear.
---------------
Last words:
As long as there are still motivated modders this project will continue.
As long as one of us still finds the motivation at least some others will follow.
But whatever happens I was part of it - and at least in my heart I always will be ...
We created something that we can be proud of - maybe it is lasting, maybe it will not be forgotten ...
Best regards
ray
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To everybdoy that contributed and made this mod what it is:
Thank you !
Thank you !
Last edited:
