Acularius' GEM for Caveman2Cosmos

[philipschall]

Yeah, my corrected spawninfos should fix the asian animal spawn.

 

[Sgtslick]

Yes philipscall's spawninfo works well.
Its here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12182528&postcount=416

really, really loving everyone's contributions to GEM, it gets more and more impressive all the time, kinda like C2C.

You really are a happy/positive guy aren't you

 

[Vendayn]

I'm guessing the no preset one has no spawn point for each civ? Well mine sort of does. Each civ I start with, appears...I guess far north in the snow. No matter what civ I choose, it starts in the same spot. That is my favorite one as there are many more choices xD

I assume I put the spawninfos in the correct place (it was only folder that already had it)...unless that did something else

C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Caveman2Cosmos\Assets\XML\Units

Oh well, if it isn't meant to be real spawns...I'll just choose pre-columbion. Doesn't seem nearly as interesting to me though since I like a lot of choices, but ah well.

(edit: Whoops I see, its just units and I put it just in xml folder (edited the above destination to the fixed spot). So it was wrong place to begin with. Oh well...guess its pre-columbion then. Wish the other one worked properly for spawns, unless I can download something to fix it. I would love to play as a civ and leader I'm more interested in.)

(edit: I downloaded the file from 1st post btw. Not sure if in-game one was newer or not, but no difference. And every single civ I make starts right by where Egypt is supposed to start (sort of nearby), up NE of there by a bunch of snow/forest. There is no randomization or anything at all)

 

[hotrodlincoln]

This is a minor nitpick, but is it possible to use some different colors for the civs on this map? The greeks, hittites, persians, uzbeks and koreans all use a shade of blue that is only slightly different. It makes it very difficult to figure out what is going on in central asia and the middle east.

Edit: And the Egyptians, too, use the same kind of light blue.

 

[Vendayn]

How do I see what leader has what traits, outside of going back and forth to the pedia? It showed up briefly somehow (the traits), but I restarted my PC...and now when I highlight over a leader, it is just blank.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Yeah, my corrected spawninfos should fix the asian animal spawn.

Is this on the SVN?

 

[Sgtslick]

Is this on the SVN?

no because it replaces the games' 'core' spawninfos.xml
phillip's is only intended for GEM, thats my understanding at least. So if you want to play on a standard map just re-replace it back with the original (if you get my meaning )

 

[Sgtslick]

How do I see what leader has what traits, outside of going back and forth to the pedia? It showed up briefly somehow (the traits), but I restarted my PC...and now when I highlight over a leader, it is just blank.

The spawninfo's we were talking about is the animal spawns - its a file that determines where animals spawn. So like polar bears don't spawn in deserts for instance The file isn't needed, it just helps prevent certain animals from spawning in the wrong locations, like hydro was describing, asian animals in america.

The thing with the traits is, the map default was set up with 'no positive traits' on startup as well as developing leaders option. I recommend just turning both these options off then you'll have standard functioning traits. However, this doesn't solve your problem of not seeing the traits unfortunately while you setup the game (you will only be able to see your leaders traits when you begin your first turn). So yes, you would have to go back and forth
Oh and since your new, just a friendly reminder to use custom scenario to play the map. Don't go 'play now' or whatever it is, or else you will be stuck with all the defaults - most of which I disagree with. The best way to see which setting you like is to try them, certain settings like multiple production & usable mountains are kinda essential though.

Lastly, I really wouldn't recommend the no-preset version. IMO the pre-columbian is far superior, a lot of work has gone into balancing each civs starting locations etc. Also with the no-preset versions, you are relying on barbarian civs popping up to form new civs. Having only 5 civs or whatever it is on such a HUGE map is just silly imo, but if the barbs become civ's relatively quickly I guess it'd work out ok (still think they'd be behind). Pre-columbian is just the perfect amount of civs / perfect amount of space - so take advantage of it, thats my advice.

 

[Vendayn]

That must explain why I saw indian elephants in north america

I actually gave the pre-columbian map a good try, before I decided to make a new game, to re-copy the newer files over. It is actually really well made. 32 civs is actually quite a lot, and even with 32, it doesn't feel overcrowded at all. Though I think 5-7 civs in the no-preset would be far too little, like you said in your post. That be a really empty, boring game lol.

A lot of work def went to the columbian map So good job on it

 

[Acularius]

Sorry about that, I was playing with that feature and I do recommend it.

Sorry about the little problem it caused though.

Edit:
Generally right now we're in the process of removing/moving/adding civs, to get a balance going on so that the AI actually challenges the player more often than dying stillborn where they started.

 

[Vendayn]

Have you thought about adding the other Native American cultures? Not sure if they would work or not, but personally, they are my favorite to play as.

 

[Acularius]

Have you thought about adding the other Native American cultures? Not sure if they would work or not, but personally, they are my favorite to play as.

In the older versions we had close to 50 civs to choose for the scenario, so we've cut back quite a bit... mostly philip's work (he gets the credit), but the changes are pretty good.
I don't think the AI handles England very well, but due to popular demand it was brought back.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

@Acularius, can you put a link to philipscall's spawninfo file in the first post. You should include the instructions to replace the existing Assetts/XML/Units/CIV4SpawnInfos.XML with it. They should probably compress the standard one first as a back up, copying may not work as it may result in both sets being active in game.

I am not sure how we are going to make these work with any map. The only way I can think would be for each map to contain the latitude and longitude of its top-left and bottom-right corners and have the Spawn system do the math to translate the spawn infos to the map. AIAndy, Koshling or other does this sound doable. It means extra info on the Map definition I assume and all scenarios and maps would need the information added some how.

The other option is a game option set of variables which get set when loading the game and each spawn being duplicated for each map.

 

[Flinx]

Concerning the spawn infos:
i think they should match any earth map, as now per philip's work.

For any non-earth map it's rather pointless if a animal in question spawns a few degrees left/right compared to it's original area on earth.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Concerning the spawn infos:
i think they should match any earth map, as now per philip's work.

It all depends on where the flat map has its edges. There are two standard ones GEM uses the Atlantic while random maps and spawns use the Pacific. However a map that is a European scenario won't have a new World at all.

Even so the latitude and longitude set by Civ BtS says that the top right hand corner has latitude 180 degrees East and longitude 90 degrees North. The Spawn system uses these variables. Which means that the Gem map is 60 degrees off in its longitude.

For any non-earth map it's rather pointless if a animal in question spawns a few degrees left/right compared to it's original area on earth.

That is all we can go on at the moment. The move to biomes may help and if we can identify continents joined/not joined we will be able to do all sorts of stuff.

There is also the problem that resources only have a distance from the equator variable so that they can't be restricted by region at all. I was going to add a post map generation process to random maps to replace kangaroo/deer and bison with the correct region resource

- all northern hemisphere deer stay the same
- any northern hemisphere kangaroo become deer
- any kangaroo/deer in the South American region become llama
- any kangaroo/deer in the African region become antelope
- any deer/bison in the Oceania region become Kangaroo
- any bison in the old world become water buffalo
​

 

[Acularius]

@Acularius, can you put a link to philipscall's spawninfo file in the first post. You should include the instructions to replace the existing Assetts/XML/Units/CIV4SpawnInfos.XML with it. They should probably compress the standard one first as a back up, copying may not work as it may result in both sets being active in game.

I am not sure how we are going to make these work with any map. The only way I can think would be for each map to contain the latitude and longitude of its top-left and bottom-right corners and have the Spawn system do the math to translate the spawn infos to the map. AIAndy, Koshling or other does this sound doable. It means extra info on the Map definition I assume and all scenarios and maps would need the information added some how.

The other option is a game option set of variables which get set when loading the game and each spawn being duplicated for each map.

No need, the spawninfos.xml is in the .rar with the maps... However I will link it for instructions.

Edit: OP updated.

 

[hotrodlincoln]

- any bison in the old world become water buffalo
[/INDENT]

Polish culture requires Bison, so this change would negatively impact that. Europe has the wisent, or old world bison, so bison still belong in Eurasia, even if not strictly the same species as the North American bison present in the mod

 

[tebriz]

First of all I want to thank all those people who have contributed to the development of this awesome map (and of the wonderful mod of course!). This world map has just the right number of civilizations, it doesn't feel neither empty, nor overcrowded. So every civilization has a possibility to a balanced grow.
But still there are few little modification that I suggest. I was testing this map for about 2 weeks. I have played almost 20 start games during these 2 weeks. My main purpose was to see if all civilizations survive in the early game. After playing 400-500 turns on marathon speed (approximative time needed for every civilization to get their first 3 cities) I was checking if all civilizations are still alive. I found out that some civilizations are quite weak in the start, and they get destroyed in the very begging of the game. So here are my concrete suggestions for replacement of leaders:

1. Russia >>> Ivan IV. Without Ivan IV, Huns destroy Russia very often in the early game.

2. Rome >>> Hadrian. Hadrian's protective trait will help to hold against Celts. (Otherwise they get destroyed very often too).

3. Instead of Babylon to put Sumeria with Gilgamesh (without changing starting point). His protective trait helps against Hitties and Persia.

4. Persia >>> Darius. Here the reason is not vulnerability of Persia, but rather to slow down their expansion. Otherwise Persia builds city in the Lower Mesopotamia before Sumeria does and that doesn't look cool at all

5. Aztecs >>> Itzcoatl. Otherwise with their aggressive leader, Aztecs destroy Apache.

6. Yu tribe goes south and replaces Cantonese tribe. Yu can't hold against northern neighbors.

7. Instead of Yu, China tribe with Qin Shi Huang takes place in Central China. Qin Shi's protective trait helps against northern neighbors.

8. Zulu >>> Cetshwayo. Zulus will be a country with one of the biggest (if not biggest) score in the early game even with Cetshwayo. If it is not Cetshawayo, and we have Shaka, Zulus are just unstopable - they can easily settle half of the Africa just from the start and can even start conquering cities from Mali!

For those of you who are interested in this rebalanced map I attach it here. I ship it with my own settings . In bug options I have all main settings ON except Resource Depletion and Ability of the spy to assassinate great person settled in city, I think...
Please note that I have removed all the goody huts from the map. I just don't like playing with random events and goody huts, because I don't like the element of "randomness" . Except that nothing else was changed in this map.
Please enjoy!

 

[tebriz]

I need an advice here please - I want to edit "No preset" version of this map so there will be 1 preset civilization (which will be me) and all other civilizations (i want 24) will be random. So basicly it is still a no-preset map with all civilizations starting in random spots, the only difference will be my civilization which I want to be in in a preset location (in Mesopotamia). I have edited the map in notepad, I put Gilgamesh's info to the Team=0, but when I start custom scenario of this new edited map it doesn't allow me to open new AI players, so I have to start the game with only myself... What do I miss in notepad edit?

 

[Sgtslick]

I think you put the civs in like this
BeginPlayer
Team=0
LeaderType=NONE
CivType=NONE
Color=NONE
ArtStyle=NONE
Handicap=HANDICAP_NOBLE
EndPlayer
BeginPlayer
Team=1
LeaderType=NONE
CivType=NONE
Color=NONE
ArtStyle=NONE
Handicap=HANDICAP_NOBLE
EndPlayer

this will make them random