Adding a Sponsor Post-RT: The Wayfinder Initiative

[DefiantMars]

Hello internet, I would like to ask for some help in implementing my sponsor concept, The Wayfinder Initiative. I'm rather content with the theme so it comes down to a matter of implementation.

I've never modded before, but I have poked around the files. So I'd like to ask where should I start? I tried to do this before, but not sure how things work now, given the changes in Rising Tide. If anybody could point me in the right direction, I would be grateful.

Wayfinder Initiative

Head of State: Chief Caretaker Adela Kahananui

Character Trait: Oceanic Heritage - Explorers and Naval Military Units gain +1 Movement / +1 Sight / +1 Sight. Gain Culture from ??? Gain Culture for each tile revealed. May make planet fall at sea if able.

Agreement 1: Materials Exchange - Cities gain Production equal to 50 / 100 / 150% of their Population when Trade Routes complete. [150 + 15 DC/T]

Agreement 2: Aquatic Construction Teams - +15 / 30 / 45% tile improvement speed for aquatic improvements. [25 + 3 DC/T]


History:

Spoiler :

Place of Origin

Much of the world has a misguided view: the ocean is not a gap, rather it is a connection. So speaks one of the Wayfinder Initiatives mantras. Even prior to the Great Mistake, naval trade was growing increasingly difficult. Solar storms would consistently knock out satellite communication rendering GPS useless. Simultaneously, compasses were becoming similarly unreliable due to the reversal of the magnetic field. Dependable navigation was under serious demand, thus a Pan-Pacific organization, the “Wayfinder Guild” was founded. An independent group of navigators and shipwrights that reintegrated traditional pacific nautical technologies and retaught techniques of celestial navigation. However the Earth’s systems undergoing changes due to the Great Mistake, virtually all of the world’s coastal and island cities were at risk. Climatic conditions were shifting resulting in stronger storms and drastically altered rainfall patterns. Rising sea levels were destroying docks and piers. The oceanic connections that the Wayfinders thrived on were under threat, not to mention the wellbeing of their various homelands. It was then decided that it was up to them do something. They began recruiting ecologist, botanists, marine biologists, engineers, anyone willing to help rebuild and protect.

Expanding Connections

Renaming themselves “The Wayfinder Initiative” they based themselves in the Hawaiian Archipelago, then implemented a series of sophisticated aquatic structures: Hydro-Scapes, Manufactory Piers, Buoyant Farms and Gardens, Artificially Engineered Reefs, Pseudo-Levies and Reverse Osmotic Pods. All of these projects allowed the places in which they were built to become predominantly resource independent; not cripplingly reliant on imports for the sake of survival. Shipping in only building materials and goods that could not be produced locally. Trade was still valuable, but now it allowed for specialty goods, luxuries, and culture to be exchanged. The Wayfinders had established a vast series of connections and had become the leading pioneer of artificial land and aquatic city-building. The world had been watching and stood in awe at the large degree of influence and support the Initiative had accrued throughout the entire ocean. The Initiative was given an invitation to join the Commonwealth of the Pacific and while the Commonwealth did indeed work toward restoring the ecology of the Indo-Pacific, it was clear that many of their leaders were in it for the money, not for the actual preservation. Some Wayfinders were drawn to the Commonwealth, but the majority of The Initiative resisted the enormous pull of Polystralia, politely refusing and resumed its work.

A New Voyage

However the Initiative’s aquatic sanctuaries could only do so much to stave off the damage caused by the rapid and catastrophic changes that had occurred in the Earth’s systems. And the world began planning a project: A voyage into the stars. The Wayfinders, heavily steeped in a tradition of exploration and navigation, could not pass up an opportunity like this. Pooling together the sum of their wealth and connections the Wayfinder Initiative managed to secure enough resources to conduct its own expeditions within the Seeding project. Now, they stand at the same point as their ancestors had once stood. The Wayfinders voyage off to new lands filled with promise and they are eager to explore it.

 

[SinisterSamurai]

XML editing is easy, as long as you can read the tables and the table/effect you want is available. If the table/effect is not available, I believe you need either LUA scripting or a new mod DLL. I haven't dabbled in either of the latter, but I don't think new mod DLLs will happen anytime soon.

For the trait you propose, part of it could be done.

Spoiler :

You need to look at the promotion tables and use them as a template to create three scratch promotions that affect sight and movement. Both effects should be easy to find. [You could use existing ones, but that would mean that you civ A) doesn't get an extra benefit from those existing promotion if they satisfy extra conditions in-game, and B) will be less unique as the game progresses and other civs satisfy the requirements for the existing promotions.]

Each rank of the player perk character personality trait (Let's say PLAYERPERK_PERSONALITY_TRAIT_CHARACTER_WFINDER_A) you grant a promotion to the chosen units. This works, and I know because I've got a trait that grants explorers, colonists, and workers the Hover promotion, (there're a couple of benefits, such as easily crossing canyons or ignoring terrain penalties, but mostly I have it for crossing ice tiles to let them go nabbing resource pods/start expeditions/settle/improve tiles in areas that are locked off by polar ice). WFINDER_A1 could grant Wayfinder Promotion 1 (movement), WFINDER_A2 could grant both Wayfinder promotion 1 and promotion 2 (Sight source a), and rank 3 would provide promotions 1, 2, and 3(sight source b). You need all three promotions at each trait rank, as each new rank overrides the previous. If you fail to do this, units created after reaching rank 3 won't have the effects from ranks 1 and 2.

You could theoretically make a single promotion that grants both movement and sight, but I'm not sure you could get it to override/erase a previous promotion, so you're running into a similar problem. If rank 1 granted +1 movement, rank two of the promotion granted +1 movement and +1 sight, and rank three granted +1 movement and +2 sight, then units that were around from rank 1 to rank 3 would have +3 movement and +3 sight, unintentionally being stronger than new units you create.

Gaining culture per tile revealed, I see two problems.

Spoiler :

1st, is a balance issue. If it worked, continental surveyor (and to a lesser extent lifeform scanner) spacecraft would give you a huge starting boost to culture right off the bat which could easily propel you into being a runaway civ. While they are already a good choice for a spacecraft, this would make them practically broken for your civ. If you manage to circumvent that initial boost via LUA scripting, then following your mapped coastline would provide less culture than total fog-of-war exploration.

Spoiler :

2nd issue: I don't think there's any existing effect based of providing a yield for exploration. You'd have to LUA this. That's outside of my comfort zone at the moment, so the only thing I can recommend is to look at the LUA for this mod http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=543208
IIRC, that mod has explorers gain xp for revealing tiles. You might be able to reengineer it to provide global culture instead, but be warned that mod had CTD issues, possibly associated with that script.

For Agreement 1

Spoiler :

Again, I don't think that there's an existing effect for gaining a yield from a trade route completing. I imagine that you want to gain the production boost even when the game auto-renews a trade route, but LUA seems like the way to go here, as well. If you want to XML a trade route bonus, there are existing agreements and perk effects you could look at, but they seem to simply effect the per-turn yield of an active trade route.

For agreement 2,

Spoiler :

I know you can boost movement speed on ocean or coast tiles, and I know you can boost worker improvement speed with XML. I don't know if you can limit an improvement speed boost to a particular terrain or improvement type. You may again be looking at LUA.

 

[DefiantMars]

Thank you very much, SinisterSamurai. I was digging through the Traits table looking for what could work.

The perk ideas I had are more for immersion than anything else. If they're not possible, I'll just change it to the next closest thing.

For the culture, they're supposed to be Wayfinders, Navigators, Explorers, so I want them to have culture from exploration. If not possible, without LUA wizardry, I understand. I just want to reward the "exploration" aspect.

I think I'll just throw production on trade routes, while you have the agreement. Far less complicated.

What would you suggest as an alternative for the Aquatic Construction Crews? I'm not married to the idea, but I was trying to illustrate the "naval construction background" that I had written for the Sponsor.

In any case, thank you so much for your help

 

[Galgus]

Perhaps as an alternate idea they could have a bonus for completing excavations, or a bonus yield on Marvel tiles?

The Workable Mountains mod shows that it is possible to give unworkable tiles yields, I think by cheating and making a new tile type.

That could reward exploration, or if Natural Wonder discovery code from Civ 5 is still in and can still be accessed they could, maybe, get some yield from discovering them.
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Not sure on aquatic construction crews honestly.