Alpha Centauri II

[neutral_leader]

neutral_leader's Alpha Centauri II for BTS 3.17 - Public Release 1
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=H4YGPH16

WARNING: As of right now, it is imperative that your "No Movies" option be enabled in order to avoid unpleasantness.

I know there have been several attempts at porting Alpha Centauri to the Civ4 engine, and this is mine. The closest previous effort was certainly Planetfall, but I felt that it departed too radically from the original AC, and so I took it upon myself to make a more conservative port. I have made some tweaks/additions to Firaxis' release, but only where I felt it was necessary to take full advantage of the new dimensions of gameplay which the Civ4 engine made available (religion, culture, etc.).

There are still a couple areas of the game which I have not addressed. Promotions, for instance, I haven't gotten around to modding yet, and some of the balancing is very rudimentary. I would greatly appreciate feedback on any and all aspects of the mod; it is my first.

I do want to express my gratitude to the entire Planetfall team, on whose work I have based my own. I am sure they will recognize most of what I have as being adapted from them. In particular, thanks to asioasioasio and Woodelf, without whose graphics most of the screen of ACII would be blank. I have, of course, taken bits and pieces (especially graphics) from others, who may or may not have been their creators. If you see anything in my mod that is yours, and would like to be credited, please let me know.

Lastly, a wish list. The following are all items of which this mod stands in need, and which helpful volunteers might provide, listed roughly in order of priority:

custom city art for the Consciousness
sea cities
population caps requiring hab complexes/domes to remove
ideas for more closely modeling social engineering effects and starting boni
kick-ass models for secret projects
figuring out how to change the name of the mod folder without crashing it

Macht Spass, Kinder!

 

[mamba]

Hm, your link refers to a Planetfall.rar is that your ACII ? I assume it is as the content is somewhat different from the installed Planetfall I have on my HD.

Why call it Planetfall though ?

 

[neutral_leader]

As I noted on my to-do list, changing the name of the folder (and hence the mod) from Planetfall causes it to crash. This problem was recognized by the Planetfall team, who had put fixing it in their to-do list. Any suggestions would be appreciated. In the meantime, I'm afraid one will have to sit out on the desktop while the other is being played.

 

[keldath]

wow, great iea, gonna try it now,

i have a little improvment for you,

i highly reccomend you add some screenshots to your thread,
along with a detailed specification on what does the mod contain.




****edit***

well......
im affraid this mod is very much in its beta stage,
many graphics are missing, the tech tree is not orgenized, text missing and low count of graphic unit models,
i would suggest to fix everything, cause its a very incomplete mod,
i really like its idea, it has much potential, but you gotta fix all of the stuff i mentioned...
to be truthfull, i dont see many people wanting to test/play this, cause as i said, its incomplete,

i hope you take this as an honest review and chritisim on the good side,
cuase i really want to have an alpha centaury mod like this,
as i said, much potencial.

goodluck mate!

 

[Maniac]

Downloading now.

People not being able to just rename the Planetfall folder to something else without crashes, is not a bug, but a consequence of using a custom Resource folder.

To rename your mod folder but continue using the Resource folder included with Planetfall, you should change a few references:

DEFAULT_THEME_NAME in Civ4ArtDefines_Misc.xml

And the references to Planetfall in Civ4.thm file in the Resource folder.

I *think* that's it.

 

[neutral_leader]

The disorganized tech tree I am aware of; it's on the to-do list for when I have a little free time. Please do let me know where you have missing art or text strings, I have gotten rid of virtually all of them on my machine from my play testing. Occasionally, however, different graphics settings on other computers cause some display issues. Thanks for giving it a shot.

 

[keldath]

heya,

heres some more advice,
what i do prior to my mods releases, i go to the civilopeida, and go through absoulotly everything, it takes time,
but it sure do save you some nasty art bugs, through there you can track test errors aswell as the unit arts.

so,
about the units, there are plenty models you can use for the mod, and another thing,
for start, i might suggest taking pout all the current civs, only living say like 14 civs for now, cause alpha centaury did not include that many, this will allow you to focus on those, make each with its own uu and ub,

and another good thing that everymodder must use,
i strongly reccomend adding autoai play mod,

this is the best way to see if your mod is stable and crash free,
you choose 1000 turnss let the game run and see if you get a crash,

so,
as i said, theres much potencial in this mod, i would be really happy to see it grow to be a great mod,
i hope you wont abandon this project cause many new mods gets abandoned...

so,
if you need some help with stuff, dont hesitate to pm me

oh you can use alot of stuff from the song of the mood mod....

 

[Bandobras Took]

The closest previous effort was certainly Planetfall, but I felt that it departed too radically from the original AC

I find that I fall into this camp, as well. With all due respect to Maniac's work, I guess I'm an old fart. Will give it a try.

 

[Kranden]

I'm going to try this because Planetfall is not working in 3.17 yet and I still haven't been able to play it ;p


BTW I found a somtimes if you attack domed cities with it crashes the game bAM!

 

[Kranden]

Captains Log 2116. Alpha Centuri is more unstable than we thought. Random crashing when our armies attack others and Diplomacy does not seem to work as it too crashes the game.

SOS!

well my game corrupted to a point where it just would crash no matter what. Fun till then tho

 

[neutral_leader]

Hmm... I haven't playtested combat all that heavily, so I will have to look into it a bit more. The diplomacy issues have me a little stumped, I never had any trouble with them on my machine. Perhaps it has to do with the graphics settings for leaderheads...

Thanks for the feedback; I'll see what I can do.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Hi neutral_leader,

I have tried your mod as well...I also think Planetfall is a great piece of work, but I don't like some changes it does compared to orginal SMAC - so this is the kind of conversion I searched for. Moreover, it is nice that your mod works already with 3.17.


Here is what I have found (not a full game, just playing a bit around):

1. The main menu graphic appears totally distorted for me (see pic at the end)

2. The "Glowmites" landmark has several issues
a) graphically it appears just as a red globe on the map
b) after the "+2 Food with...", a TXT_KEY_HARVESTING_IMPROVEMENT appears
c) in the history section of its entry, it has just TXT_KEY_BONUS_GLOWMITES-PEDIA

3. Regarding Civics:
a) The SE category of "Growth" in SMAC is here transformed into +/- of Great Person Birth rate - shouldn't it rather effect
food production to give an effect like in SMAC? Also e.g. Planned Economy giving more GPs seems to be just a weird effect
b) Is the effect of "+2 units" for Police State meant per base? The description just says +2 units; if possible, perhaps add that is per base
c) the Cybernetic and Thought Control ones have no icon in the circle, if you hoover them on the civic screen

4. I spotted two wonders with TXT_KEYs in the Pedia:
- one has TXT_KEY_BUILDING_CENTAURI_PRESERVE
- the other TXT_KEY_BUILDING_ECHELON_MIRROR


I will post more, when I have played a full game.

Keep up your good work!

 

[Dale]

and another good thing that everymodder must use,
i strongly reccomend adding autoai play mod,

this is the best way to see if your mod is stable and crash free,
you choose 1000 turnss let the game run and see if you get a crash,

DEFINITELY! This is the number 1 thing I add. It can play 100 full games in the time it takes you to do 5.

 

[Jeckel]

and another good thing that everymodder must use,
i strongly reccomend adding autoai play mod,

this is the best way to see if your mod is stable and crash free,
you choose 1000 turnss let the game run and see if you get a crash

DEFINITELY! This is the number 1 thing I add. It can play 100 full games in the time it takes you to do 5.

Ain't that the truth. CTRL + SHIFT + X, 1000 turns, and some XBox, nothing like a night of mod testing.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Some more observations after playing a couple of turns:

- Some results of opening capsulae are weird or don't seem to work (you can get aquaformers on land, which don't appear of course; mineral ressources do not appear)
- Is it intended that you cannot enter tiles with Peaks?
- PSI combat is missing, but worse is the fact that not even common modifiers for it are in place (land attack bonus is crucial to survive in the beginning, while you should be in disadvanatge when being under attack from mind worms on a fungus tile)
- you can't built farms on rocky terrain like in old SMAC, but this does not seem to apply to tile with nutrient ressources...intended? Connected to this, a "level" command would be very useful
- out of the three "religions", the Planetary Energy Grid is the only for which the founder does not receive a Great Person
- the Merchant Exchnage gives you flat +20 energy for the base you construct it...it was +1 tile in SMAC - so it maxes out at +20, but only if you work all tiles of that base...+20 flat might be overpowered for such an early secret project
- effect of recycling tanks is completely different to SMAC (though that is probably necessary as long as Civ4's city maintainance model is unmodified in)
- generated food in abse is diplayed with the nutrient symbol, but food consumption still with Civ4s bread slice

 

[Patch61]

Stupid question.... how do I load this??

Nevermind... put it in wrong place. Duh