Alpha testers needed for Steph's mod 2

[Phlegmak]

Dont you ever look in the unit creation thread?

Rarely. .

 

[T.A JONES]

Rarely. .

Thats ok. Im glad you look in the CC thread from time to time otherwise we woundn't have got your expertise playtests skimming the beta run aswell as you have been doing so far. Steph is lucky to have you on the sceane. I notice last time you pick out more then a whole team (when partially contrived of lazy peeps like me )

I hope your not done since Im anxious to see how much more refined this mod will become next round.

thnxs for doing the unfun, nah more like heavy responsabilty parts so that we can all enjoy smooth game later on. It is really apreciated man

 

[Phlegmak]

Thats ok. Im glad you look in the CC thread from time to time otherwise we woundn't have got your expertise playtests skimming the beta run aswell as you have been doing so far. Steph is lucky to have you on the sceane. I notice last time you pick out more then a whole team (when partially contrived of lazy peeps like me )

I hope your not done since Im anxious to see how much more refined this mod will become next round.

thnxs for doing the unfun, nah more like heavy responsabilty parts so that we can all enjoy smooth game later on. It is really apreciated man

No, I haven't given up. I've just been waiting for the next version.

 

[Steph]

It should come out soon, I just have to had the missiles and nukes, and then the American will be "finished".

I may add a few specialist units (scouts, spies, etc) later.

If everything goes well, update will be ready this week end

 

[Phlegmak]

What about buildings?

 

[Steph]

What about buildings?

Buildings? All the buildings are already in.
I have added two small wonders: Military Academy to allow you building armies, and Nuclear Tests to give access to nuke.
The other wonders will be added later.
Unfortunately, working alone on such a large mod is long, I do no enjoy a team as they had for SOE or RAR...
However, I'm ready to delegate the building and wonders to someone else!!

 

[T.A JONES]

I hope you add some more buildings then you had in first mod. That was one of few flaws nothin much to do If I remember right, it got kinda boring watchin my cities Mybe tie them into resouce specific or cool wonders like Iron works. Resource specific is realler cuz it makes uniques city advatages.
I also like new phases of production increase buildings with heavy maintence costs attached to them.

I hope you come up with some more good ones later on.

At least 1 extra forbidden palace wonder and one great wonder that does the same so only one civ can have 4 distance corruption killers, would be cool. Interpol is good name for one or Super Maz jail. Atleast have a prison for a basic improvment. We got a police staion and cout house with no where to send them once processed

 

[Steph]

I added more building in Steph's mod 2, compared to Steph's mod 1.

But for the moment, there are no wonder, save for the Military Academy and Nuclear Testing. I'll add some new ones from time to time.

And at the end, when all the units are in, I'll add a few unit production building.

 

[Phlegmak]

How'd you come up with these cool names, "Steph's Mod 1" or "Steph's Mod 2"? Those names are so imaginative.

 

[Steph]

How'd you come up with these cool names, "Steph's Mod 1" or "Steph's Mod 2"? Those names are so imaginative.

Delusion of grandeur

 

[Steph]

I suggest you visit this page

http://stephane.f.david.free.fr/CivMod/america.htm

Tomorrow, I'll update a zip with a new patch with all the American units

 

[Phlegmak]

Hey, what about the soundtrack? One of the mods I downloaded had its own soundtrack in it. It was a very soft song with raining. It was one of the fantasy mods. Mystara perhaps? I recommend black metal for your mod. Specifically, Satyricon. Well, seriously, I recommend one of these:

* Soft, nonboring European classical music
* I do not recommend Indian classical music, as listening to it is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.
* Music ripped from other video games. Soft, nonboring, and not too much electronic style sounds.
* Sounds of nature, such as raining, beach sounds, birds and wind in a jungle.
* The video game Heroes of Might and Magic 2 has plenty of really good fantasy sounding songs, and most are soft and nonintrusive. Some also have some animal sounds.
* Combined soft music + nature sounds.

 

[Mirc]

Hey, what about the soundtrack? One of the mods I downloaded had its own soundtrack in it. It was a very soft song with raining. It was one of the fantasy mods. Mystara perhaps? I recommend black metal for your mod. Specifically, Satyricon. Well, seriously, I recommend one of these:

HC's mod also had some great music, I remember.

* Soft, nonboring European classical music
* I do not recommend Indian classical music, as listening to it is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.
* Music ripped from other video games. Soft, nonboring, and not too much electronic style sounds.
* Sounds of nature, such as raining, beach sounds, birds and wind in a jungle.
* The video game Heroes of Might and Magic 2 has plenty of really good fantasy sounding songs, and most are soft and nonintrusive. Some also have some animal sounds.
* Combined soft music + nature sounds.

I could help with music. I have pretty much all kinds of music in the world, and I write myself.

 

[Steph]

I don't plan to make music, unless there is a way to select what music you want to play and then, and I never tried that.
Anyone with info on the subject?

 

[Steph]

The update for America will be available soon... It's currently being uploaded to the site. Please wait before downloading it, it seems I have some trouble to stay conencted to upload the 80Mb of the update

So I'd like you to play game as America exclusively for the moment, and tell me how the game works.

I hope you won't run into any problem, but with so many units it's hard to guarantee!

The next civilizations will be, probably in that order:
- France
- UK
- Russia
- Germany
- Japan
- Italy

 

[Steph]

I've spent several hours trying to upload the last update, I don't know why but my internet connection reset quite often, and it starts again from scratch

There is a file now for the update which is ALMOST the same size on my HD...

I'm not sure it works. I'm trying to update once again

 

[Steph]

The update should be (at last) OK for download

 

[Phlegmak]

Did you correct the mistake in the old patch?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5163716&postcount=112

 

[Phlegmak]

Here's my latest round of testing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. There is a directory in the American update file called _Steph_Template. It has no files in it except for subdirectories.

2. Started a game with standard world size, roaming barbarians, continents 70%, normal climate, temperate temperature, 4 billion years old. All random enemies (7 enemies), American civilization, default rules, monarch difficulty. The difficulty only goes up to Deity. So this is using the vanilla difficulties?

3. It worries me tremendously that there are no defensive units whatsoever that can be built. What if this was Sid or Emperor difficulty? I would have 1 happy unit and all others are born unhappy. I have no police units. What if some Militaristic civilization starts near mine? They can build some warrior unit early, send it over to my undefended city, and I lose super early.

4. In the Science advisor screen, Irrigation doesn't have the symbol for the new worker ability Irrigation. I don't know if this matters or if it's correct. I noticed that the Irrigation worker ability is actually in the next era, even though the Irrigation technology says that workers can irrigate.

5. There are no arrows or anything on the science advisor screen making it very hard to determine what is the path needed to get a certain tech. Maybe this doesn't matter much due to simply being able to click on a tech to see what is needed. However, one thing that does make it matter is, from the start, I have no idea what is an early militaristic tech that I can research so I can decide what kind of defensive units I want.

6. On the Science advisor screen, I clicked on the different ages. It crashes when you click on the forwarding moving button (the right button). I clicked on the right button twice. The game crashed. This is the error:
FILE NOT FOUND:
art\civilopedia\icons\units\US_Se5_SM.pcx

So now I have to start over. Also, the ages other than the first are totally screwed up on the science advisor screen.

7. (After restart)
In the description of Steph's mod in the list of scenarios, the description has this character sequence twice: two squares and a carat. I'm guessing these are newlines.

8. I found a goody hut with a Settler unit. What great luck. If it was barbarians, I would have been screwed since I popped the hut with my worker.

9. Many techs that actually have units show up with no image under them in the science advisor screen. Siege Warfare for example. I guess this is normal if the Americans have no units available under that tech.

10. It's hard to tell what techs I need the most. I decided to go with Bronze working (8th) and Mining (23rd).

11. With my sweet free settler, I decided to wander around until I found a food resource, instead of just settling the nearest spot nearby my first city. Actually, now that I think about it, it might be worth it to move around with the first settler instead of building immediately in the spot you start. I found a totally sweet buffalo with my settler guy and built a city adjacent to it.

12. Ok, I have learned the hard way that if you don't need to pop a goody hut, just don't do it. I got 3 barbarians each with an attack of 5 and defense of 3 that popped up. Nice.

13. The barbs didn't approach New York but they annihilated my single warrior.

14. Right when I was about to build a settler in Washington, it got hit by disease from Flood Plains. Good lord that couldn't have sucked worse.

Mexicans started on my island.

15. I got the Bronze Working technology, but I can't build the US_021 # Spearman unit.

16. Popped some more barbs. My warrior actually survived the onslaught.

17. Africans also started on my island. The Mexicans are doing great, and the Africans and me are doing poorly.

18. I don't know how, but I am now able to make the American spearmen.

19. The Andes civilization started on my island too. Judging by numerous Mexican troops walking to my pitiful nation, they intend to declare war. Yep they declared war, and I lost my slave.

20. They destroyed one of my cities. I think I'm doomed. I just saw 8 enemy troops walking to Washington. I do have some spearmen though, against their little warriors.

21. The vast mexican army of warriors killed itself by swarming against Washington. A few turns later, I made peace with the snakes.

22. North Africa started on my island too.

23. The slave Mexico captured from me hasn't moved from his spot in all this time. Don't know why. (He eventually moved many turns later.)

24. Unfortunately, I looked at the civilopedia page for timber. Too many links.

25. On the city display, in the Luxury resource section, the icons are wrong. Incense uses the Civ 3 Spice icon. Gold uses something which I don't recognize.

26. The civilopedia says that shipyards eventually become obsolete. There is no link on the Shipyards civilopedia page that says it ever becomes obsolete. However, why on Earth would I build a Shipyard which costs 500, and it just becomes obsolete later?

27. This unit shows up twice in the list of my units I can build in a coastal city. US_02N + Canoe. I see no difference in the list of units in the build list. I right clicked on each unit, and they show the same civilopedia page. One unit costs 12 resources and the other costs 6.

28. In the diplomacy window, North Africa is called "North Africa". However, I just got a popup window that said "Carthaginians want to talk to you." In that stupid little advisor that's open during diplomacy, it keeps saying Carthaginians.

29. Ok, now I see the difference between the canoes. The one with the + is 6 resources, and the one with the - is 12.

30. In the Espionage window, the Andes show with a giant ?.

I crashed my game on the science screen. That's enough for today.

 

[Steph]

Wouaw !

Thank you for your commitment and your feedack, this is MUCH appreciated. That's people like you who give me the motivation to continue!

I'll give some initial answers, and then I'll double check this evening.

Here's my latest round of testing.
1. There is a directory in the American update file called _Steph_Template. It has no files in it except for subdirectories.

This is just to help me create new updates easily. It has no other use.

So this is using the vanilla difficulties?

Yes. Do you suggest to change it.

3. It worries me tremendously that there are no defensive units whatsoever that can be built. What if this was Sid or Emperor difficulty? I would have 1 happy unit and all others are born unhappy. I have no police units. What if some Militaristic civilization starts near mine? They can build some warrior unit early, send it over to my undefended city, and I lose super early.

Hey, that's why it's the hardest settings of the game! Initialy, I used a barbarian instead of a slave as second unit. But as it was an offensive unit, you could run with it to your nearest neighbour, and attack him with it...
What if I add a new generic defensive only unit as second initial unit, none buildable, so you can just defend your first city to avoir super early defeat.

4. In the Science advisor screen, Irrigation doesn't have the symbol for the new worker ability Irrigation. I don't know if this matters or if it's correct. I noticed that the Irrigation worker ability is actually in the next era, even though the Irrigation technology says that workers can irrigate.

The workers should normaly irrigate in the second era, with agricultural revolution. Where does it say they can irrigate with irrigation? (Irrigation is in fact used to get some resources, like rice, IIRC).

5. There are no arrows or anything on the science advisor screen making it very hard to determine what is the path needed to get a certain tech. Maybe this doesn't matter much due to simply being able to click on a tech to see what is needed. However, one thing that does make it matter is, from the start, I have no idea what is an early militaristic tech that I can research so I can decide what kind of defensive units I want.

a) I honestly don't know how to put arrows with so many techs
b) That's partly wanted. So you need to discover the game. I've always dislike the "The king: hey, let's discover Iron Working , so we can build swordsman and crush the ennemy. What should we discover first?.... The wisemen: What is a sword?"

6. The game crashed. This is the error:
FILE NOT FOUND:
art\civilopedia\icons\units\US_Se5_SM.pcx

Oups.... Will be corrected. I suggest you save regularly, this kind of errors can be corrected without changing the biq.

So now I have to start over. Also, the ages other than the first are totally screwed up on the science advisor screen.

I forgot to change them, I'll do that for the next update, now that the base unit lines are done.

7. (After restart)
In the description of Steph's mod in the list of scenarios, the description has this character sequence twice: two squares and a carat. I'm guessing these are newlines.

Yes they are. We can't put newline in the scenario description??

8. I found a goody hut with a Settler unit. What great luck. If it was barbarians, I would have been screwed since I popped the hut with my worker.

The wise man doesn't put go in the lion's den if he is not well armed .

9. Many techs that actually have units show up with no image under them in the science advisor screen. Siege Warfare for example. I guess this is normal if the Americans have no units available under that tech.

Normal, Americans have few units compared to other civilization in the early game.

10. It's hard to tell what techs I need the most. I decided to go with Bronze working (8th) and Mining (23rd).

The Excel spreadsheet may help a little, as well as the tech tree images. Also, I wanted the game to be a new experience.

11. With my sweet free settler, I decided to wander around until I found a food resource, instead of just settling the nearest spot nearby my first city. Actually, now that I think about it, it might be worth it to move around with the first settler instead of building immediately in the spot you start. I found a totally sweet buffalo with my settler guy and built a city adjacent to it.

That is indeed very wise. Finding a good source of food is very important to develop your cilization.

12. Ok, I have learned the hard way that if you don't need to pop a goody hut, just don't do it. I got 3 barbarians each with an attack of 5 and defense of 3 that popped up. Nice.

Barbarians are a pain in the ass, aren't they? They should keep your military busy for sometime

15. I got the Bronze Working technology, but I can't build the US_021 # Spearman unit.

18. I don't know how, but I am now able to make the American spearmen.

I will check that. But the spearman requires no resources, and Bronze Working... What was your city population? Don't forget you need one population to build most of the military unitS.

20. They destroyed one of my cities. I think I'm doomed. I just saw 8 enemy troops walking to Washington. I do have some spearmen though, against their little warriors.

21. The vast mexican army of warriors killed itself by swarming against Washington. A few turns later, I made peace with the snakes.

Americans are weaker than other civilizations in the early game. But your units are often faster and cheaper, and don't require resources. Build enough of them, try to organize a defense in depth near your border.
Try to appease your angry neighbours in the early game.
And you will get your revenge if you survive till the last two eras.

The mod is designed to give you a "unique" experience with each civilization. You can't play with America as you will with the Italians.

24. Unfortunately, I looked at the civilopedia page for timber. Too many links.

As the website says in big red letters.

Do not look at resources in the civilopedia

Civilization engine cannot handle that many units properly, there's nothing I can do about it.

25. On the city display, in the Luxury resource section, the icons are wrong. Incense uses the Civ 3 Spice icon. Gold uses something which I don't recognize.

I'll check again, I think I have an idea why it doesn't work.

26. The civilopedia says that shipyards eventually become obsolete. There is no link on the Shipyards civilopedia page that says it ever becomes obsolete. However, why on Earth would I build a Shipyard which costs 500, and it just becomes obsolete later?

I'll check. Answer: so you can upgrade your ships and get veteran sea units. However, this is a lot more useful for civilizations with a strong early navy. For America, it is indeed almost useless. You can wait for late game, when you'll have the strongest navy around.

27. This unit shows up twice in the list of my units I can build in a coastal city. US_02N + Canoe. I see no difference in the list of units in the build list. I right clicked on each unit, and they show the same civilopedia page. One unit costs 12 resources and the other costs 6.

29. Ok, now I see the difference between the canoes. The one with the + is 6 resources, and the one with the - is 12.

Well spotted. The - version is supposed to upgrade to the + version, which need resources (ie without resources, you can still build the units but at double cost). However, I made two mistakes: the - version requires timber when it shouldn't, and it doesn't upgrade to the + . Will be corrected.

28. In the diplomacy window, North Africa is called "North Africa". However, I just got a popup window that said "Carthaginians want to talk to you." In that stupid little advisor that's open during diplomacy, it keeps saying Carthaginians.

I'll try to check, see next post for a suggestion

30. In the Espionage window, the Andes show with a giant ?.

I know, I have not been able to correct it. I have no idea why they don't want to display the proper icon.