BAT Mod for Mac

[OscarWildebeest]

England/Britain is one of the hardest civs to represent sensibly given the numerous waves of peoples that formed it. However I will make them have Celtic origins in this mod for 5 reasons: 1) The Britons were the first defined civilization (that we know of) on the isle, 2) in my opinion the Britons were quite distinct from the continental Celts, at least as much as the Germans-Vikings or Spain-Portugal, 3) Germanic peoples are already being well represented in Germany, the Vikings, France and later periods of Britain, 4) I have some Welsh ancestry so I'm somewhat biased, and 5) there is extremely little quality Anglo-Saxon unit art available but plenty of Celtic.

Being Welsh myself, I have a vested interest in this bit. The problem is exactly as you define it - here in the UK we're a mixture of native, Roman, Norman, Anglo-Saxon and Danish (and that's not taking account of recent immigration from the former parts of Victoria's Empire). Even the definition of 'Celt' varies according to, well, the mood and agenda of the person using it.

The modern Welsh are descended from the indigenous Britons who mixed with the invading Romans in the first century BC, and who were driven west by the invading Normans in the eleventh century AD. Since then there has been a great deal more mixing with the English (too much, some would say ) so that it's impossible to say who among us today is descended uniquely from those original inhabitants. I know my great-grandmother's family were farming the land several centuries ago, but since she was called Jones it's a bit difficult to separate her family tree from the millions of other Joneses (and 'Jones' is clearly a name of English origin, since there is no J in the Welsh alphabet).

 

[Taneda Santôka]

in my opinion the Britons were quite distinct from the continental Celts, at least as much as the Germans-Vikings or Spain-Portugal

Of course they had their specificities, which grew as time and isolation from the continent grew, much like all the continental Celts had specificities : Belgae weren't Gauls who weren't Cis-Alpines, who weren't Celtiberians nor Galatians nor Etruscans nor any other Celts...
But looking at it from a wide angle, Britons were just Celts, culturally, linguistically and ethnically ; they were part of the Celtic "civilization".
Did you have a look at the link I provided ? It can be of good inspiration for a very unique Britto-roman look, absolutely specific to britain !

 

[Xyth]

Being Welsh myself, I have a vested interest in this bit. The problem is exactly as you define it - here in the UK we're a mixture of native, Roman, Norman, Anglo-Saxon and Danish (and that's not taking account of recent immigration from the former parts of Victoria's Empire). Even the definition of 'Celt' varies according to, well, the mood and agenda of the person using it.

The modern Welsh are descended from the indigenous Britons who mixed with the invading Romans in the first century BC, and who were driven west by the invading Normans in the eleventh century AD. Since then there has been a great deal more mixing with the English (too much, some would say ) so that it's impossible to say who among us today is descended uniquely from those original inhabitants. I know my great-grandmother's family were farming the land several centuries ago, but since she was called Jones it's a bit difficult to separate her family tree from the millions of other Joneses (and 'Jones' is clearly a name of English origin, since there is no J in the Welsh alphabet).

And then you get out to the former colonies where I am (New Zealand) and it starts getting super messy. I'm a born and bred Kiwi, but my mother is Canadian, I have 2 Welsh grandparents, 1 Ukrainian grandparent and 1 Maori grandparent. My girlfriend is also a Kiwi but with Scottish, Irish and Chinese ancestry.

Our poor son is going to have an identity crisis...

 

[Lachlan]

It would be nice if you add effectively Lombards, you could add a few Lombard families... Like Borromeo or Mandelli, three families who has acted a sum of influence in medieval-"rinascimento" north Italia in different ways... I think that Lombard are nothing other than Langobard germanic tribe, and this tribe seems to be from modern Swedish zone...

But i searched on google its difficult to find any info about them... "Pourtant" this was a real existence but writings from this epoch has perhaps mostly disapeared, it's really not nice

"Mandel" in swedish has the sense of "amande" in french and in english "almond" and in roman italian "mandorla"... Showing repetition of "mand" syllabus...

I'm fond of history like you all and its a great please to know about its far past origins, i agree with you Xyth

Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations its not really for me like for you, Xyth...

I love the kind of replayability in Civ 4

What do you think of this? Xyth, sorry if it was uninteresting

For my part i have ascendency in Italia for the most part, three recent branch : in north Italia, in south Italia and French Normandy... But i think at Roger of Sicily who ruled a proto-kingdom of Naples... That is astounding that Vikings had ruled South Italia and Normandy at same time

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Our poor son is going to have an identity crisis...

Well, my two boys are part Jewish and part Catholic. Oi vey Maria, as the joke goes...

 

[Xyth]

Of course they had their specificities, which grew as time and isolation from the continent grew, much like all the continental Celts had specificities : Belgae weren't Gauls who weren't Cis-Alpines, who weren't Celtiberians nor Galatians nor Etruscans nor any other Celts...
But looking at it from a wide angle, Britons were just Celts, culturally, linguistically and ethnically ; they were part of the Celtic "civilization".
Did you have a look at the link I provided ? It can be of good inspiration for a very unique Britto-roman look, absolutely specific to britain !

Yeah point well taken regarding the various denominations of Celts. That link was great, thanks for that. A lot of those units actually look quite similar to some of the units I'm using for Germany. I've also found some units that in my opinion seem to be a good looking mix of Germanic and Celtic elements and I will use these for Britain. The units I have for the Celtic civilization proper are mostly Gallic inspired. I'll stick with this setup for the time being and revisit it later on.

At this stage I have no capability to create or modify unit graphics myself but maybe I someday I will sit down with a tutorial and try figure out Nifskope.

What do you think of this? Xyth, sorry if it was uninteresting )

Oops I missed that post when the thread went to page 8. There were a lot of fascinating kingdoms established around and after the fall of Western Rome, the Lombards, the Franks, the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths and many more. A crazy and fascinating time of history. This is one area that I do feel would be much better handled in a scenario rather than a full-game mod, mostly because Europe, particularly Western Europe, is so well represented already and I'd like to see other parts of the world 'catch up' a bit first. Another Eastern European civ would be good too.

That being said, I do not have any Civs atm that properly represent 'Italy' (as opposed to 'Rome') and that may well be worth addressing at some point, even if only being represented within the Roman civilization itself.



Nearly there on the Beta btw, just need a few days to tidy up loose ends and double check for crashes. I haven't properly started on ships yet so I feel it best to leave them out for the initial release. If all goes well I'll have it uploaded on the weekend.

 

[Xyth]

A quick update: I have the beta ready to go except for one very elusive and persistent early game crash. I'm pretty sure I know why it's happening but to fix it is going to take a long process of elimination, which I'm working on atm. Soon as it's fixed I'll start uploading

 

[Lachlan]

Nice to hear this

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Hit the first real problem: I can't play as Alexander with BAT 2.2 loaded. I have to 'Unload Mod' first, otherwise I get a CTD while the hints screen is still loading. All other leaders (so far) have been unaffected.

[EDIT: It's a Greek problem, I can't play as Pericles either. I managed with him OK in a previous version (2.1, I think).]

 

[Xyth]

Hit the first real problem: I can't play as Alexander with BAT 2.2 loaded. I have to 'Unload Mod' first, otherwise I get a CTD while the hints screen is still loading. All other leaders (so far) have been unaffected.

[EDIT: It's a Greek problem, I can't play as Pericles either. I managed with him OK in a previous version (2.1, I think).]

Eww that was a careless bug in VD. That particular issue would also be causing crashes in the Modern Era in any game that the Greeks were an AI opponent. I've attached the fixed file, it goes in /MAC BAT 2.2/Assets/Modules/Varietas Delectat/XML/UnitArtStyles&CivInfos/

Once I've finished with the latest version of History Rewritten I'll make a proper update of MAC BAT.

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Thanks, Xyth. Amazing how quickly you can turn these things around.

 

[gorf37]

Lol why don't I take the time to read. I just did a full reinstall because the game kept crashing when I tried to play as Pericles...

Perhaps a good addition to the the "known issues" section

 

[Xyth]

Lol why don't I take the time to read. I just did a full reinstall because the game kept crashing when I tried to play as Pericles...

Perhaps a good addition to the the "known issues" section

Done.


Next week I'll put together MAC BAT 2.3. It will contain this fix and BUG 4.3. I was originally going to replace VD with the unit art module I've made myself for History Rewritten but I'm now I'm uncertain. Would like people's opinion on this.

PROS

• HR contains a lot of newer and (IMO) better unit graphics
• HR is more stable and less cpu/memory intensive
• I've made HR myself so I know the xml inside out - much easier to fix issues
• VD xml is messy, poorly organized and has a lot of redundancy
• VD seems to be abandoned, author has not been seen since last year

CONS

• HR does not have unit art for vehicles, air units or motorized ships (and is unlikely to)
• Great People and Generals are not finished yet
• Because HR has new units and civs the two mods are not completely compatible, I'd have to maintain two parallel versions
• May mean that any future changes to BAT become harder to port as doing this would make it more HR Lite than MAC BAT

With Civ5 looming I'd sort of prefer to put all my energy into History Rewritten and leave MAC BAT with one last version (keeping VD) for those that want unchanged gameplay. I would of course still try to fix any reported issues as best I can. Any thoughts on these options?

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Since - in your reply to me above - you've separately issued the fix for the Greek CTD, Xyth, that takes away that advantage of 2.3. I don't know what changes are in BUG 4.3, so I'll take a look now. That doesn't really answer your question, though.

I think the stability/lower CPU demand advantage is a strong one, plus the fact that you're the author of HR which gives us all instant access to the horse's mouth, if I can put it that way. As for future changes, I'm kind of happy with BAT as it is so I wouldn't worry too much about that aspect.

My main concern is compatibility. How difficult would it be for you to maintain the two versions? Seems like it could be a lot of work for no reward beyond the satisfaction of helping the community (for which we are all grateful, but you'd be within your rights to feel that's not enough).

[EDIT: I'd discount my opinion by 50% if I were you, since I haven't tried out HR yet...]

 

[iamliberal]

Xyth, I vote to replace VD with your HR, and/or to make a BAT version that excludes VD altogether. I look forward to your new mod!

 

[Xyth]

Well a new version of BAT was just released today, so that changes things again heh. Most of the changes seem to be ones I've already made to MAC BAT though. I'll have to take a more in depth look to see if there has been any improvements or bugfixes to VD. So I'll leave any decision making until at least next week, see what feedback it gets from Windows users.

Since - in your reply to me above - you've separately issued the fix for the Greek CTD, Xyth, that takes away that advantage of 2.3. I don't know what changes are in BUG 4.3, so I'll take a look now. That doesn't really answer your question, though.

BUG 4.3 is mostly minor and behind-the-scenes tweaks. Some new information/capabilities in the Espionage and Technology screens seem to be the major features.

I think the stability/lower CPU demand advantage is a strong one, plus the fact that you're the author of HR which gives us all instant access to the horse's mouth, if I can put it that way. As for future changes, I'm kind of happy with BAT as it is so I wouldn't worry too much about that aspect.

I can't imagine BAT is going to be getting any/many more features given there's not too much more that can be done without changing gameplay.

My main concern is compatibility. How difficult would it be for you to maintain the two versions? Seems like it could be a lot of work for no reward beyond the satisfaction of helping the community (for which we are all grateful, but you'd be within your rights to feel that's not enough).

Well I wrote HR with modularity in mind so hopefully it shouldn't require too much effort. There will be two problematic areas: firstly, in HR I've split the Native Americans into the Sioux and the Iroquois and they share a number of units. The second and trickier one is that I've removed the Holy Roman Empire and most of their unit art I've used for early France. Everything else should be easily transferable though.

[EDIT: I'd discount my opinion by 50% if I were you, since I haven't tried out HR yet...]

/begin advertising pitch

Well I'm about to put out version 0.2 which introduces all new leader traits. I think I have almost 100 leaders in HR now (across 40 civs), and every one has a unique personality and trait combination. So unlike most mods they're new opponents, not just new graphics and names on the same old foes. Give it a shot when you're tired of the Firaxis leaders! Hope to have it out in the next couple days

/end advertising pitch

 

[iamliberal]

sounds fun!

 

[Lachlan]

Can't wait !

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Give it a shot when you're tired of the Firaxis leaders!

I will; I've only got seven of them left to go.

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Eww that was a careless bug in VD. That particular issue would also be causing crashes in the Modern Era in any game that the Greeks were an AI opponent. I've attached the fixed file, it goes in /MAC BAT 2.2/Assets/Modules/Varietas Delectat/XML/UnitArtStyles&CivInfos/

Once I've finished with the latest version of History Rewritten I'll make a proper update of MAC BAT.

Just wanted to confirm that I can now play the Greeks, thanks to your fix, Xyth.