Jeckel
Great Reverend
To all those that played the Barbarian Scenario that came with the Civ4 Warlords Expansion and have missed its fun since you upgraded to Beyond the Sword.
Fear no longer. I have upgraded and updated it to BtS v3.17
Well, when you get down to it, I rewrote all the code from the ground up. I give major props to all the Fraxis team and the work they do, but I must say its almost as if they write some of their scenario code to be as anti multiplayer compatable as possible. I mean their rampent use of gc.getActivePlayer is amazing... anyway rant over. On to buisness.
For those of you that haven't played the Warlords Barbarian Scenario. You don't get any cities, and instead you have a single unit called a Camp. To get units you buy them in a new Horde Advisor Screen (screen shot in the second post). You gain gold by killing units, pillaging tile improvements, and destroying cities. When the scenario began you were given the choice to have the game auto play for something like 60, 100, or 200 turns and then you would acually start playing the game after that was done.
Thats it. Simple concept and hours of fun.
Changes from Warlords Version
I retained everything from the origional Warlords version, but a few things have changed slightly.
When you purchase units in the Horde Advisor Screen they are immediatly created and you are charged for them. However, you can now sell any of your units at any given time.
Your first Galley is no longer free. Instead I have added a Barbarian Galley Unit. It is a National Unit with a max of 1 per Player and it is free.
When you sell the unit you will get gold equal to the price you would have paid for the unit, plus the price you would have paid for any promotions it has, minus a penalty if the unit is not at full health. You will get money for all the units promotions, even if it earned them in combat.
The Warlords version had a list of UnitTypes that the Barb player could build in python. I have removed this static list. What units a Barb can buy is now more similar to what a city could train with a few exceptions: Resource requirements are ignored, Missionaries are available for any Religion that is Founded, Executives are available for all Founded Corporations, and Settler Class Units are not allowed. Beyond those, all other criteria that would apply to a city being able to build a unit applies to the Horde Advisor Screen offering it for sale.
New Functionality Not In Warlords Version
As good as the Warlords Version was, it did have some problems. I think I've addressed most of them in as simple a manner as possible.
First, right off the bat. This mod is 100% MultiPlayer Compatiable!
One of the biggest problems was the cost of supporting an number of units. You manage to destroy your first city and finally start buying a few units and the next thing you know your paying -20+ gold a turn and you haven't even move a unit yet.
To aleviate this I have given the Camp Unit a Cultural Border around its tile, similar to the border around the Starbases in Final Frontier BtS Mod. Units will still cost you when they are in the field, but when they are just standing on the Camp it will be sooo much cheaper.
Since I removed the python coded list that said what units Barbs could build and have based it pretty much just on what Tech the units require, I had to give the Barbs a way to get Techs.
There are acually two ways for Barbs to get Techs.
First, any time a Barb razes a City, the Barb will get a random Tech from a list of Techs. The Techs in that list will be those that are know by the City's Owner and are also able to be researched by the Barb. The max number of random Techs that is given when a city is razed can be set by a GlobalDefinesAlt.xml option.
The second way is a little more passive. A percentage can be set in the GlobalDefinesAlt.xml and when that percentage of NON Barbarian players knows a Tech then all Barbarian players gain knowledge of that Tech.
I have added another GlobalDefinesAlt.xml option that takes an EraType string and will limit how far on that Tech Tree players can research. There is also another GlobalDefinesAlt.xml option that will hide or show Era Disabled Techs on the Tech Advisor Screen.
I also included a modified version of jdog5000's latest MP Compatable AIAutoPlay dll. I renamed a few functions and exposed them to python. I wrote that python interface popups myself, but I kept the same key bindings (CNTL + SHIFT + M and CNTL + SHIFT + X). This is much better then the way the Warlords Version did it. When you auto play, the camp will not move, but all other units will act normally. However, peace will be made with ALL other Players and that peace will be lock in place until the end of the auto play at which time all Barbs will then be put back to permenant war with all non Barbs.
That is the gist of what I've done. All the coding is done except for a few bits of polishing and what I need now is a few players to beta test it for me before I release it to the public.
I'm not looking for people to find bugs, I've stamp most of those out already. What I need is a little game balancing of things like the Camps UnitInfo settings and the mount of gold for things for each difficulty, etc.
If you would like to try this out for me then send me a PM and I'll give you a link and some more specific details on what needs to be balanced.
Fear no longer. I have upgraded and updated it to BtS v3.17
Well, when you get down to it, I rewrote all the code from the ground up. I give major props to all the Fraxis team and the work they do, but I must say its almost as if they write some of their scenario code to be as anti multiplayer compatable as possible. I mean their rampent use of gc.getActivePlayer is amazing... anyway rant over. On to buisness.
For those of you that haven't played the Warlords Barbarian Scenario. You don't get any cities, and instead you have a single unit called a Camp. To get units you buy them in a new Horde Advisor Screen (screen shot in the second post). You gain gold by killing units, pillaging tile improvements, and destroying cities. When the scenario began you were given the choice to have the game auto play for something like 60, 100, or 200 turns and then you would acually start playing the game after that was done.
Thats it. Simple concept and hours of fun.
Changes from Warlords Version
I retained everything from the origional Warlords version, but a few things have changed slightly.
When you purchase units in the Horde Advisor Screen they are immediatly created and you are charged for them. However, you can now sell any of your units at any given time.
Your first Galley is no longer free. Instead I have added a Barbarian Galley Unit. It is a National Unit with a max of 1 per Player and it is free.
When you sell the unit you will get gold equal to the price you would have paid for the unit, plus the price you would have paid for any promotions it has, minus a penalty if the unit is not at full health. You will get money for all the units promotions, even if it earned them in combat.
The Warlords version had a list of UnitTypes that the Barb player could build in python. I have removed this static list. What units a Barb can buy is now more similar to what a city could train with a few exceptions: Resource requirements are ignored, Missionaries are available for any Religion that is Founded, Executives are available for all Founded Corporations, and Settler Class Units are not allowed. Beyond those, all other criteria that would apply to a city being able to build a unit applies to the Horde Advisor Screen offering it for sale.
New Functionality Not In Warlords Version
As good as the Warlords Version was, it did have some problems. I think I've addressed most of them in as simple a manner as possible.
First, right off the bat. This mod is 100% MultiPlayer Compatiable!
One of the biggest problems was the cost of supporting an number of units. You manage to destroy your first city and finally start buying a few units and the next thing you know your paying -20+ gold a turn and you haven't even move a unit yet.
To aleviate this I have given the Camp Unit a Cultural Border around its tile, similar to the border around the Starbases in Final Frontier BtS Mod. Units will still cost you when they are in the field, but when they are just standing on the Camp it will be sooo much cheaper.
Since I removed the python coded list that said what units Barbs could build and have based it pretty much just on what Tech the units require, I had to give the Barbs a way to get Techs.
There are acually two ways for Barbs to get Techs.
First, any time a Barb razes a City, the Barb will get a random Tech from a list of Techs. The Techs in that list will be those that are know by the City's Owner and are also able to be researched by the Barb. The max number of random Techs that is given when a city is razed can be set by a GlobalDefinesAlt.xml option.
The second way is a little more passive. A percentage can be set in the GlobalDefinesAlt.xml and when that percentage of NON Barbarian players knows a Tech then all Barbarian players gain knowledge of that Tech.
I have added another GlobalDefinesAlt.xml option that takes an EraType string and will limit how far on that Tech Tree players can research. There is also another GlobalDefinesAlt.xml option that will hide or show Era Disabled Techs on the Tech Advisor Screen.
I also included a modified version of jdog5000's latest MP Compatable AIAutoPlay dll. I renamed a few functions and exposed them to python. I wrote that python interface popups myself, but I kept the same key bindings (CNTL + SHIFT + M and CNTL + SHIFT + X). This is much better then the way the Warlords Version did it. When you auto play, the camp will not move, but all other units will act normally. However, peace will be made with ALL other Players and that peace will be lock in place until the end of the auto play at which time all Barbs will then be put back to permenant war with all non Barbs.
That is the gist of what I've done. All the coding is done except for a few bits of polishing and what I need now is a few players to beta test it for me before I release it to the public.
I'm not looking for people to find bugs, I've stamp most of those out already. What I need is a little game balancing of things like the Camps UnitInfo settings and the mount of gold for things for each difficulty, etc.
If you would like to try this out for me then send me a PM and I'll give you a link and some more specific details on what needs to be balanced.
)
