[BtS] DIPLOMACY: a mod for Diplogames!

[cybrxkhan]

Alright, here's Hiawatha/Pocahontas. He's most similar to Gandhi, but I made him a bit more... "normal", for lack of better word. i.e., even though its a small chance he will declare war. Other things I remember - he will get pretty angry when it comes to war; he is very willing to trade; and he will rebuke you if you push him way too far (note that I said "way too far", not "too far" ).

Anyhow, that'd wrap it up for your playtest. There'll be more after this, of course, but now I'll resume my LH-making for tonight.

Hope the playtest goes well; I'm certain those LH personalities should all be pretty unique, even if I'm just combining various aspects of existing leaders. Particular leaders that I remember of are Pachacuti, who was a backstabbing war-loving @#$%@#$% (even with the same religion, pleased attitude, yadda yadda yadda), Suppi the city-building addict, and the fact that Tamerlane still refuses to trade maps even if you're friendly with him. So far with my own playtesting of some of these LHs, they seem to be reasonably unique.

So, as always, please feel free to tell me if you meet a leader that is a tad bit too interesting (I'm eyeing Cixi, Hiawatha, and Itzcoatl at the moment), and good luck with the playtest!


EDIT: Hey, you've almost reached 200 pages on this thread

 

[The Capo]

Thanks a lot cybrxkhan!

Time to throw this in and begin the long boring process of putting it up.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Awesome!!!

 

[Edgecrusher]

Well this is a pleasent surprise.
8 hours of meetings the last three days has eliminated any time I had to visit the site.

Congrats on getting all the content in.

 

[The Capo]

I decided to do a quick run through the game just to see if there were CTDs or Assert Failures or MAFs or anything like that. And it seems to be working well, there is one Assert Failure that pops up sporadically throughout the game but that doesn't appear to have any effect on anything. So just like the other ones when you play the playtest just click on ignore once each time (I suppose you can hit Ignore Always, but in the interest of playtesting don't do that, in case it does cause an issue so we can diagnose it). I also played it in hopes that Madman would have made that new button/color scheme for Polynesia, but alas, he did not yet.

I am going to start zipping and uploading it. I'll send the playtest to all interested parties. If you haven't asked yet and want to playtest, please PM me as soon as possible. It will take a few hours to get it uploaded so if you want it, I suggest you let me know within that period of time.

Anyway here is a quick overview of the changes that have been made and what will be part of the playtest:

1) I have added one new leader, Jayavarman VII, as well as improved the graphics and quality of over 12 old leaders.

2) I have, thanks to EdgeCrusher and Cybrxkhan, added a multitude of new AI personalities which should make the game more interesting and less repetitive. Which ultimately should increase the replay value of the mod.

3) I have extended Module Pack I to include six new civilizations that can be easily added and removed. Those civs are the Teutonic Order, Hungary, Phoenicia, Nubia, the Huns and the Timurids.

4) I have added the BUG mod, which improves the interface and makes it easier to run your empire. If you are unfamiliar with it, which most people aren't, the BUG mod includes:

• Options to customize the interface to the player's preferences.
• Not just another game clock by TheLopez
• Removes dead civs from score
• Power rating in score by EmperorFool
• Attitude Icons by Porges
• Advanced scoreboard
• Pop-up game messages
• New Civ4Alerts
• Reminders by Eotinb
• Autolooger
• Basic Plot List Enhancements by ruff_hi
• Better espionage screen
• Sevopedia
• Great peson tech preferences
• Custom domestic advisor
• Improved military advisor
• Raw yields
• Specialist stacker

5) I have replaced the title and loading screen, which look much better now.

So there is a good amount of new content in this playtest, although a lot of the BUG features should be relatively familiar to most playtesters. There will probably be one, perhaps two, more playtests after this one. The next one will have much more new content like new wonders, new units (primarily in the future era), new technologies (primarily in the future era) and a few new features and modcomps. We're getting there guys, I want to thank everyone for helping me and I hope to have the playtest out within the next five hours.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Would you mind sending me it, too? I won't be able to playtest it, but I just wanted to nick some of your units, if you don't mind.

 

[The Capo]

Would you mind sending me it, too? I won't be able to playtest it, but I just wanted to nick some of your units, if you don't mind.

Yeah, that isn't a problem for me. But the modules aren't being sent out today. I'll probably send the module pack out to the playtesters on friday. I usually put out the playtest and wait a few days to give detailed instructions just so they get an opportunity to explore it on their own, so the module pack will go out on friday. The majority of the units in the mod are available in the DB (I have a link in my signature), there aren't many that are part of the main mod that aren't (maybe around ten to twenty models or so).

I'm a bit hesitant to send you the module pack because it isn't finished, but since you've helped I will.

 

[cybrxkhan]

^No problem. I just wanted to see if there was any more units I could squeeze out of you.

So I guess I'll send you an email address over PM?

 

[The Capo]

^No problem. I just wanted to see if there was any more units I could squeeze out of you.

So I guess I'll send you an email address over PM?

No no, I'll give you the links when they are ready. It's easier that way.

 

[mamba]

Would you mind sending me it, too? I won't be able to playtest it, but I just wanted to nick some of your units, if you don't mind.

I second that (we discussed this in some thread before)

 

[The Capo]

I could send it to you too mamba, but if you get any of the units (or anything for that matter) optimzed (to make the size smaller) you have to promise me to send them my way so I can try to decrease the size of my mod.

 

[The Capo]

PLAYTEST III HAS BEEN SENT OUT!!!

IIRC MadmanOfALeader had some issues DLing the last one, so if anyone else does please tell me and I'll try to amend it or upload it somewhere else. The quicker you tell me the quicker I can get it handled.

Module Pack I was not sent out with the intitial DL. I will be sending that out to the playtesters on Friday.

Good luck everyone, and please keep me updated on any issues or concerns either here or through PM.

 

[The Capo]

Well, it's time for me to move on to the next bit of work. I think the next thing I'll start doing is adding some of the new wonders. Before I committ to anything I want to put up a list of some things I thought were cool so we can discuss it and streamline it into useful wonders. I don't want to go overboard on this. I basically want this mod to be similar to an expansion pack, with a decent but useful amount of additions. So I was thinking of one wonder per era (ancient, classical, medieval, renaissance, industrial, modern, future), maybe two or three for lacking eras (probably three for the future era). So keep that in mind. The effects should be useful and if anything is missing in stock BtS/Next War those areas should be adressed first. It would also be nice to have some old wonders from old games included as well... so anyway here are some things I thought were noteworthy:

1) The Lost Wonders of Civilization - I thought these were cool because they are relatively easy to put in (they all only use XML) and had pretty decent buildings. Clearly I don't want to include all of them, and for some of the wonders I would want to alter their effects slightly. But these are wonders that were in older versions of civ, and the nostalgic part of me likes that. My favorites from this list would be Leonardo's Workshop, Copernicus' Observatory, Adam Smith's trading company, and Sun Tzu's War Academy.

2) Tsentom1 Python Wonders - Tsentom1 is one of the people who introduced/got me into modding to begin with, so I'd like to integrate at least one of his wonders into this mod if possible. And, just as last time, they don't appear to be difficult to merge into the mod. A lot of these are pretty creative too, and he also has a couple of things that could be a good replacement for the Inquisitors (even though I'd still like to add them, there is I small chance I won't). The ones I really like by Tsentom are Copernicus' Observatory (although I'd like to remove the negative bonus), Leonardo's Workshop, Sydney Opera House, King Richard's Crusade, and the Spanish Inquisition (Project).

3) CERN - I think there is a building for this out there, but I don't remember seeing any specific effects. I would like to include it in the mod because it is modern. It could work something like SETI did in the old games, maybe providing a free tech and giving a bonus to all research laboratories.

4) The Olympic Games (Project) - I am not sure what this would do, but I always thought this should be a wonder in the game.

5) Macchu Picchu - I didn't see a building model for this in the DB, but it was in Tsentom's mod. Basically what it does is act like a Moai statue for Mountains. I think it should be increased to provide +1 production and +1 food to each peak tile. +6 Culture and +2 Great Engineer, or something like that.

I any "future-era" wonders should wait until I expand the future era, just so we know what techs we are working with. I still haven't begun to think about that part yet. So after we figure out which wonders should be added (if any really), the next thing I'll do is start adding in new features. So we can talk about the various features and modcomps we'll want after we decide which wonders should be added.

 

[Stingarov]

My favorites from this list would be Leonardo's Workshop, Copernicus' Observatory, Adam Smith's trading company, and Sun Tzu's War Academy.

I'd die a happy man if those were included. Really. No hyperbole.

 

[MadmanOfALeader]

Here's your Polynesian packs.

 

[The Capo]

Well, that's what is up for discussion. Like I said before, I want one or two wonders per era at the most. For the wonders you've mentioned I'd probably try to go with the following:

Leo's - I would probably use machinery as the tech, even though the wonder should probably be in the renaissance era. maybe it should require Machinery and Paper or something like that.

Copernicus - For this one I'd probably go Astronomy, maybe Optics.

Adam Smith's - I was thinking about this one, economics would make the most sense to me.

Sun Tzu - I am not entirely sure about this one, I want to say Feudalism, but maybe Literature. I don't know. I haven't looked at the XML that Gaius Octavius has made for these yet so maybe he has better ideas.

 

[The Capo]

Here's your Polynesian packs.

Thank you Madman, I love you.

 

[MadmanOfALeader]

Sorry I don't swing that way.

 

[The Capo]

Anyway, did you have a chance to play the mod yet? I want to make sure it worked.

 

[MadmanOfALeader]

When I get home it'll have time to load.