Hello everyone. This has been my first attempt at a mod for CivIV. I've been walking around with this idea for quite some time now and a few weeks ago I finally decided to get going. I had to start from scratch cause I'm new to modding, but with all the tutorials and helpful posts I found on these forums I managed to do what I had in mind.
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So what to expect from this modpack:
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0. Instructions
You'll find 2 files attached to this post:
- Final Fantasy XI.zip
This file contains the actual mod. Extract it into the mods folder of Beyond the Sword in your Civilization IV directory tree. On my computer this is: D:\Games\Firaxis Games\Civilization IV\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Final Fantasy XI (you should see a file Final Fantasy XI.ini and an Assets folder directly under the Final Fantasy XI directory).
To load this mod, start the game, go to advanced and select load mod. Final Fantasy XI should be one of the options.
- Vana'Diel.zip
This file contains the worldbuildersave for the Vana'Diel scenario. You should put this file under My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\PublicMaps. To load it you can either double click the file and it should load automatically, either you can start the game, select play scenario and select Vana'Diel from the list. (or you can choose custom scenario where you can edit the options you want to play with).
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1. Description
This mod (for CivIV - BtS) recreates the world of the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI (FFXI) with 18 playable civs (each with their own leaders, unique units and buildings, city names, ...). The religions have been replaced by the names of several avatars (including Ifrit, Carbuncle, Ramuh, ...); The corporations have been replaced by the several guilds (Clothcraft, Smithing, Alchemy, ...).
Included with the mod is a 'Vana'Diel' scenario (this is the name of the world in FFXI) that starts at the beginning of time. Later on, I might include a Vana'Diel scenario that shows the current situation, but that's a project for the future.
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2. Civilizations
There are 18 playable civs: San d'Oria, Bastok, Windurst, Jeuno, Orc, Quadav, Yagudo, Kindred, Aht Urhgan, Mamool Ja, Troll, Lamia, Antica, Sahagin, Tonberry, Gigas, Qiqirn and Fomor. The Barbarians have been replaced by Goblins.
Inside the spoiler, you can find the leaders, unique units and buildings for all 18 civs:
I made sure that all leader traits occur 3-4 times and that the same combination only occurs once. The starting technologies for all civs have been balanced as well, meaning that each of the starting advances occur the same amount of time and that all combinations are unique. Same with the leaders' favourite civics and favourite religions; I tried to make it all as unique as I could.
**********
3. Religions
I chose to make a few changes to the standard religions. Most importantly, the religions (as well as their missionaries and buildings) have been renamed to match the names of the 7 initial avatars in FFXI: Carbuncle, Ifrit, Shiva, Garuda, Titan, Ramuh and Leviathan.
The religions are not founded at the same time as they are in a standard game. The first one is usually Carbuncle, which is coupled to Monotheism. All other 6 are coupled to later advances: Feudalism (Ifrit), Literature (Shiva), Calendar (Garuda), Construction (Titan), Machinery (Ramuh) and Compass (Leviathan). Because Carbuncle is usually founded much earlier than the other religions, its spread rate has been reduced.
Finally, I've changed the bonuses that each religion gives. All give culture bonuses, but some give gold and/or science bonuses to your cities or a combination. This way, you can choose the religion that best suits you if you have the luxury to pick one.
**********
4. Corporations
Similar to the religions, I renamed the corporations to match 7 guilds from FFXI (I excluded Fishing and Cooking): Alchemy, Clothcraft, Bonecraft, Leathercraft, Smithing, Goldsmithing and Woodworking.
Each guild gives different bonuses than the ones given by the standard corporations and the same applies to the resources they consume.
I made sure that the max combination of corporations in the same city is 4, and that it is always possible to have 3 different corporations in a city no matter which one you start with. There's always a possible combination to have at least 3 (maximum 4) different corporations in the same city.
**********
5. Minor changes
For some wonders I edited the requirements so that a civilization has to build a certain amount of one type of building before that wonder becomes available. For example Stonehenge requires 2 monuments to be built in your civ's cities (4 on marathon speed) before it can be built; the Great Wall requires a certain amount of City Walls (which eventually leads to a Great Wall covering a much wider area on the map, which looks much more appealing
), etc etc. Personally I prefer it this way, but feel free to change it back if you don't like it (it's a simple XML edit).
The Eiffel tower has been moved from Radio to Mass Media and certain amounts of Broadcast Towers have been added to the requirements to build Rock'NRoll and Hollywood (I had to move the Eiffel Tower backwards otherwise having all cities with Broadcast Towers because of having the Eiffel Tower would make building these 2 wonders unfair to all other civs who'd have to build each Broadcast Tower separately).
**********
6. Vana'Diel scenario
- I recreated the map of Vana'Diel in a grid of 180x84, with the original FFXI world in the west and the Aht Urhgan expansion in the east.
- To create this map I tried to match the real Vana'Diel zones as well as possible, both in shape, terrain, resources and accessibility. A lot of areas are surrounded by high inaccessible mountains with only a few passages to the neigbouring zones and to the sea; just like it is in the real FFXI game.
- I used the Tundra terrein for several purposes due to lack of alternatives. It serves as: 1) tundra, 2) stollen lava and 3) swamp (usually with flood plains).
- All civilizations start with a settler and a warrior or scout in the location of their FFXI capital city.
- I made sure there are a lot of resources, but they may be unequally distributed (for example a lot of mining resources are present near Bastok, whereas only a few near Windurst).
- I made the Aht Urhgan continent bigger than it's supposed to be for balance issues.
- The Fomor civilization starts east of Aht Urhgan to fill the gap in that area. The area is supposed to be inhabited by Far Eastern people but the FFXI game doesn't really give much more information about that area, so I just put the Fomors there
.
- The Goblins (Barbarians) start with a few cities in place (e.g. Giddeus, Fei'Yin, Boyahda Tree, Rabao, Al'Taieu, Ru'Aun Gardens, Hediva, Lebros Cavern, Leujaoam Sanctum).
- The scenario is set to Marathon speed with the game starting in the year 0 and advancing 1 year per turn (to match the years of the Crystal Era in FFXI).
- Time ends in the year 3000 of the Crystal Era (so after 3000 turns).
- Victory conditions are Domination and Conquest only.
- Game is set to 'no technology brokering' and 'require complete kills'.
(options can be altered if you choose custom scenario)
Like I mentioned earlier, this scenario is set at the beginning of Vana'Diel time and in the future I might add an extra scenario set at the current Vana'Diel time where FFXI starts.
**********
7. Custom art
For this mod, I have created special buttons and flags for all new stuff that I added. However, I didn't include new unit nor building art. Also, the leaderheads are static (but still nice I think). Currently, I'm just using the graphics from already existing in-game special units and buildings from the civilizations that I took out. Some are pretty decent but others are totally not appropriate. Anyway, I tried to match the units and buildings as well as possible with what I had available.
Another thing that would be cool is that all civilizations had their own type of unit graphics matching the appearance of that civilization's warriors, horse("chocobo") riders, archers, airship, etc in FFXI. Anyway, I'm aware that this would be a very big project and I'm not expecting anyone to take up that job. On the other hand, I think the 36 unique units and buildings could use their own graphics so if anyone feels like they can contribute to this, please let me know and I'll send you more information about the units, buildings and possibly leaderheads (to turn them into fully qualified 3D leaders), with screenshots of how they look like in FFXI and maybe some animated gifs to show you 3D animation effects.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
So what to expect from this modpack:
**********
0. Instructions
You'll find 2 files attached to this post:
- Final Fantasy XI.zip
This file contains the actual mod. Extract it into the mods folder of Beyond the Sword in your Civilization IV directory tree. On my computer this is: D:\Games\Firaxis Games\Civilization IV\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Final Fantasy XI (you should see a file Final Fantasy XI.ini and an Assets folder directly under the Final Fantasy XI directory).
To load this mod, start the game, go to advanced and select load mod. Final Fantasy XI should be one of the options.
- Vana'Diel.zip
This file contains the worldbuildersave for the Vana'Diel scenario. You should put this file under My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\PublicMaps. To load it you can either double click the file and it should load automatically, either you can start the game, select play scenario and select Vana'Diel from the list. (or you can choose custom scenario where you can edit the options you want to play with).
**********
1. Description
This mod (for CivIV - BtS) recreates the world of the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI (FFXI) with 18 playable civs (each with their own leaders, unique units and buildings, city names, ...). The religions have been replaced by the names of several avatars (including Ifrit, Carbuncle, Ramuh, ...); The corporations have been replaced by the several guilds (Clothcraft, Smithing, Alchemy, ...).
Included with the mod is a 'Vana'Diel' scenario (this is the name of the world in FFXI) that starts at the beginning of time. Later on, I might include a Vana'Diel scenario that shows the current situation, but that's a project for the future.
**********
2. Civilizations
There are 18 playable civs: San d'Oria, Bastok, Windurst, Jeuno, Orc, Quadav, Yagudo, Kindred, Aht Urhgan, Mamool Ja, Troll, Lamia, Antica, Sahagin, Tonberry, Gigas, Qiqirn and Fomor. The Barbarians have been replaced by Goblins.
Inside the spoiler, you can find the leaders, unique units and buildings for all 18 civs:
Spoiler :
I made sure that all leader traits occur 3-4 times and that the same combination only occurs once. The starting technologies for all civs have been balanced as well, meaning that each of the starting advances occur the same amount of time and that all combinations are unique. Same with the leaders' favourite civics and favourite religions; I tried to make it all as unique as I could.
**********
3. Religions
I chose to make a few changes to the standard religions. Most importantly, the religions (as well as their missionaries and buildings) have been renamed to match the names of the 7 initial avatars in FFXI: Carbuncle, Ifrit, Shiva, Garuda, Titan, Ramuh and Leviathan.
The religions are not founded at the same time as they are in a standard game. The first one is usually Carbuncle, which is coupled to Monotheism. All other 6 are coupled to later advances: Feudalism (Ifrit), Literature (Shiva), Calendar (Garuda), Construction (Titan), Machinery (Ramuh) and Compass (Leviathan). Because Carbuncle is usually founded much earlier than the other religions, its spread rate has been reduced.
Finally, I've changed the bonuses that each religion gives. All give culture bonuses, but some give gold and/or science bonuses to your cities or a combination. This way, you can choose the religion that best suits you if you have the luxury to pick one.
**********
4. Corporations
Similar to the religions, I renamed the corporations to match 7 guilds from FFXI (I excluded Fishing and Cooking): Alchemy, Clothcraft, Bonecraft, Leathercraft, Smithing, Goldsmithing and Woodworking.
Each guild gives different bonuses than the ones given by the standard corporations and the same applies to the resources they consume.
I made sure that the max combination of corporations in the same city is 4, and that it is always possible to have 3 different corporations in a city no matter which one you start with. There's always a possible combination to have at least 3 (maximum 4) different corporations in the same city.
**********
5. Minor changes
For some wonders I edited the requirements so that a civilization has to build a certain amount of one type of building before that wonder becomes available. For example Stonehenge requires 2 monuments to be built in your civ's cities (4 on marathon speed) before it can be built; the Great Wall requires a certain amount of City Walls (which eventually leads to a Great Wall covering a much wider area on the map, which looks much more appealing
), etc etc. Personally I prefer it this way, but feel free to change it back if you don't like it (it's a simple XML edit).The Eiffel tower has been moved from Radio to Mass Media and certain amounts of Broadcast Towers have been added to the requirements to build Rock'NRoll and Hollywood (I had to move the Eiffel Tower backwards otherwise having all cities with Broadcast Towers because of having the Eiffel Tower would make building these 2 wonders unfair to all other civs who'd have to build each Broadcast Tower separately).
**********
6. Vana'Diel scenario
- I recreated the map of Vana'Diel in a grid of 180x84, with the original FFXI world in the west and the Aht Urhgan expansion in the east.
- To create this map I tried to match the real Vana'Diel zones as well as possible, both in shape, terrain, resources and accessibility. A lot of areas are surrounded by high inaccessible mountains with only a few passages to the neigbouring zones and to the sea; just like it is in the real FFXI game.
- I used the Tundra terrein for several purposes due to lack of alternatives. It serves as: 1) tundra, 2) stollen lava and 3) swamp (usually with flood plains).
- All civilizations start with a settler and a warrior or scout in the location of their FFXI capital city.
- I made sure there are a lot of resources, but they may be unequally distributed (for example a lot of mining resources are present near Bastok, whereas only a few near Windurst).
- I made the Aht Urhgan continent bigger than it's supposed to be for balance issues.
- The Fomor civilization starts east of Aht Urhgan to fill the gap in that area. The area is supposed to be inhabited by Far Eastern people but the FFXI game doesn't really give much more information about that area, so I just put the Fomors there
.- The Goblins (Barbarians) start with a few cities in place (e.g. Giddeus, Fei'Yin, Boyahda Tree, Rabao, Al'Taieu, Ru'Aun Gardens, Hediva, Lebros Cavern, Leujaoam Sanctum).
- The scenario is set to Marathon speed with the game starting in the year 0 and advancing 1 year per turn (to match the years of the Crystal Era in FFXI).
- Time ends in the year 3000 of the Crystal Era (so after 3000 turns).
- Victory conditions are Domination and Conquest only.
- Game is set to 'no technology brokering' and 'require complete kills'.
(options can be altered if you choose custom scenario)
Like I mentioned earlier, this scenario is set at the beginning of Vana'Diel time and in the future I might add an extra scenario set at the current Vana'Diel time where FFXI starts.
**********
7. Custom art
For this mod, I have created special buttons and flags for all new stuff that I added. However, I didn't include new unit nor building art. Also, the leaderheads are static (but still nice I think). Currently, I'm just using the graphics from already existing in-game special units and buildings from the civilizations that I took out. Some are pretty decent but others are totally not appropriate. Anyway, I tried to match the units and buildings as well as possible with what I had available.
Another thing that would be cool is that all civilizations had their own type of unit graphics matching the appearance of that civilization's warriors, horse("chocobo") riders, archers, airship, etc in FFXI. Anyway, I'm aware that this would be a very big project and I'm not expecting anyone to take up that job. On the other hand, I think the 36 unique units and buildings could use their own graphics so if anyone feels like they can contribute to this, please let me know and I'll send you more information about the units, buildings and possibly leaderheads (to turn them into fully qualified 3D leaders), with screenshots of how they look like in FFXI and maybe some animated gifs to show you 3D animation effects.
! You have all my encouragements 
