[BtS] "Mars, Now!"

[The_J]

Hi

I'm going to download the mod and try it out...

Thanks, i hope you enjoy it .

I want to point out a few things that I would consider if I were making a Mars mod, in case it helps..

One of the Viking experiments showed that the Martian soil is rich in oxides, the soil is about 1/3 oxygen. This may turn out to be important in sustaining life support systems on colonies.

You'll see, water and oxygen are already important parts for the colonization (maybe a bit weak at the moment).
But didn't know, that it's 1/3 of the soil . I guess i have to read a bit about the viking missions.

One of the most believable theories as to why Mars has become barren today is that the geologic activity of the planet stopped. When that happened, the magnetic field weakened, at the atmosphere leaked into space. When this would have happened, liquid water would have vaporized and the surface would be bombarded with radiation. If we were to terraform Mars on a large scale, studying Martian geology might help us.

Mars is rich in minerals like titanium.

Didn't know about titanium, only about the iron, which gives the mars the red colour.
For the geology/magnetic filed, i can't see at the moment a good way to implement it into the mod .

the_j,
i see, but still i gotta say buddy, your missing out on some very cool stuff.

I know, i know .

 

[Vortilex]

You know, having a Martian Geologist (someone who's an expert on the geology on Mars --Martologist?) giving advice actually could help. For instance, there might be a way to make it so that titanium, oxygen, and iron are not resources on the map, but they appear as bonuses because of the mixture of the Martian surface. The Magnetic field might come in handy because as Terraformation progresses, the Magnetic storms (surface versions of Aurora Borealis and Aurora Austrailis) would slowly become less intense until they disappear, and sandstorms become less common as Terraformation progresses because the atmosphere becomes more stable. Maybe having 70% of the map become water, and the remaining 30% be split into desert, grassland, plains, etc. like on Earth might work, and then 2% oil, because now to make Mars like Earth will involve telling BP to go make a mess up there

 

[ferr.ox96]

Hello to everyone. I've installed this mod and I love it. I just want to make you know that I can help you translate it to Spanish, of course, if you want to.

 

[The_J]

Welcome to CFC .

Help is sure appreciated, but i have no idea how to organize it .
I've created an utter chaos in my files. I've reorganized the text here a bit, but it's still a big mess.
But in general, that should not really be a problem, because it's relativly simple: If the spanish text doesn't match the english one, then it has to be translated. But there are really big chunks of unchanged vanilla text in there, which can be skipped.

So if you want to help, then your help is welcome .

 

[Vortilex]

That means I won't have to devote as much time to translations in my Civilopedia entries.

Bienvenidos a CFC. Por sea caso, te puedo dar mis artículos del Civilopedia.

 

[dario33]

The J,

Awesome Mod my good man! Thank you for the time and effort it took to bring this to the Civ community!

Having tried out many mods I am now set on proceeding as follows:

Play Mongoose Mod, space race; then play Mars Now, then play Final Frontier Plus!!!!! Going to be one heck of a run and I cant wait!!!!!

Thanks again to all the modders for all their hard work!!

 

[brianshapiro]

You'll see, water and oxygen are already important parts for the colonization (maybe a bit weak at the moment).
But didn't know, that it's 1/3 of the soil . I guess i have to read a bit about the viking missions.

I was looking online somewhere for information about soil composition. The best I've so far is at this page:

http://www.tomatosphere.org/teacher-resources/teachers-guide/grades-8-10/mars-greenhouse.cfm

The Martian "soil" is about 40% SiO2 (silicon dioxide), a fine sand-like material and about 20% Fe2O3 (iron oxide) "dust". This dust is very fine, its texture is similar to that of talcum powder.

The remainder of the Martian soil consists of clays, dust, gravel, pebbles, stones and rocks of both simple and complex minerals similar to those found on Earth.

In SiO2, 2/3 is oxygen, and 2/3 of 40% is 27%. In Fe2O3, 3/5 is oxygen, and 3/5 of 20% is 12%. That adds up to 39% oxygen.

I'll look for some more authoritative source though.

 

[The_J]

I guess the values fit probably.
That goes good together with the high iron amount.
But the 39% may not be that accurate, depending on what you want to say, because the atomic mass is different, the 39% so do not refer to the weight, but to the atomic parts.
But that's still a high percentage.

The J,

Awesome Mod my good man! Thank you for the time and effort it took to bring this to the Civ community!

Thanks man .



And because i'm already posting: A big thanks to Vortilex for his incredible 11 pages of civilopedia text .
I really didn't expect that much, i'm happy about it .

 

[brianshapiro]

J

Your mod isn't working for me. I click on the Mars, Now! icon, Windows 7 goes into basic mode, then a few seconds later goes into Aero and nothing happens.

 

[Vortilex]

Ctrl+Alt+Delete. Then click on Task Manager. Go to the second tab. If it doesn't say CivBeyondtheSword.exe in one of the running applications, then try again. If nothing happens, redownload the mod. If it is listed, wait awhile.

 

[The_J]

Did you install the mod with admin rights?
If not, please reinstall.
Or first check, if the folder is really there, the default path should be C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Civ4\BtS\Mods\marsjetzt-v04

I hope it's not the mysterious "shuts down and doesn't want to restart" bug, which seems to occur randomly on random machines.

 

[empireruler]

Sorry for being abesent for a while. Did you ever figure out what the problem was?

 

[The_J]

No, sorry, i haven't .
I guess it might be, that the special characters in the .fpk file might be the problem, but to test that, i have to repack the file, upload it new, and you have to download it new.

Additionally, i'm still not at my gaming PC (holidays at my parents), but hopefully, i have some time the next (not this) weekend. Depends on how my study course advances :/.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

You said you needed Mac testers for compatibility in your first post. That's impossible because the mod is a self-installing .exe file, and Macs can't open that file type.

 

[The_J]

Ups, i'll have to change that.

There are also 2 zip files in the OP mentioned, i've tested some things with empireruler, but sadly it crashed afterwards.
Didn't have the time yet to look into it (the lab work is taking long, and the weekends are also busy [last time Gamescom, this time seminars]), i have no idea what is causing the problems.
...oh...i see, the last time i did someting was at the beginning of July.... i really feel bad about my support here .
Maybe i should officially change the status to "pausing".

 

[Tssha]

Maybe i should officially change the status to "pausing".

"Halting" tends to be a better word for that.

Anyway, it's just a temporary delay. At least you're not abandoning the project. I've seen too many projects just fall by the wayside. This is just typical "busy life" delay that I've seen all the time. It usually blows over in a few months. Sometimes it takes longer. You'd be the only one qualified to make predictions, of course, but I'd recommend against it unless you're absolutely certain.

 

[Vortilex]

It gives me time to work on my Civilopedia entries, on top of everything else I'm doing

 

[The_J]

"Halting" tends to be a better word for that.

Probably :/.

Anyway, it's just a temporary delay. At least you're not abandoning the project. I've seen too many projects just fall by the wayside. This is just typical "busy life" delay that I've seen all the time. It usually blows over in a few months. Sometimes it takes longer. You'd be the only one qualified to make predictions, of course, but I'd recommend against it unless you're absolutely certain.

My only prediction would be relativly negative, because i'll probably start in a month with my master thesis, so that will not really give me more time.
But at the other hand, i'll then not any more moderate the Civ5 forum, so i'll have at this point more time .

It gives me time to work on my Civilopedia entries, on top of everything else I'm doing

you're not serious, are you?
If yes: .
I have to put the "old" text in, seriously. That's not even much work, i have to do it!

 

[theemaster]

I have played through several games of "Mars, Now!" and I must say of course I like it..

But finally the nice music waned on me.. and played some "5th element" music in the game..

What I wanted to say was..

- I found a *bug* with making the "great wall" I forget the name you call it.. but if your city becomes surrounded completely by water it becomes "ineffective" (probably something from the civ4 base programming)

And I have to agree that the A.I. seems to severely lack city making.. I finally played the radiation map you have once or twice (you said you wanted to know if someone's played it.. I'm sure someone has by now) anyway.. surprisingly I went for a space win and the A.I. did manage by turn 300-400 to actually have take most of the space with cities (not all!) but most.. (on a huge map maybe 20% was left most of it un-radiated )

 

[Vortilex]

Of course I'm serious! I've just not had a lot of time, what with various spontaneous essays in history and music, but I can do both, I even submitted one as a creative writing piece