Catan mod

[Forbizzle]

I've done some digging, and it appears that someone tried to start a catan mod but abandoned it after creating a banner image.

Well I'm a bored coder looking for a side project and a chance to brush up on my Python, so I'm going to use this concept to cut my teeth on Civ4 moding. I created a few custom scenarios back in the Civ2 days, but it wasn't much more than image editing back then, so I'm looking forward to some of the new API.

If you've got any constructive suggestions, would like to contribute Civpedia entries or other content feel free to jump in.

Here are my rough thoughts:

Spoiler :

No new models
- there are plenty out there that should fit the bill

Resources collected from developed land around cities
- for non-strict game play maybe look into scaling this with development rather than just randomness

Of course allow users to trade resources

Units are bought from resources
- Settler Units cost same as board game's City, and can only build cities
- Road Building units cost 1 brick 1 wood and are consumed on construction
- possibly give units unlimited travel, or all terrain 0 movement cost to allow for freedom.
- each initial city starts with a general maitenance unit for upgrading land and capitalizing on resources? maybe just makes the land pritier to give a lived in feel.

Restrict Building Cities to certain "node" terrain squares.
- lock these in place during terrain generation, rest of the squares will get generated based on the octagon pattern, or close to it.
- find a way to restrict to nodes connected to roads (have a few ideas but don't want to get ahead of myself on this)

Showing the user the terrain roll values may be unnecessary.
- A simple text report saying "this turn generated 1 wheat in New York for Player1, 2 bricks for Player2 in Athens...." may be enough.

Hijack the space-race concept to create a point-race objective

Barbarians rob
- many ways to implement this AI.

Strip/ignore everything else

Directly porting Catan wouldn't be much use other than a personal project, since it's already been done as a stand-alone game by the professionals. But there are a million ways you could improve upon the games rigid board game standards, and I expect to find some fun variations along the way to create a completely unique and enjoyable game.

Hopefully when I'm through with this I will have at least one rigid mod, and another set of Catan scenarios that lean heavier on Civilization gameplay concepts.

For example, what about resource scaling based on city improvements. Or a hostile takeover of a neighbours resources.

So if you're interested in helping, this thread will serve as development home for me. I'm not going to be burning the midnight oil on this one, but I think the project has a realistically small scale and should be a success. At the very least entertaining.

 

[Zuul]

Good luck

 

[Forbizzle]

I've been working on some scrap booking on this, and it's looking like I'm going to need to setup some new art. Ignore the ocean spaces all over, I'm just using them to space out the proper resource sizes.

Spoiler :

There are some semi-acceptable terrain textures out there, but not enough to match each resource available in the board game. Here are the mappings of textures that seem to look alright:

Ore - tundra + hills + mountain
Forest - Forest (all 3 types can be mixed)
Wheat - Plains + wheat resource + various farm-like improvements
Wool - Grasslands + Sheep resource scattered
Blank Place (robber's home square) - empty water
Brick - ??? no idea

The problem is that the textures are far too identical to provide enough of a visual clue what the zone produces, or they're far too different, in which it becomes a chore for blending. Blending also introduces the use of other terrains.

In short, a world map generator is going to be out of the question, at least for this release. I'm going to use one pre-fab map, for now and tackle some of the code and configuration hurdles. If you think you could help with the map layout let me know, but it might be a bit early since I haven't settled on certain technical aspects that will affect the layout.


Some more technical thoughts:
1. Population will be the victory condition. First to reach 10 population wins. Turn off city growth and lock population down to 1. When upgrading to city add 1 citizen. Special development cards will yield a population point for your capital city. Largest Army / Longest road may not work cleanly since they would require switching the extra point on and off.

2. Lock culture down the 2nd tier, possibly 3rd tier for city. Make sure that culture enforces the "you're too close to build a city" hitbox, so towns can not be built on adjacent nodes.

3. I'm using tundra right now to help indicate the position of the city nodes, but I plan to use oasis since Sid's already using it for Final Fronteir as the only terrain that can be settled.

Anyways, if you feel like helping out or sharing some input I'd appreciate it.

 

[Forbizzle]

I believe I've figured out what to do about brick, I adjusted the color levels on the dessert terrain and it's a bit orange but I think distinctive enough to set it apart from the wheat plains. Still not sure what the best way to indicate the city nodes is. I'm using ice for now so I can keep track of them.

 

[GoodGame]

I like your stylish interpretations of the tiles. Just a thought, will you have tile placement involved? I was thinking a I-go You-go system could be implemented in python to represent the players placing terrain tiles from an exhuastible pool of tiles, to dole out the map. Locations to place tiles would be fixed, and players would just be given a choice of tile to place.

 

[Forbizzle]

I like your stylish interpretations of the tiles. Just a thought, will you have tile placement involved? I was thinking a I-go You-go system could be implemented in python to represent the players placing terrain tiles from an exhuastible pool of tiles, to dole out the map. Locations to place tiles would be fixed, and players would just be given a choice of tile to place.

Thanks. I don't think that user generated worlds will be possible. I'm going to try to sort out a randomizing algorithm at some point to generate different arrangements, but that will be a lot of work so the project is starting with one pre-fab map.


Now if anybody would like to contribute on a small scale, I'm working on arranging the 4 key civilizations. Red, Yellow, Blue and Green(instead of white). I'd like to include as many classical themed Leaderhead options as possible. So if you have suggestions on what leaderheads would fit well as a group, by naming their current civilization and name.


For example:

Blue
America - Lincoln

Red
Russia - Isabella

(Roosevelt and Stalin would be bad because they are modern themed).

 

[Forbizzle]

I've made a bit of progress, and I think I'm about to hit the space where XML and Python are of less use, so I'll be setting up the SDK project soon.

All 4 civilizations are established. Red and Blue are european, Green is greco, and Yellow is asian artwork. All 4 teams have 4 possible Leaderheads. Only thing really to setup for them now are town names, as "Red1" isn't exactly fun.

Settlers can now only build on the node spaces, which are snow terrain... which I've updated into a muddy texture that should be both noticeable and blend well.

Also, I've been versioning my code with Google, so if you'd like to browse what's up before I'm ready to release you can check it out at: http://code.google.com/p/civ4catanbts/

 

[RelativePhysics]

Man, I was just having a conversation with a friend today about doing this exact same thing. I've never modded Civ (or any game for that matter), and so I thought, like you, that it would be a great way to learn. My friends and I play civ and catan quite a bit, now moving toward graduation, we're not looking forward to losing Settlers. I hope this works out well for you.

I will probably start working on mine this May so maybe we can help each other out. I notice you haven't posted in a while, so if you've dropped the project maybe you can pass on what you have?

Thanks, see ya, good luck