Civ4 Modding Suggestions

WildWeazel

WildWeazel

Going Dutch
Joined
Jul 14, 2003
Messages
7,475
Location
/mnt/games/Civ3/Conquests/Scenarios
If you have a suggestion for modding Civ4, post it here.
Note that I am not asking for requests for specific themed mods, but general changes for the game as a whole.

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Current Suggestions:
-Billboard unit conversions
-Hide overlays under units
-Decrease unit sizes
-Real-world flags
-Enlarge wonders
-Civ/Culture-specific city graphics
-Increase wonder effects
-Alter civ attributes
-Enhance UUs
-Expand later ages
-Hide units fortified in city
-A few more buildings and units
-Edit Civil War model
-Expand Civics system
-Add new civs
-Expand/Tweak tech tree
-More city improvements
-More resources
-UUs for each era
-Attack w/o automatic war
-Edit border policies and effects
-Show all tech tree dependencies
-Make resources prereqs for techs
-Intermediate border policy
-Less tropical terrain
-Extend game past 2050
-Random but realistic natural disasters
-"Plug-and-Play" modpacks
-Civil wars/secessions
-Limited naval deployment
-New terrain types- swamp, glacier, etc
-Civ-specific air force and navy
-Building graphics dependent on era built
-nuclear bombs (before missiles)
-terror-related espionage missions
-change the way nukes work
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Billboard units- this could be a massive undertaking if people are interested. The idea of converting high-quality Civ3 Flics into 2-sided "paper doll" units for Civ4 has been discussed before. IMO it's a great way to make placeholder units for mods and scenarios. I'm not familiar enough with the type of 3D animations the game will require, to know how difficult this will actually be.

Hide or truncate tile overlays when a unit is on the tile- no windmills growing through tanks. (I caught that on one of the new IGN screenies)

Decrease unit size- I have a feeling it will be fairly easy to decrease the display size of all units on the map just through scripting. I don't want them scaled to the terrain, just down 25-30%

Civ flags- I've heard some complaints already. Changing them to real-world flags should be easy.

Wonder graphics- complaints that they are too small. Again, scaling shouldn't be a problem.
 
New city graphics. ;)

In the screenshots, the architecture for every civ is the same. :crazyeye:
 
Weasel Op said:
Increase wonder effects. They aren't worth the massive cost.
Change/tweak/replace UU's. They should own.
Click to expand...
Amen, brother.

Besides the scenario idea I mentioned in an earlier thread, for a mod I would like to really deepen the Industrial and Modern ages of the game. The unit list will get some needed meat in its diet as well.
 
Weasel Op said:
Billboard units- this could be a massive undertaking if people are interested. The idea of converting high-quality Civ3 Flics into 2-sided "paper doll" units for Civ4 has been discussed before. IMO it's a great way to make placeholder units for mods and scenarios. I'm not familiar enough with the type of 3D animations the game will require, to know how difficult this will actually be.
Click to expand...
As this is more in the realm of graphics and engine work I would be surprised if this sort of thing was even possible, given that we know the engine will not be released, only the game and AI code.
 
Vael said:
As this is more in the realm of graphics and engine work I would be surprised if this sort of thing was even possible, given that we know the engine will not be released, only the game and AI code.
Click to expand...
From what I understand, it's just a way of building units. The Flic is placed on a "billboard" or vertical panel as an animated texture, and the the background color is made transparent.
 
Actually, I don't think the Wonder effects are too bad-they open up a host of options for the Player who builds them WITHOUT being a Gamebreaker for those who miss out-but that is just my opinion.
My ideas for mods are:
More Improvements, Units and Wonders-not TOO many, but perhaps enough to make it 100 in each category (too many more than that would simply be 'more of the same').
Civil War-a model for secession in very large AND very unhappy civs-especially when they change their civics options or change their diplomatic states.
Expanded civics system-they have gotten us off to a VERY GOOD start, IMO, but I think there is room to boost the number of categories, the number of choices per category, and to play around with the gameplay effects a bit. See my 'Broader Civics' thread in the Ideas and Suggestions forum for more info.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
I'd like to see a mythology mod

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Wouldn't this be interesting? Instead of having civ political and historical correct, it could be filled up with myths, legends, miracles, saints, heroes, demons, dragons, dwarves, giants, gods in a timeperiod 1000BC to 1300AD. Christian, Norse, Egyptian, Greece/Roman, Chinese/Oriental, Hindu, Shamanic, African cultures-legends-myths-religions could be the civs.

Anyone wants to make it for me? I've just read some swedish/norse legends on wikipedia and it's really interesting with all the different myths and legends in the world. It would be exciting to play such a mod with fewer realworld boundaries than civ4 and learn about other cultures....

I have no intention of making this mod, just thought I'd make a wish . Perhaps someone's already thinking of making a mod like this?!

edit: copied to where this belong
 
Animated billboards are fairly easy to implement in Gamebryo.
 
I want ISRAEL

with soloman Religios and organized and Golda Meir religios and scientific.

merkava tank( replaces modern armor) or Macabean swordsman (replaces Swordsman, good against elephants).

Israeli flag, banner, and light blue, color.
 
Much more techs.
For quite some of them a redefinition of their location on the time bar and their prerequisites.
Maybe UU's for each era (I know, eras aren't officially in)
More city improvements.
Saltpeter as a prerequisite for gunpowder units and chemistry.
More resources.
Most probably redefinition of the naval movement stats.
BIGGER maps => different movement costs and speed stats.
 
What if attacking a unit didn't necessarily cause war? A single incident would just lower the diplomatic attitude, and it would be up to the leader whether to declare war or not. It would be more realistic and allow more minor incidents without sparking all-out war. Attacking a city, or multiple attacks on the same turn could automatically cause war.

Similarly, the borders could be modded so that even closed borders were passable, but crossing them en masse causes war.
 
Oh, OK-more suggestions from me:

Make resources a prerequisite for certain techs (for instance, Copper for Bronze Working, Horses for Horseback Riding, Iron for Iron Working).
Have 3 levels of borders-Closed, Normal and Open. Closed keeps out ALL units. Normal keeps out all but 'invisible units' (spies, missionaries, Spec Ops). Open Borders lets anyone and everyone through (but also boosts trade routes value).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
improve water surface graphics: much darker water, some white crestwaves if possible. water looks too carribean summer vacation style

better coastal graphics: less carribean-style white beaches, more rocks and cliffs! invading england is too easy without the steep cliffs of dover...;)
 
- Expand game past 2050 (including the 2050 victory condition if possible) with tech tree enhancements to match (cmon sci-fi fans this is ur time to shine, rock that imagination). I want to be able to play for weeks on end and not run out of new units, improvements, or wonders to build.

- Big Undertaking: Natural Disasters. Earthquakes, Hurrincanes, Floods, etc. Randomly timed events that happen in somewhat predictable areas (faultlnes, hurricane zones, river vallys.) They should only effect a few tiles, and should only happen every 10-20 turns in the whole world (so if there are 5 equally sized civs in a fully developed world you will only experience one within your borders every 50-100 turns. And the odds are that theyll only destroy terrain improvements, but if they happen to fall on your city, youll lose some citizens.) This one is a top priority for me, but i dont know how feasable it will be bieng that i dont know how moddable game events will be. And i doubt it will be very popular.

- A tool or mod that will make it easy to switch combinations of mods in and out of the game (making them "plug-and-play" if you will.) This way mods could be distributed in a package and with either an external application or an in-game interface they could be applied to or taken out of the game individually, in groups, or collectively. This is also a big priority for me but will require a big community following to make the package format somewhat standardized (could be as simple as a text file with script for the game surrounded by unique comments for easy identification by the switching tool.)
 
What if attacking a unit didn't necessarily cause war? A single incident would just lower the diplomatic attitude, and it would be up to the leader whether to declare war or not. It would be more realistic and allow more minor incidents without sparking all-out war. Attacking a city, or multiple attacks on the same turn could automatically cause war.

Similarly, the borders could be modded so that even closed borders were passable, but crossing them en masse causes war.
Click to expand...

what would be the point for gameplay?

btw. do you think it will be possible to somehow implement civil wars and secessions? that would be awsome
 
TastySherrif, those are great ideas IMO. They will take some major programming but I think those will all be popular ideas if they are done.

holy king said:
what would be the point for gameplay?
Click to expand...
It would allow for very minor incidents (ie capturing a worker, taking out a unit wandering through your territory, pillaging a road, etc) without automatically causing all-out war. It would be similar to HN, except the other civ would obviously know you did it. It would be up to the other civ to decide whether to declare war, which for the AI would depend on diplomatic relations, military size, etc. Sometimes you don't want an all-out war with another civ, but you want to stop that scout from snooping around your territory, or kill that random spearman fortified on your next city location. In the real world, a single incident doesn't always result in a war.

btw. do you think it will be possible to somehow implement civil wars and secessions? that would be awsome
Click to expand...
Civil wars are in, but I'm not sure how they will work. Making revolting cities join another civ shouldn't be too hard, and it should be possible to allow multiple cities to start a new civ.
 
Weasel Op said:
Add option to hide units fortified in a city, if not available.
Click to expand...

Since Civ 3 already has this option in Preferences, I suspect the same will hold true for Civ 4.
 
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