Civ5 to BE Conversion

[Erebras]

People have been dismissing BE as a CiV mod. I do not own CiV, nor have I played it, but how difficult would it be to import the terrain and other artwork into BE? Are the systems so similar that such a thing is possible?

If so, it opens up the potential for a game taking place on a future planet Earth, rather than some farflung alien planet off in the galaxy somewhere. If modern era units from CiV could be imported, you could have a start of sometime in the near future and then proceed into the great unknown.

The indigenous lifeforms could be converted into whatever strikes your fancy. I would, perhaps, make them mutated animals (genetic engineering gone horribly wrong) or even alien invaders whose invasion didn't quite work out the way they intended (whether War of the Worlds, Independence Day, Pacific Rim, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, District 9, or what have you).

Since you start with only one colony, the game start would necessarily have to be post-apocalyptic, post-plague, or post-Great Mistake. I admit, if there were a Great Mistake upheaval as described, I doubt the go-to conclusion of most nations present and future would be to build a bunch of rocket ships and blast off into outer space. A mad scramble for limited resources would seem much more feasible.

If BE is nothing more than a badly-rendered cheap knockoff of CiV -- this is by no means my opinion, mind you -- then shouldn't such a conversion be relatively effortless?

 

[Erebras]

Obviously, I am not suggesting making Civ5 assets available for download. But making a mod using CiV assets, and detailed instructions of which files or folders to move, is what I am suggesting.

Someone made an Alpha Centauri mod for Civ4, and gave the option of using audio files from a personally-owned copy of SMAC, and all was well.

I'm not a fan of piracy and illegal file-sharing and all that, but I believe strongly that what someone does with their legally-purchased software for their own personal, non-commercial use is exactly that: personal.

 

[Erebras]

 

[Erebras]

And if CiV is easily adapted to BE, then the modding-content offered by CiV enthusiasts opens up even more possibilities.

Fantasy content -- dragons, if they have them -- allows one to make a Dragonriders of Pern (Anne McCaffrey) mod, or a Shadowrun (TSR, et al) mod, or Wizards (Ralph Bakshi) or Thundarr the Barbarian.

Okay, that last one might be a stretch, but I'm trying to think of instances of a Starships & Sorcery setting that someone might recognize.

 

[Erebras]

One could even devise a mod set on planet Earth, where the xenomass wells are cities, and the xenos are human beings, and the various colonists are alien invaders. Raptor bugs become mechanized units, manticores artillery, wolf beetles infantry or civilians, drones aircraft, sea dragons and kraken not so powerful naval units, you get the idea. The Terrans' weaponry would pale in comparison to the colonizers' cybernetic military, and who knows? Maybe one or two of the colonizers would find a way to domesticate the Terrans and adopt some of their tactics to their own use. The Terrans were on Earth first, after all; it's their native territory. And a swarm of tanks and infantry would be impressive laser fodder against your rivals.

And an alien intelligence would account for a total lack of personality or differentiation among the different leaders, making its absence more palatable to discriminating gamers. I can see Alien Leader One telling Alien Leader Two, "Don't settle cities near us" just as mechanically as Alien Leader Four telling Alien Leader Three, "Shall we establish a cooperation agreement?". It would work!

And what would miasma be? Hmmm. How about plastics and hazardous waste from 20th and 21st century industrial production that is much more toxic to the aliens than to us? Nah. How about pollen and botanical emissions from certain species of plants, widespread on earth, to which the aliens are extremely allergic, until they are able to build up immunities or devise counteragents to them? Better.

 

[Sussemilch]

Frankly, I'd like to play Civ V with the BE engine.

BE does not interest me at all because it has no relation to Earth anymore. Nothing has any anchor of interest. The game seems to be pretty stable and the interface is clean however, so playing Civ V with that look would be pretty nice.

 

[Ryika]

It's impossible to properly turn Beyond Earth into a Civ 5 Clone, many of the important things are hardcoded and the result would always be a "wannabe-version" of Civ 5. Not to mention the insane amount of work that such a project would be - just to then have another version of a game that is not a 30 year old, no-longer-working classic, but a game that runs perfectly fine by itself.

 

[Erebras]

I just acquired Civ V about a month or so ago, and I can definitely see the appeal. In fact, I've decided to defect from my Civ III projects and focus modmaking using the Civ V engine, instead. I can appreciate that things are hardcoded -- it's the main gripe modders make about Sid Meier's productions -- but the entire gist of my question was not SHOULD it be done, nor WHY should it be done, but IF it can be done.

I do not want to make a nonworking Civ V clone, and it's already been established that Beyond Earth is not as developed as it should be, so I'm going to explore bringing Beyond Earth assets into the Civ V game. The default Civ V game has, as far as I can tell, as the only futuristic units that come with the game, a tongue-in-cheek Giant Death Robot and a shameless plug XCOM squad. The future eras can be much more fully fleshed out with the BE units.

This is why I asked if the BE units can be just plugged into the Civ V game as a mod, or if there has to be extensive tweaking or resetting of the graphics and such.

 

[Nutty]

This is why I asked if the BE units can be just plugged into the Civ V game as a mod, or if there has to be extensive tweaking or resetting of the graphics and such.

It's fairly easy. Getting the particle/ballistic effects in is the only part that hasn't been figured out, but you can make do with roughly equivalent effects from CiV instead.

 

[Erebras]

Thanks, Nutty! So Nexus is the answer I've been waiting for! I haven't read through all the details yet, but it stands to reason if you can import the images into Nexus from both games, then it is likely they are compatible with one another and therefore interchangeable from one to the other. I was afraid it would involve reskinning and all this other weird stuff I hear mention on this forum. Thanks again.