Civology

[Sir Monster The Great]

Hellos. This modmod, adds new branches of science and philosophy to the tech tree. As of now they do nothing, and have placeholder text. But the ones added have potential.
They are the following:
Phylogenetics (Information)
Cladistics (Industrial)
Biological Systemics (Information)
Etymology (Classical)
Phonetics (Classical)
Statistics (Renaissance)
Game Theory (Renaissance)
Optimization (Modern)
Topology (Renaissance)
Differential Geometry (Renaissance)
Ethics (Classical)
Metaphysics (Classical)
Logic (Classical)
Geochemistry (Industrial)
Molecular Physics (Modern)
Virology (Renaissance)
Parasitology (Renaissance)
Mycology (Renaissance)
Astromerty (Renaissance)
Astrophysics (Renaissance)
Physiology (Renaissance)
Cell Biology (Renaissance)
Hydrology (Renaissance)
Plate Tectonics (Industrial)
Marine Geology (Industrial)

 

[pepper2000]

Looks interesting. I think in particular we could use mathematical techs in the Industrial/Atomic/Information eras.

When designing a new tech, think about what it adds that doesn't fit in the existing techs. For instance, we already have Microbiology and Biology in the Renaissance, so that knowledge/advance does Cell Biology provide that is not at the existing techs?

 

[tmv]

We already have Astronomy. If Astrophysics is supposed to be different from that, it should be an Industrial Tech and have Modern Physics as a requirement. And what would you say is the difference between Philosophy and Metaphysics?

Astrometry is pretty much the same thing as Astronomy. Mycology is Fungiculture (more or less), Logic in the Classical Age is a part of Philosophy, in modern times it could be considered a part of Mathematics (if it is supposed to mean Logics as part of Mathematics, it should be a Renaissance tech). Ethics is a part of Philosophy, or of a Religion (in fact, it should be a major part of pretty much any Religion).

Topology is a very important part of Mathematics, but you could only give a few boni to research buildings in Renaissance. Actual applications of it won't come before late Industrial at the earliest.

If Virology is a tech of its own, there should also be the discovery of Prions as a Modern (or Information) tech.

 

[Sir Monster The Great]

We already have Astronomy. If Astrophysics is supposed to be different from that, it should be an Industrial Tech and have Modern Physics as a requirement. And what would you say is the difference between Philosophy and Metaphysics?

Astrometry is pretty much the same thing as Astronomy. Mycology is Fungiculture (more or less), Logic in the Classical Age is a part of Philosophy, in modern times it could be considered a part of Mathematics (if it is supposed to mean Logics as part of Mathematics, it should be a Renaissance tech). Ethics is a part of Philosophy, or of a Religion (in fact, it should be a major part of pretty much any Religion).

Topology is a very important part of Mathematics, but you could only give a few boni to research buildings in Renaissance. Actual applications of it won't come before late Industrial at the earliest.

If Virology is a tech of its own, there should also be the discovery of Prions as a Modern (or Information) tech.

Metaphysics is a branch of Philosophy and thus the mods goals are than achieved. Astrometry is older than Astronomy; in fact it emgred around 190 BCE with geocentrism. Astrometry will be a requirement for Astronomy and is placed at the end of Medieval era tech tree as a result. Fungiculture relates to cultivation of Fungi, while Mycology is study of Fungi. In fact Mycology requires Fungiculture. Logic is a branch of Philosophy, which relates to reasoning. Ethics is a branch of Philosophy and they are many secular moral philosophies out there.
Topology can be traced back to the 16th and 17th centuries;

Leonhard Euler[/URL]. His 1736 paper on the Seven Bridges of Königsberg is regarded as one of the first practical applications of topology. On 14 November 1750 Euler wrote to a friend that he had realised the importance of the edges of a polyhedron. This led to his polyhedron formula, V − E + F = 2 (where V, E and F respectively indicate the number of vertices, edges and faces of the polyhedron). Some authorities regard this analysis as the first theorem, signalling the birth of topology.

What about the rest? Differential Geometry? Plate Tectonics?

 

[Sir Monster The Great]

The techs idea has been abandoned and now the subfields/branches are now autobuild buildings that give science, gold, culture, etc. These building, require you to research the base tech and then research the other requirements as such. For example, Phylogenetics, requires Taxonomy as a base tech and then Genetics afterwards.

<BuildingInfo>
<BuildingClass>BUILDINGCLASS_PHYLOGENTICS</BuildingClass>
<Type>BUILDING_PHYLOGENTICS</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_PHYLOGENTICS</Description>
<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_PHYLOGENTICS_PEDIA</Civilopedia>
<Strategy>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_PHYLOGENTICS_STRATEGY</Strategy>
<Advisor>ADVISOR_SCIENCE</Advisor>
<ArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_BUILDING_PHYLOGENTICS</ArtDefineTag>
<iMinAreaSize>-1</iMinAreaSize>
<TechTypes>
<PrereqTech>TECH_TAXONOMY</PrereqTech>
<PrereqTech>TECH_GENETICS</PrereqTech>
</TechTypes>
<iCost>-1</iCost>
<bAutoBuild>1</bAutoBuild>
<YieldChanges>
<iYield>0</iYield>
<iYield>0</iYield>
<iYield>0</iYield>
<iYield>2</iYield>
</YieldChanges>
</BuildingInfo>

 

[pepper2000]

I like this approach. For example, I put Standard Model (of particle physics) as a wonder at Modern Physics rather than a separate tech. I'll look forward to seeing a modmod.

 

[Sir Monster The Great]

I like this approach. For example, I put Standard Model (of particle physics) as a wonder at Modern Physics rather than a separate tech. I'll look forward to seeing a modmod.

As of now Im working on it, but I need somebody to make art for the buttons and to debug it. Unless somebody sends me a debug tool or sends me instructions on how to debug the modmod, its gonna be a while before I get 50 or so buildings completed.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

There are a lot of buttons available in the main Civ IV graphics forum find some place holders from there. They probably wont match the style but they will get you started.

When I start out doing stuff like this I use the rubber ducky one, just copying it and calling it the name of the tech. Then when I have many done I go out and pillage other mods and Civ IV button packages to find something suitable.

I assume you are doing all this as a mod mod with all your XML in a folder in the Modules folder. It makes it much easier to check and test that way.

 

[pepper2000]

If you do a Google Images search, you can typically find an appropriate image unless it's something very obscure. After that, there's a fairly simple procedure, using all freely available software, that will create icons. When I'm back at my Windows machine I will post detailed instructions that I follow for my own icon work.

 

[pepper2000]

Here's how I make icons.

Step 1) Make the desired image at 64 X 64 pixels. I usually look for something good on Google Images and crop/resize. Keep in mind that a portion of the 64X64 icon will be covered with border.
Step 2) Add a border. In the attached icon_tools.7z file, there are borders for most icons, as well as national and great wonders. One way to do it is to open both the image from Step 1 and the border in MS Paint. For the icon image, selected "Transparent Selection" in the Select menu drop-down, then paste the border on.
Step 3) Make a DDS file. I use Dxtbmp, which is free software. Open Dxtbmp, loaded the image from Step 2. In the Alpha menu, select "Import Alpha Channel", then select the alpha image that is included in the icon_tools.7z file. Then do File -> Save as -> DDS Texture. In the "Save as type" menu, choose DDS DXT3.
Step 4) The resulting DDS file has mipmaps, which will mess up the display when playing with the low quality graphics option. We need to get rid of the mipmaps. I use nvDXT, which is also free software. Open it, type "cd [working directory for the icons]", and press enter. Then type "nvdxt -file *.dds -nomipmap -dxt3 -fadeamount 0".
Step 5) The icons you want to keep are the ones with underscores at the end of the file names. You can also recognize them because they should have slightly smaller file sizes than the originals.

It looks complicated, but once you set up the process and go through it a few times, I think you will find it to be quite easy.

 

[Sir Monster The Great]

The modmod, does not seem to be working; the buildings are not showing up in the pedia and the game. No errors with the XML validator.

Caveman2Cosmos XML Validator 1.3 by Alberts2
-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
Validating only files in the current directory
-----------------------------------
Validating C:\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\c2c\Assets\Modules\My_Mods\Civology\Civology_CIV4ArtDefines_Building.xml
-----------------------------------
Validation complete with 0 error(s)
-----------------------------------

-----------------------------------
Validating C:\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\c2c\Assets\Modules\My_Mods\Civology\Civology_CIV4BuildingClassInfos.xml
-----------------------------------
Validation complete with 0 error(s)
-----------------------------------

-----------------------------------
Validating C:\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\c2c\Assets\Modules\My_Mods\Civology\Civology_CIV4BuildingInfos.xml
-----------------------------------
Validation complete with 0 error(s)
-----------------------------------

-----------------------------------
Validating C:\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\c2c\Assets\Modules\My_Mods\Civology\Civology_CIV4GameText.xml
-----------------------------------
Validation complete with 0 error(s)
-----------------------------------

-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
Validating files in the current directory and all subdirectories
-----------------------------------

 

[Sir Monster The Great]

As of now the mod is on hold until i fix the problems with it running with C2C. See the post above for details.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

If your stuff is in a separate folder post it here and I'll have a look.

 

[Sir Monster The Great]

Here they are.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

One problem is that the Tech file is not there. BTW you could put them all is a compressed file and load that up instead of each file

 

[Sir Monster The Great]

The mod is no longer about techs; its now about buildings, seeing as how they are more dynamic than techs. See this for more details:

The techs idea has been abandoned and now the subfields/branches are now autobuild buildings that give science, gold, culture, etc. These building, require you to research the base tech and then research the other requirements as such. For example, Phylogenetics, requires Taxonomy as a base tech and then Genetics afterwards.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

OK I must have misread something, I'll have a look later I have an appointment soon. I'll be back in a couple of hours.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

OK, I am getting 18 buildings appearing at the beginning of the Great Wonders list. This is a worry because you are only adding in 12 buildings. None have text or icons or anything else. This is not caused by not having button icons because I have added in some dummy ones since you did not provide any.

Two things look wrong

In the Building Class file you have

<iExtraPlayerInstances>-1</iExtraPlayerInstances>

whereas

 <iExtraPlayerInstances>0</iExtraPlayerInstances>

is more usual. It is already a building that you can have in every city so you can't have unlimited more of them

In the Building Infos file you have

<iCost>0</iCost>

Changing these does not fix things.​

Investigation continues.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Right I have done everything I can think of at the moment and still they are not working. I am going to take a break, get some coffee and sink my brothers warships, then come back to this with fresh eyes.

 

[Sir Monster The Great]

The icons are done, but i forget to upload them. Here they are: