Crazy Spatz's Alpha Centauri Mod

[markusbeutel]

Congrats.

 

[LetMyPeopleGo]

@spatizmouse, thanks for clarifying some stuff regarding the pantheons mechanism, it just made me want to play it more.

Will it be possible to utilize the pantheons to some diplomacy and plotting intrigues from the gods? For example, because my god and your god are from the same pantheon and are related in some special way, that me wanting to declare war on you will cause some resistance from the gods so to speak, I'll be presented with a choice of either suffering from a happiness hit from declaring war on you, or I'll need to compensate by declaring war on someone else too, or be requested to destroy a city for them so to make them happy and leave my happiness intact?

On the other hand, the gods might just offer me a nice happiness or gold boost and in return I help you wage war, some kind of diplomacy that doesn't involve me and you, only me and the gods.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Will it be possible to utilize the pantheons to some diplomacy and plotting intrigues from the gods?

That was something I'd been thinking of, that two followers of the same pantheon would be natural allies, while followers of different pantheons would usually be bitter enemies. Sort of like in Civ4, where alliances often centered around which religion each empire followed.

The problem with doing this is that unlike Civ4 religions, you have no ability to change pantheons in this setup. But I'm okay with that; what it REALLY reminds me of is Master of Orion 3. I know, obscure, right? Not many people liked that one, since it wasn't developed by the same guys that did MoO 1 and 2. It was spreadsheets in space, far too much micromanagement, and it was extremely buggy.
But one of the things it had were Racial Groups. Every race fit into one of seven (I think) categories; humanoid, reptilian, cybernetic, aquatic, and so on. If you made a custom race, you assigned it to one of these seven. Each had one category it was extremely hostile to, one it was semi-hostile to, a couple it was kind of friendly to, and you were very friendly to races in your own group. (There was also one category that EVERYONE was hostile to; that race was given extra bonuses to compensate, so were really powerful.)
So something like that could still work. Maybe you'd have one or two other civs following your same pantheon, and you'd have a natural diplomacy boost with them, while everyone else would quickly become enemies.

But, this'll have to wait until the DLL. There's very little I can do to adjust empire-on-empire relations in the current setup.

On the other hand, the gods might just offer me a nice happiness or gold boost and in return I help you wage war, some kind of diplomacy that doesn't involve me and you, only me and the gods.

That's basically what I'm going to stick with for now. Your relationship with your god is absolute, not depending on what the other empires do, and only increases through Favor generation. Some gods might prefer you get your Favor from battle (Norse and Aztec especially), but that can be against barbarians just as easily as another empire. This sort of setup is easier for the AI to understand.

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Okay, this particular thread is going to get mothballed pretty quickly. I'm splitting the discussion up into several content threads; "Age of Mythology" will be the mythology mod, "Age of Empire" will be the middle content mod and will have a lot of what's in the Balance mod now, "Age of Ascension" will be the future content. Bug reports will have its own thread, and the files will be in their own thread, whose title will be changed each time a new version arrives. (I'll try to get that stickied)

The names of all of these things can change, but I'm trying to get away from the original title of the thread.

 

[nathanglevy]

YAY a new subforum congratz Spatz

 

[The_J]

Congrats.

congrats.

and the files will be in their own thread, whose title will be changed each time a new version arrives. (I'll try to get that stickied)

Stickied the files thread.
In general, requests for renaming, stickies, etc. either via report of the post of question, or via PM to Blue Monkey, PieceOfMind or to me.



And good further luck with your project .

 

[Spatzimaus]

In general, requests for renaming, stickies, etc. either via report of the post of question, or via PM to Blue Monkey, PieceOfMind or to me.

Thanks for the sticky. And yes, I was planning to report it, it's just that I was doing all of the setup before going to work this morning, and was running low on time.

 

[Digo]

First of all, thanks for the mod. I'm new to Civ mods and this is actually the first one I've played.
I started a game in the ancient era and I've been enjoying it without a problem until recently when I got into the future techs.

Starting with the Colony Pod pretty much every new unit after I have been getting a graphic glitch. The unit doesn't show up and whenever it's on screen the entire screen begins twitching as if the monitor is about to cut of or getting static interference.

I'm thinking that I probably did something wrong, I just dragged the "Spatz's Mod of Alpha Centauri (v 1)" folder into the MOD folder under My Documents> My Games> Sid Meier's Civilization 5> MODS. Is there something else I should have done?

I tried reading through this thread for the answer, but there were just so many pages with so many long posts that I couldn't get through it all, so I apologize if the answer has already been posted.

Either way, I would really appreciate some help to fix this issue.
Thanks

 

[Spatzimaus]

First of all, thanks for the mod. I'm new to Civ mods and this is actually the first one I've played.

Welcome to the modding community. I'd highly recommend trying out Thalassicus' balance mods (over in the "Vanilla Enhanced" project forum) if you just want to try a balance mod without the extra future content. At the moment we're a bit short on content-heavy mods, but that'll improve over time.

Starting with the Colony Pod pretty much every new unit after I have been getting a graphic glitch. The unit doesn't show up and whenever it's on screen the entire screen begins twitching as if the monitor is about to cut of or getting static interference.

Normally my first reaction to this would be "are you using any other mods at the same time, like the R.E.D. modpack?" Any other mods that affect unit models will screw things up like that, by incorrectly loading the art defines tables. But if you're only using my mods, then my next guess would be an installation problem of some kind. More on this in a minute.

I'm thinking that I probably did something wrong, I just dragged the "Spatz's Mod of Alpha Centauri (v 1)" folder into the MOD folder under My Documents> My Games> Sid Meier's Civilization 5> MODS. Is there something else I should have done?

Nope, that's all you need to do. It should take care of everything the next time you start the game. One question: are you using both mods, or just the AC mod? (Not that it can't work by itself, it's just useful to know.)

Now, a lot of these discussions end up coming back to the cache. Within that Sid Meier's Civilization 5 directory will be one labeled "cache"; if you go into there and just delete it all, the game will rebuild those databases cleanly the next time you run the game. When you switch back and forth between multiple mods then this cache can often lead to situations where one mod's database changes leak into games where you're not using that mod. I suppose it'd be possible for the vanilla game to leak as well, so you might just try that.

Beyond that, I can just blindly guess. Corrupted mod file (re-download the mod), corrupted core game file (use Steam to verify the game's integrity), version mismatch (you haven't patched your game or you're using a pirated/cracked version)... there could even be a problem where your video card doesn't like the .dds compression format used for the unit textures. An easy way to test that last one would be to go into my mod's directory, in the Art/Units directory. Find a unit that has been glitching in-game, go into its subdirectory, and try to open the .dds file in some other graphics program. (I use GIMP, which is free, and has a .dds plugin you can download.) If you can see it cleanly there, then it can't be a video card problem.

 

[Digo]

Thanks for the reply. I've tried all your suggestions but unfortunately it's still not working.
I downloaded GIMP and the plugin and when I open Colony Pod I see this

. Is that right?

I'm only using the AC mod though, do you think that installing the other mod might fix it?
Could it be a Vsync or an anti-aliasing thing maybe? I have AA at x8 and vsync on.

I am able to see the skimmer unit, but it shows up as a few guys on horseback, I'm guessing that's not what it's supposed to look like.

If you can think of any other possible fix let me know.
Thanks again.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I downloaded GIMP and the plugin and when I open Colony Pod I see this (link). Is that right?

Yes, that's the correct image. So at least we know your computer knows how to view that file.

I'm only using the AC mod though, do you think that installing the other mod might fix it?

No, all graphical modification is done in the AC mod. I specifically did NOT make anything graphical in the balance mod. My main concern was that you were trying to pair this with the R.E.D. modpack or something, which also adjusts unit models.

I am able to see the skimmer unit, but it shows up as a few guys on horseback, I'm guessing that's not what it's supposed to look like.

Actually it is. That's one of the placeholders; only about half of the units have custom models so far, because it's a lot of work to convert Civ4 units to Civ5. The Colony Pod, Vertol, Gravtank, Gravship, Stealth Ship, Isle of the Deep, Spore Tower, Needlejet, Assault Powersuit, Combat Mech, Labor Mech, Bolo, Ion Cannon, Death Ray, and Subspace Generator should all use custom models; everything else will use a placeholder. (I honestly can't remember if I gave all of you models for the Plasma Artillery and Leviathan, so those MIGHT be on the list as well.) That's pretty much all of the mechanized units other than the Skimmer (which had texture problems converting the Civ4 model), and almost none of the humanoid units, which take far more work thanks to all of the animations.

But that does tell me something: it's clearly reading the art defines files correctly, because if it wasn't loading then you wouldn't see those units either. (Or the combat engineer, which you didn't mention a problem with.) That means it's a conflict in the models and/or their textures.
So here's what you need to do.
1> Load up FireTuner. Make sure you've enabled it in your config.ini file. (Right at the top it'll say "EnableTuner = 0", change that to a 1.)
2> Go into your game, and use FireTuner's "Unit Plopper" feature, on the Map tab, to place one copy of each of the above units onto your map. If only one or two specific ones fail to load then it's probably just a corrupted file, but if all of them fail then it's some sort of inherent graphical incompatibility.
You can try turning off anti-aliasing, or using the DX9 executable, or any number of other options and see if the units show up under any of those combinations. I'll look into this, because I don't want to force people to turn down all of their graphical settings, but I'm just not sure what I can do about it.

 

[Digo]

FireTuner took me longer to figure out than I'd like to admit, haha. Especially figuring out how to download it.

Most of the units would cause the same glitch as colony pod, but the following 4 did load properly: Spore Tower, Assault Powersuit, Combat Mech, and Labor Mech.

Also, I tried DX9 and anti-aliasing but it didn't fix it either.

I don't know if it helps but my video card is an ATI Radeon 6950 2gb and I'm running Windows 7 64-bit. Also, I bought the game from Amazon but it installed and plays through steam.

I'm not sure what else to do, but thanks for trying to help me fix it, I appreciate it.

 

[Sneaks]

Digo, in Video Options, theres an option to sync the refresh rate of the game to that of your monitor. Is this selected?

 

[Digo]

Do you mean VSync? That's the only thing with the word sync that I saw in video options. If so I've tried it with both VSync on and off and there was no difference, unfortunately.

 

[nathanglevy]

Hi spatz, I was thinking maybe we could start a strategy discussion thread, as the new content in this mod and the new balances require a different gameplay style. Just a suggestion though, I can easily see it fit somewhat into each individual thread for each mod component, but it seems like a bit much if someone is looking for strategy tips or Just a discussion...

 

[Spatzimaus]

Hi spatz, I was thinking maybe we could start a strategy discussion thread, as the new content in this mod and the new balances require a different gameplay style. Just a suggestion though, I can easily see it fit somewhat into each individual thread for each mod component, but it seems like a bit much if someone is looking for strategy tips or Just a discussion...

This was something I'd thought quite a bit about when setting this whole thing up. The problem, really, is that the Mythology and Ascension mod are almost mutually exclusive in design; the Mythology mod requires it to be possible to have decisive actions in the earliest eras, to where the game has the potential to be nearly over by the time that content goes away, but that's almost the opposite of what the Ascension mod needs.

But I think I probably will need to do this, if only so that this thread can be locked at some point. It's getting huge, and I'd prefer most discussion to go in the other threads, so there does need to be a catch-all thread for things that aren't bugs and that aren't tied to a specific set of content.

 

[nbr1bonehead]

Super long time lurker of Civfanatics here (I mean years) and this is my first post. Love this mod, but I'm having the exact same issue as Digo. I've tried everything suggested, but no luck. I can stop the screen glitch by playing Direct X9, but the unit is still invisible. Not sure if that helps solve the issue. Playing Direct X9 is not a very good option at the top bar is crowded and it generally looks like crap.
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2gb, Window 7, 64.

 

[Cosmic Fox]

This Mod sounds like Planetfall by Maniac! I was hoping he would update his Mod for Civ 5, I have a good game of Planetfall going now.

Count me in on testing this Mod buddy, I am a SMAC addict, I miss the game so much! I was delighted to see EA/Firaxis register Alpha Centauri domains, no official word they are making a new one but rumor mill says 2013 sometime. ^_^

I downloaded 3 files for your Mod and don't see any instructions how to assemble them to make a working copy of your Mod o.O?

 

[dinobot386]

Hey Spatz, I just noticed that there are a few buildings and wonders that don't have descriptions yet, just XXX as a placeholder. The quantum lab, singularity inducer and a few others I can't think of right off the bat

 

[Spatzimaus]

Super long time lurker of Civfanatics here (I mean years) and this is my first post. Love this mod, but I'm having the exact same issue as Digo.

The only thing I can think of is that the texture's compression format (BC3/DXT5) is somehow incompatible with your video card. I can try whipping up an alternate version without any compression, and see if manually replacing the mod's version of the file with the altered version helps at all.

Hey Spatz, I just noticed that there are a few buildings and wonders that don't have descriptions yet, just XXX as a placeholder.

Funny you should mention those; I spent a good part of last night trying to fill those missing keys in. It's about half of the Nanotech Era buildings and wonders, and it was just hard to find good sci-fi references for some of them when I was writing stuff out way back when.

 

[Spatzimaus]

This Mod sounds like Planetfall by Maniac! I was hoping he would update his Mod for Civ 5, I have a good game of Planetfall going now.

It has quite a few similarities; I was just talking to Maniac the other day about Planetfall and how it affected my mod. The main difference is that Planetfall was much closer to a SMAC total conversion, while my mod, despite the name, takes place on Earth and is intended to flow more-or-less smoothly from the existing eras. It's a very different dynamic, even if both were inspired by the same original source.

I was delighted to see EA/Firaxis register Alpha Centauri domains, no official word they are making a new one but rumor mill says 2013 sometime.

I saw that, and it's a bit concerning for me. If they're intending to release a new SMAC as a Civ5-driven game, like what Colonization did with Civ4, then they can easily claim that my mod is no longer covered by Fair Use (as it has the potential to reduce their profits from the property) and force me to remove any Alpha Centauri-derived content. Still great for players, as they'd get a Firaxis-made SMAC, but not so good for me as it'd basically destroy the mod.

I downloaded 3 files for your Mod and don't see any instructions how to assemble them to make a working copy of your Mod o.O?

They're not one single mod; you just unzip them into your MODS directory and the next time you start the game, you just turn the two mods on. (The Player Pack isn't a mod, it's just a set of map scripts at the moment.) Actually, if you go over to the FILES thread (which is where the files will be hosted starting in the next version) I've got a more detailed list of instructions of how to set it up.