Hydromancerx
C2C Modder
How about call it "Wolf Totem" instead? That would make more sense right?
Cultural Heritage
- Thread starter Micael
- Start date
How about call it "Wolf Totem" instead? That would make more sense right?
I like it
.Done. Also updated the jpeg of the Atlas to show the new icon.
- Micael
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
Are Atlases better than icons? Just asking because we have not used them much in C2C.
Short Answer: Almost Always.
Long answer: Depends. Typically in my experience, atlases make things easier to sort, since everything's in one file and you just provide x,y co-ordinates for them. You also don't have any I/O issues from opening multiple files so you get a slight performance increase. You also don't have any extra file header overheads, as there's only one file, so you get memory benefits.
Civ4 uses the FPK package though, so I don't know exactly how that works - does it load it the FPK up as one file, or extract a working directory from that? If it extracts a working directory, then I'm assuming you should get a slight performance increase from using Atlases- but then this is just from my experience looking at modding other games (such as Sins of a Solar Empire, which also makes heavy use of DDS files).
If you take a look at Wikipedia, it explains some of the performance benefits probably better than I could: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texture_atlas.
Wikipedia said:
In fact, Wikipedia seems to think that tiles would be very beneficial performance wise for Civ 4:
Wikipedia said:
From my experimenting, if you define both a file and an atlas (which is what I've been doing in my promotion XML) Civ4 seems to look for one of them first (atlas first), then if it can't display that for any reason it displays the other one- or a nasty pink box.
I would certainly look into making Atlases if all your art is currently single icons. I've attached my Photoshop Atlas files if they're of any use to you - I manually add each icon to the atlas as a separate layer (the layers snap to each other making them easy to line up, and when you export to a DDS file it automatically flattens all the layers):
- The Cultural Heritage Atlas which has all of our icons as a separate layer
- A blank strip of Atlas Lines - saved because remaking the Alpha Channels are a real pain.
It should also decrease your memory footprint. All of my icon files separately take up 137KB (140,400 Bytes), while my Atlas file only takes up 128KB (131,280 Bytes). It's not much, but it is a 6.5% decrease (or 7% increase if you want to look at it the other way). It doesn't sound like much, but depending on how the Civ Engine loads it (if it loads it once for each tile for example) it could certainly add up.
For some reason though when I tried only having the atlas file in the <button> tags it wouldn't have any of it, and just showed me a pink icon in the Civilopedia. If I put a fake filename in, it would load just fine from the atlas- so I'm guessing I was just typing it in wrong for only a single source (since I copied my Promotions from the stock ones, which have two sources). You probably want to experiment, but its certainly possible to just have the atlas file and for everything to work perfectly. Also, if you happen to know how to just specify a single source (I'm guessing so if you just use the icons) it would be great to know.
- Micael
If this is true, we should convert as many icons as possible to atlases, as performance is a critical issue in C2C.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
Almost our icons are in FPK's.
Do atlases not work in FPKs?
Atlases can be used in FPKs just fine- pretty sure all of the default atlases are in the main FPKs anyway.
Here's a previous discussing regarding Atlases and Civ4 I found while googling for my "I want only atlases in the XML code" problem:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=361367
I'd agree that there's probably a reason Firaxis used lots of them.
In answer to deanej's concern on that post, as I said before, if you manually add each icon as a new layer in Photoshop it handles all the snap-to positioning stuff.
If you wanted to try automating it (personally I prefer manual since that way you can position the icons where you want, and note their position) then Nvidia has some useful stuff: http://developer.nvidia.com/legacy-texture-tools (you get the DDS photoshop plugins from there too if you're not already using them).
If you did want to use both Atlases and loose files for whatever reason, a very good idea I would suggest is prepending the file names with the atlas position, for example "32_Native_Seafaring_II.dds", since Seafaring II is at position 3,2:
But yes, I was quite surprised to see that you guys don't use atlases already with all of your files.
The photoshop files I added on my last post include a row of 1x8 (including alpha channels). To add more rows, just increase the canvas size by multiples of 64 pixels, and stick it to the top (so the white space appears beneath what you already have). I'm not sure how far down you can go, but that post above is just for Civ 4 so I would take their assumptions on it. Note however that you don't *need* the height to be in multiples of 512, as that will just increase space. As you can see, the one I posted has only got 3 rows, so its height is 192, and that works just fine
.Hope that helps
- Micael
Hydromancerx
C2C Modder
Too bad the promotions don't look in the style of promotions.
Yeah, about that. Unfortunately Art isn't my strong point, and since I saw you were using images anyway for "Cliff Walker" and the new "Hunter" / "Barbar Hunter" Promotions I figured you guys were fine with that.
EDIT: This is a quick mockup in Photoshop of the Arctic ones:
EDIT2: And a seafaring one. Just not sure these are as good as the ones in the Atlas though, because of my poor art skills.
EDIT3: Actually, this one doesn't look half bad (created a gradient layer using the inside/outside colours from the promotion star, and then embossed the shape with a smooth emboss):
- Micael
EDIT: This is a quick mockup in Photoshop of the Arctic ones:
EDIT2: And a seafaring one. Just not sure these are as good as the ones in the Atlas though, because of my poor art skills.
EDIT3: Actually, this one doesn't look half bad (created a gradient layer using the inside/outside colours from the promotion star, and then embossed the shape with a smooth emboss):
- Micael
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
All the future tech ones are not blue and now your arctic ones look like our cold ones.
Yes, I thought they might. I'm considering changing that blue background colour into a light pink/purple colour (the culture colour) to show that they're Cultural Heritage ones. But then I'm concerned that the orange wouldn't stand out very well.
I can take a look and try getting that to work right, but I'm not sure how much point there really is to doing that?
I can take a look and try getting that to work right, but I'm not sure how much point there really is to doing that?
Too bad the promotions don't look in the style of promotions.
but the ones that Micael posted arent more Beautiful
Hydromancerx
C2C Modder
Yeah you might as well stick wit the original ones you posted since they look nicer. Plus can't you only get those from events or whatever? So I guess they make sense to look different.
@TowerWizard... stop listening to one sided propiganda, that tells a third of the real story. There were large animals wandering around like Africa is now plus (elephants, rhinos, giraffe etc... etc...). The Indians (feathers, not dots) slaughtered them all. Dozens of large animal species are extinct, because of their absurdly wasteful hunting methods. Through things like Cliff hunting. That is the scared hundreds of animals (entire herds) off cliffs and harvest 5-6 animals from the carrion pile (we find these mass animal graves still today). This killed off most of the large game.
The "inherently ecological' living methods are a reaction to this omnicidial lifestyle. They almost starved to death as a hoard of people from their own cultural Atupid. This was a lot like the Moai cults that imploded a society of tens of thousands down to a few hundred on Easter island. The Cult of the Birdman saved them the same way. Don't worship the moral superiority of the CoB... pity them for screwing up so badly they needed to resort to such a desparate lifestyle change.
In South America, this omnicidial hunting actually caused them to resort to an empire fueled by conquest and canabalism to survive. You know, the Aztecs. They had this legends that if they ever stopped sacrificing people to the gods the sun itself would go out. Sure enough once the Spanish got them to stop cutting out people's heart, butchering them and handing out the human meat to the loyal... the empire imploded. Their sun did indeed go out.
So yes, you do actually fail at history. You fail because you only looked at the dust on the surface. You fail, because you didn't look at the whys and hows of history... only what of a recent when with no further context.
---
As I said first thing in my first post... I play eternity. This means a stone tool workshop
(the first level of mines) take 180 turns (unmodded by techs). Half way through the prehistoric, cart paths take 16-20 turns to make each... stone worshop is still take 38 after
ing carving.
I also play with ragging barbs. I start with 50 civs and take a 'Let the Neanderthalls sort them out' approach.
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Maybe Uniting the Tribes should involve claiming a city from a different culture base. Like American must take Oceanic or Middle Eastern or something. In the end, not all Civs can take all of these traits... that is historically true. So if some of them are simply unlikely to actually be usedd much. If Uniting the Tribes continues to not unit tribes, it should be Uniting the Already Unitited Tribe (singular). Seriously uniting tribes that splintered off from a single one and never level the group is uniting nothing... Uniting the TribeS should take multiple tribes to do. The name is off for logic.
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Why is their no trait if their are so many myths available? I'm not sure how your suggesting this be implimented in the first place. Quests were 1 per game, one Civ only can win it last I checked. Maybe I skimmed the too fast and missed how this worked... do the replace the existing ones entirely?
The "inherently ecological' living methods are a reaction to this omnicidial lifestyle. They almost starved to death as a hoard of people from their own cultural Atupid. This was a lot like the Moai cults that imploded a society of tens of thousands down to a few hundred on Easter island. The Cult of the Birdman saved them the same way. Don't worship the moral superiority of the CoB... pity them for screwing up so badly they needed to resort to such a desparate lifestyle change.
In South America, this omnicidial hunting actually caused them to resort to an empire fueled by conquest and canabalism to survive. You know, the Aztecs. They had this legends that if they ever stopped sacrificing people to the gods the sun itself would go out. Sure enough once the Spanish got them to stop cutting out people's heart, butchering them and handing out the human meat to the loyal... the empire imploded. Their sun did indeed go out.
So yes, you do actually fail at history. You fail because you only looked at the dust on the surface. You fail, because you didn't look at the whys and hows of history... only what of a recent when with no further context.
---
As I said first thing in my first post... I play eternity. This means a stone tool workshop
(the first level of mines) take 180 turns (unmodded by techs). Half way through the prehistoric, cart paths take 16-20 turns to make each... stone worshop is still take 38 after
ing carving.I also play with ragging barbs. I start with 50 civs and take a 'Let the Neanderthalls sort them out' approach.
---
Maybe Uniting the Tribes should involve claiming a city from a different culture base. Like American must take Oceanic or Middle Eastern or something. In the end, not all Civs can take all of these traits... that is historically true. So if some of them are simply unlikely to actually be usedd much. If Uniting the Tribes continues to not unit tribes, it should be Uniting the Already Unitited Tribe (singular). Seriously uniting tribes that splintered off from a single one and never level the group is uniting nothing... Uniting the TribeS should take multiple tribes to do. The name is off for logic.
---
Why is their no
trait if their are so many myths available? I'm not sure how your suggesting this be implimented in the first place. Quests were 1 per game, one Civ only can win it last I checked. Maybe I skimmed the too fast and missed how this worked... do the replace the existing ones entirely?
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
There is no archaeological evidence for mass deaths on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) until the arrival of Europeans. All evidence points to a stable population until then when disease and "advanced" farming techniques arrived. It turns out that their old farming ways were by far the optimum for their climate. Giving them plenty of time to indulge their artistic talents.
Hydromancerx
C2C Modder
But didn't the massive deforestation of the island ultimately lead to their downfall? At the very least they did not have lumber to help move the giant Moai heads to their locations anymore.
EDIT: Note that there are still living decedents of Rapa Nui, in fact I knew a guy in college who was from there.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
No, for the environment, trees are weeds. Get rid of them and you have a sustainable utopia where the crops almost grow themselves. Yes you need to fertilize with seaweed each year but that is about it. Too many people take Daimand's works without looking at the archaeology.
their downfall as European disease and practices.
You don't need lumber to drag big blocks of stone. In fact not having lumber and dragging it over gravel makes the sides flat so they fit together perfectly if you are making walls.
It's all well and good to say that with Hindsight, but at the time they must have thought it was a good idea, else they wouldn't have done it.
I think that it was more to do with the Spanish having guns and Steel, and the Aztecs having weapons made out of stone (obsidian, but stone nontheless). And copious amounts of diseases. There's also been extensive evidence that the Aztecs were extremely proficient farmers, meaning there wasn't really a food shortage problem "forcing" them to try Cannibalism. Also, we cannot judge the Ancient Civilizations- we only find this abhorrent because of our Societal Upbringing. If the Aztecs had prevailed, who's to say what we would have thought.
Regardless on how you view TowerWizard's (or my own) grasp on History, I don't think anyone alive today can truly tell us how and why the Aztec Empire decided that sacrifice etc was a good idea. And it's also not hugely relevant.
As I said first thing in my first post... I play eternity. This means a stone tool workshop
(the first level of mines) take 180 turns (unmodded by techs). Half way through the prehistoric, cart paths take 16-20 turns to make each... stone worshop is still take 38 after
Yes, but longer build time is just one of the effects of playing a slower game. A 10% change again isn't going to change much in the grand scheme of things.
A good approach, though perhaps this is why you disagree with us on the point below.
This is assuming that you will have a) Met another civ, b) Conquered one of their cities, all before you've left the prehistoric. Typically, its a pretty rare game for me if I meet another Civ before the end of the Prehistoric, or can get troops surviving long enough out in the Wilderness with all those Raging Animals / Neanderthals.
I normally play a PerfectWorld2f map (since its the best Map Type which works with C2C), at the very least of Large size. Start Anywhere, Pangaeas Allowed.
In this, I tend to have between 15 and 20 AI, depending on the map size. With a smaller amount of AI, there's a *much* higher survival rate for AI. By the time I get to Classical, I typically have another 10-15 AI thanks to Revolutions.
Getting back to the point, most Prehistoric games I haven't met a single other player. This is why "Uniting the Tribes" is talking about all the Tribes in your Cities, and not about multiple players- as the earliest you really start meeting other players is Ancient (unless, like you mention, you have the max AI possible).
Why is their no
Each Era has a theme to go with it, which determines the "flavour" of the Missions available in it. That being said, we did have a Science trait, but moved it out temporarily while we looked to sorting the balance out on it- we are working on moving it back into Prehistoric.
They don't replace the existing quest system. This is more to make your actions in the game relevant over time, and provide some sort of recognition from going to the next Era, apart from a minor UI change
.I'm not entirely sure how it will be implemented (we're just providing the ideas, and some XML etc), but logically how I see this as working is this:
- The system already in place for use with current quests will be used to monitor the goings on in the world.
- At the end of the Era / Age, completion for each of these tasks will be checked, and a percentage will be derived (out of 100%) for each player.
- There is a list of 4-5 tasks per "Mission". The Derived percentage (above) of each of a Missions' tasks will then be averaged to a "Total Completion" figure.
- The Missions with the top 5 "Total Completion" figures will be displayed to the player. If there are ties between "Total Completion" that means that more than 5 would be selected, 5 are selected at random.
- The Player will get to choose two of these, adding the benefits / negatives to their Cultural Heritage.
- Once the player has chosen their traits, any Missions that they completed to 100% will provide a bonus- there will be a bonus for reaching 100% completion and not choosing to add the trait (this will be smaller), and a bonus for reaching 100% completion and choosing the trait.
- The Counters will then reset, the system will load up the next Era's Mission list, and the game continues.
We are also going to ask the Mod Team to add two new UI Panels to the F9 (Demographics) screen, one to show their current Cultural Heritage (Completed Missions and their affects, and any 100% Bonuses they have acquired), and one to show their progress towards the Current Era's Missions. This will allow players that want to "aim" for a Mission to do so, while allowing players who don't want to not to.
I hope that clears up some of your confusion.
- Micael
Yid
Chieftain
Hi,
I just stumbled upon this thread today, and I like it
However, as a fan of the new culture system I'd like to see additions in the direction that built cultures support the Cultural Heritage system. Second, I'd like to see more than two stages (mission acomplished/not accomplished) of completion, for a less steep grade.
I haven't read everything in detail yet, but I guess the plan is that you offer only the best 5 or so traits, so I hope you cannot pick a trait if your civ does not have anything to do with it's features.
I elaborated my point with the example of the "Native Woodsman" Trait:
Maybe the "build one of X culture" thing might also add an additional option, like many quests do. For example the "Classic Literature" Quest which gives you an extra option if you built the Great Library Wonder, it might give for example the "Woodsman III Promotion", of +1 Happyness ("we Celtics are proud to live in the woods you know?").
I just stumbled upon this thread today, and I like it
However, as a fan of the new culture system I'd like to see additions in the direction that built cultures support the Cultural Heritage system. Second, I'd like to see more than two stages (mission acomplished/not accomplished) of completion, for a less steep grade.
I haven't read everything in detail yet, but I guess the plan is that you offer only the best 5 or so traits, so I hope you cannot pick a trait if your civ does not have anything to do with it's features.
I elaborated my point with the example of the "Native Woodsman" Trait:
Native Woodsmen
Spoiler :
) from each forest tile, Units start with Promotions Native Woodsman I.
) on this terrain type.)
) and +1 Happiness ( 
) from every 4 Forest Tiles near city (natural herbs and whatnot). Units Start with Promotion Native Woodsman III.
) for x turns (dependant on game speed) for each Forest/Junge Tile Chopped/Burned Down. +1 Unhappiness ( Maybe the "build one of X culture" thing might also add an additional option, like many quests do. For example the "Classic Literature" Quest which gives you an extra option if you built the Great Library Wonder, it might give for example the "Woodsman III Promotion", of +1 Happyness ("we Celtics are proud to live in the woods you know?").
