Customising traits

[need my speed]

Hello people! How would I go about customising traits?

That is; can I flat-out modify them somewhere, creating new bonuses (I doubt it)?

Can I mix and match existing bonuses (e.g. start with a Scout and get a free technology upon era advancement)?

Can I make buildings that require traits (e.g. a School, unlocked at Philosophy, but only for Scientific civilisations)? I can think of giving every civilisation specific starting technologies matching their traits, as a work-around, but then I can't say that the School requires both Scientific (trait-technology) and Philosophy.

Is anything like this possible?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Civinator]

need my speed, it is possible to give each civ different starting units and different numbers of starting units in the Players setting of the editor. So a scientific civ starting with an additional scout is possible.

To give civilisation specific starting technologies matching their traits, as a work-around is possible and even your example of a school requiring both Scientific (trait-technology) and Philosophy can be done without any problems, but the tech that is needed for the school and can only be achieved by the traitspecific era none tech, must be set to 'not required for era advancement'. Rhye showed this in his great mod many years ago.

 

[need my speed]

Ah, I see, so... This would work on the same principle that, if I let a civilisation start with 'Polytheism', they would only actually receive this technology upon researching 'Mysticism'? And so, I can create a 'Scientific' technology that requires 'Philosophy', and once this civilisation researches 'Philosophy', it immediately receives the 'Scientific' technology, which enables the School?

That would imply that you wouldn't need two 'Zoroastrianism' technologies though, as shown on the screenshot?

Thank you very much, Civinator!

 

[Civinator]

need my speed, you need two technologies. One era none tech (in your case trait specific) and one special tech, that can be researched after having researched a 'standard' tech. Even if you are the first having researched tech Philosophy and receive its bonus tech, the other tech that you are receiving is needed as a tech, too.

 

[need my speed]

Okay, so... One does actually need to research the 'trait-technology'? That would be a pity.

 

[Civinator]

Okay, so... One does actually need to research the 'trait-technology'? That would be a pity.

The era none technology must not be researched. It is gained by the civ from the beginning of the game as one of the start technologies.

Btw: When looking at the German military leaders in that screenshot of the RARR biq, there is something to correct and to change, too.

 

[need my speed]

Okay, sorry for my confusion, but:

Spain starts with the 'Seafaring' technology.

This technology unlocks the 'Port' building:

And this technology requires 'Pottery':

Therefore, my expectation is that, when Spain research 'Pottery', Spain immediately gets the 'Seafaring' technology, and can then build 'Port' buildings (because I want this building to require 'Pottery' and only be available to Seafaring civilisations).

However, in-game, I immediately start with the 'Seafaring' technology, and I can immediately build the building, despite not having researched 'Pottery'.
How would I solve this?

 

[Nathiri]

Okay, sorry for my confusion, but:

Spain starts with the 'Seafaring' technology.

This technology unlocks the 'Port' building:

And this technology requires 'Pottery':

Therefore, my expectation is that, when Spain research 'Pottery', Spain immediately gets the 'Seafaring' technology, and can then build 'Port' buildings (because I want this building to require 'Pottery' and only be available to Seafaring civilisations).

However, in-game, I immediately start with the 'Seafaring' technology, and I can immediately build the building, despite not having researched 'Pottery'.
How would I solve this?

Yeah if its a free tech, its a free tech. If you want it researchable, remove it as a free tech. Remember also, this tech will appear on the tech screen, since you dont have a era-non tech preceding it, all civs will see it, not just seafaring ones.

 

[need my speed]

But I don't want it to be researchable.

And I can't change it to era 'None', because 'Pottery' should be its prerequisite, not? Or, how would I make the 'Port' available with 'Pottery', but only for 'Seafaring' civilisations?

 

[Civinator]

But I don't want it to be researchable.

Techs in the techtree must be researchable. Unfortunately Civ3 doesn´t have an events system as it is in Civ 2.

And I can't change it to era 'None', because 'Pottery' should be its prerequisite, not? Or, how would I make the 'Port' available with 'Pottery', but only for 'Seafaring' civilisations?

Civspecific or traitspecific buildings can be done without any problems in Civ 3. You only need a civspecific (or traitspecific) building that can only been built with a special starting tech that is not tradeable. Than set this building as a prerequisite for other buildings - and you have buildings that only can been built by civs with that special starting tech. If you give those buildings culture, they are destroyed if another civ captures the city with that building. Without culture there is a chance, that this building now can be used by civs that don´t have that starting special tech.

In CCM2 per example I use this methode with flags for individual civs and GWs that only can been built with that flag (and a certain tech) as the prerequisite for triggering the GA of that civ.

Here I have explained this (and many other advanced Civ 3 modding tricks) more than 10 years ago in German language in my Civ 3 modding tutorial 'Civinators Modding Ecke'.

 

[Nathiri]

Also with buildings, you can have an invisible tree because required buildings dont appear anywhere. You have to create that link yourself via text in the civilopedia, otherwise no one would know you'd need that particular building to build the other. Using the invisibleness, you can make whatever system you want almost, similar to what Civinator mentions above. Like, in one mod Ive been working on for a while (which I havent edited in many months), I have a civ-specific trait for every civ based on historical elements of that civ. So, Alexander of Macedon gets Alexandrian Logistics, which allows healing in enemy territory, or Rome gets Roman Roads, or Persia gets Satrapic Administration. These all use ordinary building effects to give these trait bonuses. Even for civs without any real effect provided by buildings (as I gave them it by units or tech bonus), I still gave them a trait building that gave culture. I mostly did this because I didnt like not seeing all traits represented in the pedia list. I didnt have to put in the pedia what they provided, but for completeness, I thought it looked better.

At one point, for the MP mode QC, we made a "cheap" offshore platform available to seafaring/crappy civs. We used a dummy tech to hold this cloned building, but it required a harbor as a requirement, so you wouldnt be able to build them til Map Making, but you technically always had them. Since we had normal offshore platforms at monarchy, this meant these particular civs could build offshores earlier than most civs. This cheap version addition has been since removed, but it was present for several updates of the mode.

 

[need my speed]

Thank you for your answers, everyone. I figured that what I ideally want, isn't quite possible, so I settled for the next best thing:

Port: Requires technology 'Seafaring', costs 6, must be near water, increases commerce in water
School: Requires technology 'Scientific', costs 8, increases research by 50%
Shrine: Requires technology 'Religious', costs 4, yields one culture and makes one citizen happy
Ancient Mercenaries: Requires technology 'Militaristic', costs 10, produces one Archer every three turns, obsoletes with technology 'Invention'
Medieval Mercenaries: Requires technology 'Invention' and building 'Ancient Mercenaries', costs 10, produces one Longbowman every three turns, obsoletes with technology 'Nationalism'
Industrial Mercenaries: Requires technology 'Nationalism' and building 'Medieval Mercenaries', costs 10, produces one Rifleman every five turns, obsoletes with technology 'Rocketry'
Modern Mercenaries: Requires technology 'Rocketry' and building 'Industrial Mercenaries', costs 10, produces one TOW Infantry every five turns
Smithy: Requires technology 'Industrious', costs 8, increases production by 1
Bazaar: Requires technology 'Commercial', costs 8, increases gold by 50%
Latifundium: Requires technology 'Agricultural', costs 10, produces one Worker every five turns, obsoletes with technology 'Education'
Pioneer: Settler that costs only one population and has two movies, only available to Expansionist civilisations

Ideally, I'd have wanted these buildings to also require another technology, but then a civilisation would need to build something like the 'Roman Flag' of CCM, which would require the trait-technology, so that I can make the trait-building require the 'Roman Flag'-building and the normal technology. That is not something I wanted, so I didn't do that.

I also changed a bunch of other things - why do Libraries / Universities yield more culture than Temples / Cathedrals? - but that is irrelevant.

Thank you all, though!

 

[Civinator]

need my speed, very welcome.

May be, that the Ancient Mercenaries with a longbowman every 3 turns are somewhat overpowered. In general longer intervalls for the autoproduction of units here seem to be more adequate. Very interesting is the settler with the two movies.

 

[need my speed]

need my speed, very welcome.

May be, that the Ancient Mercenaries with a longbowman every 3 turns are somewhat overpowered. In general longer intervalls for the autoproduction of units here seem to be more adequate. Very interesting is the settler with the two movies.

Archers - but maybe, sure! However, I want to see some nice AI wars, so I thought, let's see what happens.

Yes, the Settlers are busy watching Conan the Barbarian, hoping that they won't be killed by one.