Customizing Civ2

[Arius]

Greetings!

I started customizing Civ - copying it to a separate directory, and changing *everything*. Now I am wondering about the limits for what one can do in this manner.

I have changed the terrain graphics (The HiRes-pack was a great help), the unit graphics, some icons and other graphics, many of the ruler graphics, customized all the tribes, and the city names.

Everything modern has been removed, as my project is to create an entirely "ancient-medieval" Civ2.

This is *NOT* a scenario, as the changes are done to the files in the root directory. The point is, that one is supposed to choose "Start New Game", only everything will be different. You are still supposed to choose from *all* the tribes, and start your empire building career from scratch. You are supposed to play in the same way as a regular game, only everything will have an "ancient" feel to it. And so far it looks great.

Now, my first question is:
How do I make it so that the time limits are 4000 BC to 1500 CE, without having to make a scenario file?

Second:
Is it possible to make it so that certain scientific advances exclude others? Like you choose a path that you have to follow.. For instance, say you developed "Eastern Thought" (or something like that). That would give you the option to later develop Buddhism or Hinduism. But it would exclude the other path, which could be Judaism->Christianity/Islam. (This was just a hypothetic example)

I have lots of other questions, but I'll come back to them.

Arius

 

[Arius]

Just a comment to question #1:
In addition to the game ending in the year 1500 CE, I would like the game to be as long as a 4000BC-2000CE game (the same number of total turns), so the early years would have to pass a little bit slower than they do now. 100 years passing in 1 turn was a little weird anyway...

-Arius

 

[oryx]

1. You cannot customize the time limits for the standard game. You can only do this with scenarios.
2. The only way I can think of to even come close to the other thing is to have multiple rules files. You would run a batch file to install the desired set of rules. All tribes would play with the same rules and I suspect this is not what you want.

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"There is no tiddle-taddle nor pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp."

 

[kobayashi]

Presumably what you are talking about is a modpack. There is no practical difference between a scenario and a mod pack for your purposes other than the fact that there is no starting map.

My first sugestion is to make a scenario instead of a mod pack first. Then you can use the scenario tools plus if you make a mistake, you will be able to fix it.

When you have finished, just copy the entire contents of the scenario file into the main folder and overwrite the original civ files.

There are a few other things you can fiddle with that you can't in a scenario, like the launch menu screen and the labels files. You can leave these to the last after you are satisfied with your handiwork.

p.s. There is a very recent thread on the finer points about the difference between a mod and a scenario which you can look up.

The date stuff is stored in the Games.txt if I am not mistaken but again the simplest way to do this is to change the parameters in the scenario and overwrite the original games.txt.

The second question refers to the tech tree which you can edit from the rules.txt. Again you can use the scenario tools or edit the rules.txt directly (prefer the former).

 

[CornMaster]

Here's a good page about tech trees....but it only allows 2 branches.
http://sleague.apolyton.net/Guides/sldt_tech_tree_one.shtml

If you want more....(say, 5 like I need) you will have to do it VERY differently....and it probably won't be very balanced.

I've got 5 branches but mine HAS to be a scenario because my 5 starting techs can't be researched but are pre-requits for ALL other techs....so mine has to be a scenario.

Anyway....hope this helps.

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[Arius]

Thanx for your replies folks! They were really helpful. I will try out a few things, and also something I read at SLeague (not related to these 2 questions).

-Arius