Dawn of Civilization - an RFC modmod by Leoreth

[A herring?]

The devil has taken over the thread; no activity in over 36 hours!

Apparently Leoreth does have a life...

 

[Leoreth]

Unfortunately I'm sitting here compiling DLLs and playing error chase

 

[Leoreth]

With success! The latest revision should work again and include all RFCM 1.22 adjustments and optimizations. It also has the yet untested fix attempt to the democracy instability problem, if someone is inclined to confirm this.

 

[Sandmonster1989]

I have updated my SVN to the current version and...

Spoiler :

it doesn't work, still

 

[Leoreth]

Oh, sorry, looks like the repository wasn't synched up with my working copy. Now it should finally work

Advice for everyone: never start changes from older revisions unless you use a repository that allows branching, or want to lose your sanity

 

[embryodead]

The cannonmed unit was there for compatibility with RFC VD btw

I'm going to release a repacked RFC VD that will work with RFCM & DoC soon.

 

[Leoreth]

You could've told me that earlier, because I've completely forgotten about it and was looking for mistakes in the DLL

That I've also forgotten to take over the new legion graphics didn't make things better by the way, I really thought this was an additional oversight from the base mod

Good to hear you're on for a VD package. I've also considered doing such a thing, but if this day has proven one thing then it's that I'm currently not concentrated enough ...

 

[Moshe Dayan]

Latest revision, as of 20 minutes ago. This is what happens upon start of game, regardless of scenario or civilization:

 

[The Turk]

VD PACKAGE VD PACKAGE VD PACKAGE VD PACKAGE VD PACKAGE VD PACKAGE!!!!

^I hope this show's my commitment to getting VD package for this mod ^

@Everyone/ (especially Edead)

Can you change some of the Turkish/Persian/Egyptian/Arabian units to some of the units in SoI? Because frankly the Medieval Persian and Egyptian units look TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, its like the Ancient Egyptian civilization in 1300 AD.

@Leoreth

Can I turn off the Roman Medieval respawn? And make sure they spawn in 19th century instead, (as the Romans)?

 

[Leoreth]

There's a tRebirth tuple in Consts.py. Italy appears as 1167 there, setting it to -1 will stop the scripted respawn (and the Romans will possibly respawn later via Nationalism). You can choose any other year of course (e.g. 1861), but then it'll be the Italians again.

And on Egypt: if Egypt survives until 1300 AD, it imo should look like the Ancient Egyptian civilization in 1300 AD. Of course we can only speculate what it'd look like because the Ancient Egyptian civilization collapsed, but to me it would make a lot less sense if they'd suddenly turned into a Muslim Arabian unit style while never being conquered by the Arabs.

@Moshe Dayan:
I can't reproduce your error (tried 3000 BC games with Egypt and Greece and 600 AD with China). Can you enable Python exceptions (see the first post for how to do so) and post the resulting message here?

 

[The Turk]

There's a tRebirth tuple in Consts.py. Italy appears as 1167 there, setting it to -1 will stop the scripted respawn (and the Romans will possibly respawn later via Nationalism). You can choose any other year of course (e.g. 1861), but then it'll be the Italians again.

WOW! YOU CAN CHANGE SPAWN DATES BY JUST CHANGING THE NUMBER IN CONSTS.py!?!?! I wanted to do that A LONG time ago, but I thought you had to repackage with C++ and what not. But thanks anyway!

And on Egypt: if Egypt survives until 1300 AD, it imo should look like the Ancient Egyptian civilization in 1300 AD. Of course we can only speculate what it'd look like because the Ancient Egyptian civilization collapsed, but to me it would make a lot less sense if they'd suddenly turned into a Muslim Arabian unit style while never being conquered by the Arabs.

Well in that case, the Ottomans and the Arabs should get an upgrade anyway, since their Medieval units look TERRIBLE, and if you could take them from SoI, that would be the best. As for your theory that if the "Ancient" Egyptians continued surviving, I would like to remind you that even when they were conquered by the Greeks, they continued with the Greek customs, and even before Rome "conquered" Egypt, they began to follow Roman customs as well. The same with Islam; I can almost assure you that if the Arabs had conquered Egypt, Egyptians themselves would have converted, and the entire region would have been heavily influenced by them anyway, therefore they would have adopted many of their customs, especially warfare. My point being, that their units would have probably not been too different anyway, and that Ancient Egyptian mythology would have died out anyway, and Egypt today would be a hybrid mix of Muslims and Christians (more so than today), but still effectively similar. The same goes with the Persians in that context. So please, I don't know if you have ever EVEN seen the Persian or Indian Medieval units in VD, but they don't look too good, AT ALL. And besides, if we prescribe to the way you're putting it, many of the other VD units are terribly wrong than.

PS. I can't remember if you did this, but I would strongly recommend you start off the Ottomans AND the Malinese with 1-2 Islamic Missionaries; or else what tends to happen is that you have a Christian Turkey (who doesn't expand into Europe) or you have a Christian Mali, who vassalizes to Spain or France really early in the game.

PPS. Again I'm not 100% if you've done this, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop the Ottomans from expanding into Persia, Central Asia and India, can you just knock it off their War maps and settler maps. I don't know how many times I've seen a Turkish Persia or India, which annoys the hell out of me, because they don't try to take down Arabia, and they don't try to attack Europe, so if you could increase their war map to Arabia (especially North Africa/Egypt) and Europe that would be great! Also I would strongly recommend respawning India as a Muslim Sultanate, in 1526 (or around then), to represent the Mughal Dynasty, with a new LH, like the one in SoI. I would also therefore recommend having Islam spread to Northern India earlier on, to represent earlier Islamic missionaries.

lol I think this is the largest post I've ever posted here

 

[Leoreth]

WOW! YOU CAN CHANGE SPAWN DATES BY JUST CHANGING THE NUMBER IN CONSTS.py!?!?! I wanted to do that A LONG time ago, but I thought you had to repackage with C++ and what not. But thanks anyway!

Sorry to disappoint you, but unfortunately you can't. You can only influence my rebirth mechanism this way, and that's currently only used for Italy (as you'll see, all other entries are set to -1). You could force other respawns there, although you would have to at least adapt the method that adds their techs, and set a spawn location.

On your other points: I'm aware that we theoretically would have to ignore all Greco-Roman influences for Egypt as well, which has already been violated by Rhye (their wonders goal) and myself (Cleopatra LH). It's very difficult to draw a line there, but for me the actual Egypt culture ended after it became part of the Roman Empire (Ptolemaic Egypt still had key aspects of original Egypt like the Pharaoh cult, original Gods etc.).

It's then an additional challenge to extrapolate how an ethnical Egypt army would've looked like in the Middle Ages, and maybe it's indeed better to look at Islamic Egypt than fantasize wildly based on Bronze Age armies. I'm still of the opinion that there should be no Muslim reference in Egypt's units (iirc, the SoI Egyptians use arabic blazoned shields, for example). But I'm sure edead will handle that correctly (if he decides to go to such lengths at all, and doesn't just adapt what Lone Wolf did).

On the Turks ... the problem is that independents are a much easier target than their actual neighbors. Maybe something can be done by modifying their war maps a little bit more (and maybe Suleiman needs to become more aggressive as well, iirc he's more the culture/settler type in BtS). I have to get the Byzantines to work first, though.

 

[Sandmonster1989]

If the egyptians adopt Islam, their units should reflect this. I feel you are looking only at one side of the coin, here.

I am also curious, why doesn't Portugal have casablanca at least as a contested city?

Oh yes, and the mod's svn works. Awesome!!

 

[The Turk]

Sorry to disappoint you, but unfortunately you can't. You can only influence my rebirth mechanism this way, and that's currently only used for Italy (as you'll see, all other entries are set to -1). You could force other respawns there, although you would have to at least adapt the method that adds their techs, and set a spawn location.

Oh so this is only for your mod that its so easy? So I wonder why Rhye just didn't make it simple like that : P

On your other points: I'm aware that we theoretically would have to ignore all Greco-Roman influences for Egypt as well, which has already been violated by Rhye (their wonders goal) and myself (Cleopatra LH). It's very difficult to draw a line there, but for me the actual Egypt culture ended after it became part of the Roman Empire (Ptolemaic Egypt still had key aspects of original Egypt like the Pharaoh cult, original Gods etc.).

It's then an additional challenge to extrapolate how an ethnical Egypt army would've looked like in the Middle Ages, and maybe it's indeed better to look at Islamic Egypt than fantasize wildly based on Bronze Age armies. I'm still of the opinion that there should be no Muslim reference in Egypt's units (iirc, the SoI Egyptians use arabic blazoned shields, for example). But I'm sure edead will handle that correctly (if he decides to go to such lengths at all, and doesn't just adapt what Lone Wolf did).

Mmm... you haven't seen the VD units for Egypt or Persia, they're not too fantastic. I was hoping you would know how to change the units, because I don't

On the Turks ... the problem is that independents are a much easier target than their actual neighbors. Maybe something can be done by modifying their war maps a little bit more (and maybe Suleiman needs to become more aggressive as well, iirc he's more the culture/settler type in BtS). I have to get the Byzantines to work first, though.

So will you? Because you know as well as I do, that it looks very wrong at the moment, to see the Ottomans in Persia and especially India. And yes, I will look into respawning Persia and India on my own, and I'll get back to you with the results of that transfusion. But probably only after you get certain things in your mod balanced out : P

Also, if I disable the Italians spawning in the Renaissance, does that mean that Venice won't exist and that Rome won't be well defended?

 

[Leoreth]

If the egyptians adopt Islam, their units should reflect this. I feel you are looking only at one side of the coin, here.

I am also curious, why doesn't Portugal have casablanca at least as a contested city?

Oh yes, and the mod's svn works. Awesome!!

Okay, but that adds another layer of complexity to unit graphics that VD can't reflect.

No idea about Casablance, but good to hear that the current version works.

Oh so this is only for your mod that its so easy? So I wonder why Rhye just didn't make it simple like that : P

Just for clarity, all that this date does is setting the scripted respawn. The usual spawn can't be modded this way. Rhye couldn't make it that simple because the usual (first) spawns require additional features, especially the AI autoplay, which can only be done in C++ (which is also why there's no Italy autoplay available and you have to switch to them).

Mmm... you haven't seen the VD units for Egypt or Persia, they're not too fantastic. I was hoping you would know how to change the units, because I don't

Since edead takes care of that anyway, let's say we simply trust his judgment

So will you? Because you know as well as I do, that it looks very wrong at the moment, to see the Ottomans in Persia and especially India. And yes, I will look into respawning Persia and India on my own, and I'll get back to you with the results of that transfusion. But probably only after you get certain things in your mod balanced out : P

Exactly, the Byzantines neither work completely flawless nor are they balanced in the slightest. And messing with Turkey before that's done makes no real sense, as they will have to be adapted to the Byzantines anyway.

Also, if I disable the Italians spawning in the Renaissance, does that mean that Venice won't exist and that Rome won't be well defended?

No, it basically means that the game will unfold just like before I added them. Rome and Venice are there from the start, with the usual units they have in vanilla RFC.

 

[The Turk]

Just played a game as the French, and I have quite a few things to say. But for now, I'll just say this:

1. I understand that you can have "peasant revolts' which are represented by slave revolts for Serfdom (or whatever the civic is called), but for the 600 AD campaign, can you change the name from a "slave revolt" to a "Peasant revolt", it would add to the realism

2. I would recommend you cap the spread of Toaism, as I saw it spread all the way to Constantinople and Tripoli in North Africa. Although Confucianism would have been the MUCH better choice (as it would relate to Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam), I would recommend that you keep Toaism just within China as much as possible and limit its spread factors; but instead have Buddhism spread far and wide in East Asia (the above territories).

3. Its The Siamese Empire OR Empire of Siam. I would recommend that when they change there name, that the LH also changes; in fact I would recommend you moving the "Empire of Siam" to the 18th century, or so, rather than from earlier.

4. PLEASE add the extra missionaries, and if you can, it would be good to stop Mali from becoming a vassal so early in the game, they should AT LEAST try to keep their independence until the 18th-19th century

And thats pretty much it for now, I'll be waiting happily for the VD units!

 

[Leoreth]

Just played a game as the French, and I have quite a few things to say. But for now, I'll just say this:

1. I understand that you can have "peasant revolts' which are represented by slave revolts for Serfdom (or whatever the civic is called), but for the 600 AD campaign, can you change the name from a "slave revolt" to a "Peasant revolt", it would add to the realism

Done, thanks.

2. I would recommend you cap the spread of Toaism, as I saw it spread all the way to Constantinople and Tripoli in North Africa. Although Confucianism would have been the MUCH better choice (as it would relate to Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam), I would recommend that you keep Toaism just within China as much as possible and limit its spread factors; but instead have Buddhism spread far and wide in East Asia (the above territories).

Strange spreads happen sometimes, that's okay imo. And I like to view "Taoism" as a stand-in for all Chinese religions, so I'll keep the extended area of influence.

3. Its The Siamese Empire OR Empire of Siam. I would recommend that when they change there name, that the LH also changes; in fact I would recommend you moving the "Empire of Siam" to the 18th century, or so, rather than from earlier.

Okay, changed it to "Empire of Siam". The name changes based on era, in this case when they enter the Industrial Era, which should be around the 18th century usually.

I've already a Mongkut LH lying around (you can see him in the pedia), but he still has some graphical issues so he doesn't appear in the game yet.

4. PLEASE add the extra missionaries, and if you can, it would be good to stop Mali from becoming a vassal so early in the game, they should AT LEAST try to keep their independence until the 18th-19th century

Mali has one missionary on spawn now. It should be sufficient to make them Muslim in most games, while still leaving open a possibility for Christianity.

I've also lowered Mansa Musa's inclination to become a peace vassal, you now have to become friendly with him (pleased would be too easy).

And thats pretty much it for now, I'll be waiting happily for the VD units!

Me too, thanks for the feedback!

 

[Brew]

Can anyone help me with the SVN? I followed the instructions and when I start the checkout I get the message "the target folder C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Dawn_of_Civilization is not empty"

There is no folder with such a name, so how can it not be empty?

If I click OK anyway it transfers 7 kBytes, gives the following errors and says Finished:

Error: Can't make directory 'C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization
Error: 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Dawn_of_Civilization': Access is denied.

I have stupid Vista, so maybe that's the issue?

Edit: I moved everything in the mod folder to a desktop folder and tried it again. This time the first message didn't appear but I got the same error regarding the failed transfer

 

[Sandmonster1989]

You have to rename your original RFC Dawn of Civilization something like RFC DoC 1.64. Then, after you download the SVN you need to rename the folder RFC Dawn of Civilization.

That is the best I can help, hopefully Leoreth can help more, as he helped me

Also, I'm wondering, Leoreth, if you could have city names in Egypt, etc. change if Islam is spread into the city and adopted as the state religion. I mean, the language of Islam is Arabic, so it would only be right that the names would adjust accordingly~

 

[Brew]

Thanks for the tip Sandmonster. Unfortunately that didn't solve the issue though. Perhaps someone could offer some other wisdom?