Elf Tree?

[Vuldacon]

Aethelend... I made and Uploaded a Tree Resource that I set for Bonus, Luxury and Strategic resources. I also made it an Improvement with Civilopedia Images and a Wonder Splash. I placed it on the buildings large and buildings small files and included the images. I made the Map Resource and tested it...See if it will work for what you want.
Note: You can adjust the Colors for the Resource to what you want if they do not match what you were looking for.
Thread Here: here

 

[Aethelend]

Nice! That's a very pretty tree. Thank you.

It was bonus, btw. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner- you wound up doing a lot more extra work (which I really appreciate, anyway)

 

[nick0515]

Aethelend I like your idea. I'm working on a fantasy mod myself. And am thinking about similar things for the Elves. Would you like to share more of your ideas for your mod? Also I'm working on converting some fantasy images to make building graphics for elves at the moment which meay be useful for you.

Here is preveiw of the building I've been working on. A fort/stronghold of somekind for woodelves. There are lots of other woodelf buildings I want to convert, but I'm having issues with the palette. I think that is the problem. I'm a nube at making graphics, so can someone tell me, is the range of colours for a buildings civilopedia image very low, like lower than those for other civ 3 game graphics?

EDIT: removed preview of building, becuase I will make a much better version, now that Micaelus has helped me improve my skill at building conversions with GIMP.

And Some elf buildings as resources



I also recomend GIMP.

Vuldacon, nice work on the tree!


Cheers

Nick

 

[Vuldacon]

nick0515... You can open one of the Original Game images of the type you want to make and see the palette.

There are different palettes involved for various Images used in the Game. Civilopedia, buildings large and small, Map etc...
If you state what type of image you are making, it would be easier to answer your questions.

Most of your questions will be answered If you open and look at Original Game Images for starters.

 

[nick0515]

Thanks Vuldacon. Sorry didn't say what kind of image. I was refering specifically to the large building civilopedia image. When I cut and paste an image onto a blank template I made from an original large building civilopedia image, I lose a lot of the colours from my picture. I'm assuming that this is becuase the buildings large civilopedia file has a very limited range of colours. For example there are some light pinks in one image that become grey when I cut and paste them into my template.

Cheers

Nick

 

[Micaelus]

If you are talking Civilopedia images, there's a much easier solution. In the GIMP, go to Image -> Mode -> Indexed... and index it to 254 colors. Then go to the Dialogue -> Colormap and add two colors at the end that do not appear anywhere in the image (typically magenta - 255,0,255 and neon green - 0,255,0 are used). See SpacerOne's brief GIMP tutorial for a bit more detail.

 

[Aethelend]

Those graphics are beautiful! I can see you've been busy.

I actually just picked up GIMP for myself a couple days ago. I haven't gotten around to making buildings or resources yet... I've been working out the tech tree, making some tech icons.

I don't know how to post downloads for them, either... but I can post previews of what I've done so far. I guess once I finish the tech tree I'll release them all as a pack. I still have quite a few more to do.

Here's what I've done:

This is for an elf-specific government, Magocracy. It boosts commerce immensely and completely negates corruption, but has high war weariness and makes every military unit so costly that the elves can only mantain a bare defense. This is in the spirit of the elves being an empathic race of pacifists.

An evil/orc tech, meant to be reminiscent of the Eye of Sauron.

Just an armor tech for better units

An elfy military tech

Flying castles! For that awesome flying castle unit by Aaglo

A magic tech, for some kind of magic unit

A civ-specific tech for an Egypt-esque civ

A civ-specific governmental/nationalistic tech

Yes, the last one is a colored-in version of a design left in a crop circle in Ohio. I needed a symbol, and it looked perfect for what I had in mind.

EDIT: Please excuse me if I sound a bit overenthusiastic. I'm still very new to modding, and just having those images show up properly in-game is exciting to me.

Also, I forgot to say what those images actually are. This edit corrected that.

 

[nick0515]

Micaelus Thank you, thank you! I'm a complete nube so that is very helpful, and I will check out the tutorial.

Aethelend as I just said, I'm a complete nube. I feel just like you. I recently added my first tech and it was a momentous event for me. I love your tech icons. The building icon owes everything to a graphic designed by someone far more talented than me. And that person was luckily kind enough to allow me to convert it for Civ 3. Full credit should go to him. When I release a pack of conversions I will be naming him as the creator.

I too plan to use that wonderful flying castle unit by the amazing aaglo.

What culture groups are you thinking about?

I really want to make Hero units are major feature of my scenario but it is not easy to do. Originally I wanted to make a scenario where you have just one hero unit. But that is not very feasible in civ 3 so I will likely be trying to give players a variety of units as well as powerful, but rare, heroes.

Best of luck with your scenario/mod. There can never be too many fantasy scenarios made!

Nick

 

[nick0515]

If you are talking Civilopedia images, there's a much easier solution. In the GIMP, go to Image -> Mode -> Indexed... and index it to 254 colors. Then go to the Dialogue -> Colormap and add two colors at the end that do not appear anywhere in the image (typically magenta - 255,0,255 and neon green - 0,255,0 are used). See SpacerOne's brief GIMP tutorial for a bit more detail.

Hi Micaelus, tried what you said. but not luck. Perhaps my version of GIMP is different to yours. When I click Image -> Mode -> Indexed nothing at all happens. It does not bring up a box to set the number of colours. When I do this Dialogue -> Colormap, I cannot change the colours. There are 256, and magenta - 255,0,255 and neon green - 0,255,0 are at the end. But allmost all the other 254 colours are very similar shades of green. Will attempt to go through the tutorial you mentioned soon, but fear I will have the same problem. Perhaps my version of the GIMP is newer/older and works a little differently. Its GIMP 2.6.

I'm completely useless at this kind of thing, so I'm probably just missing something simple. Please help if you can.

Cheers

Nick

 

[Aethelend]

What culture groups are you thinking about?

Well... I'm thinking of this being on a broad scale. Most of the civs will be midieval European-themed, but there will also be (imitations of) other cultures. As my pics up there suggested, I also have an Egyptian-style civ, called Senhai, which is incidentally also the setting of an interactive story I started on a writing site, www.writing.com. I have a Hindu civ (called the Kosolas, after the kingdom in the Ramayana), a Hebrew civ, an Arabic civ, one Chinese and one Japanese, one Aztec-ish and one Native American. Also, I somehow wound up with three African- I may change that. Of course, I also have an orc, an undead (called Stygia) and an elf (called Feywood). The rest (of 31) are Europeans. Dwarves aren't a civ, but instead can be hired as mercenaries by everyone else with a strategic resource.

The European civs are easy. Finding fantasy units and buildings for the other civs isn't so much. But I know that Blue Monkey is working on a new fantasy chariot for India, and I'm looking forward to that, though I'd also be overjoyed if someone made a Rakshasa.

I really want to make Hero units are major feature of my scenario but it is not easy to do. Originally I wanted to make a scenario where you have just one hero unit. But that is not very feasible in civ 3 so I will likely be trying to give players a variety of units as well as powerful, but rare, heroes.

I've thought about that as well. My plan was to request a new unit: new versions of leaders and armies. I would change Leaders into heroes, and then figure out how the heck the Sengoku scenerio allows units to be upgradeable but not buildable. When a civ gets a hero in battle, they have the choice to either keep it as a powerful military unit, or use it to build an army. (Rushing production would be handled by an entirely different unit, a "civil leader", which would be periodically produced by certain wonders)

But I've scrapped the idea for now. Hero units in civ is an awesome concept, and I love the way Sengoku did it, but it's just... too impractical.

 

[Micaelus]

Hi Micaelus, tried what you said. but not luck. Perhaps my version of GIMP is different to yours. When I click Image -> Mode -> Indexed nothing at all happens. It does not bring up a box to set the number of colours. When I do this Dialogue -> Colormap, I cannot change the colours. There are 256, and magenta - 255,0,255 and neon green - 0,255,0 are at the end. But allmost all the other 254 colours are very similar shades of green.

It looks like you are working with an already Indexed image...the one you pasted into a previous Civpedia pic perhaps? Since it is already Indexed, clicking on Index again doesn't do anything

Begin with the raw, RGB image that you want to turn into your Pedia pic...it can be in any file format. Then go to Image -> Mode and you'll see it is currently checked at 'RGB'. (If your original is indexed in some way, click to make it RGB so you can index it correctly for civ.) Then Image -> Mode -> Indexed... Click 'Generate Optimal Palette' and set the number to 254 colors. That way it will pick colors from your image to make the palette.

Now you can go to Dialogue -> Colormap. You can double click on any color in the colormap to edit it. Your image may not have a full 254 colors, so when you add colors, keep on adding until it doesn't let you any more (up to 256...but the screen will count to 255 since it begins counting at 0, not 1). Then double click on the last box and set the hex-notation to "ff00ff" or the RGB to 255,0,255 to get the magenta. Take the second to last box the same way and add "00ff00" or 0,255,0

Save that as a .pcx and you're ready to go.

 

[Micaelus]

...then figure out how the heck the Sengoku scenerio allows units to be upgradeable but not buildable.

I'm pretty sure this is a function of them having the 'King' attribute checked in the editor.

 

[nick0515]

Micaelus A thousand thankyous! I will try that right away.

Aethelend I believe the Sengoku system is to have the unit as a 'king' unit. King units cannot be built, but they can upgrade. I think if your game is not set to regicide then if the King unit dies you do NOT lose the game. So this is a workable way of having Hero units. However, there are still problems with having a Hero based scenario. If you want to have one hero only it can be done, but if it dies what then? You must start the game over, or be a complete save whore. So I wanted to have your Hero be regenerate-able, such as the way your character can come back to life in World of Warcratft. But I can't think of a workable way to do that. I came to the conclusion that a Hero only scenario is not practical in Civ 3. The game is afterall an empire building game. You are supposed to have many units. But I think that powerful Heroes can play a part in a fantasy Scenario.

What I'm thinking about for my scenario is...

1. The method you mentioned above re battle created units (leaders).

2. A wonder that produces the Hero type very slowly, say 50 or more turns.

The Heroes would be 'king' units and thus upgradable but not buildable.

The other idea I've been toying with is a scenario where the player runs a heroes guild. He is allied with another civ in a locked Alliance. You cannot build regular units but can build powerful heroes to help fight the foes of the AI controlled civ you are allied with. I was thinking I would make the human players civ only have one city with zero production (through govt type that has such a high level of corruption that it has no production) and make it so it can't grow past level one (in general settings set the size for level one city to max one, then make the human player not be able to get a building to allow size two). All that is done so the human player is put into a position were they must "buy" their hero units via hurry production (which under their govt type would of course be done by paying rather than killing citizens).

The human player would have to focus on collecting a lot of money, so that they could afford more heroes. Perhaps through: Barb camps, treasure (flag resources) that give money when returned to capital (must be VP scoring game, as seen in MEM II scenarios, and elsewhere). And perhaps resources that allow buildings that generate lots of cash, though how the Human player would get access to those resources is problematic if they have no normal units including workers, and can only have one city...

They would have a tech tree devoted to upgrading their heroes level.

Appologies for poor spelling, typos etc, I'm rather tired at the moment.

Cheers

Nick

 

[nick0515]

I'm pretty sure this is a function of them having the 'King' attribute checked in the editor.

woops didn't see your post Micaelus.

 

[Aethelend]

Hmm... I like your idea, Nick. That sounds interesting, and if you made that scenerio, I'd definitely play it. However, it seems like it's going a bit overboard in trying to make Civ 3 do something that it just wasn't made for. Midway through playing such a scenerio, I think I'd want to quit and go play an RPG instead.

I'm personally going to go with the leader idea. That way, they can all have names as they come up, rather than being "heroes" that are still just more nameless goons. Still unfortunate that I'll be limited to just a single unit animation, and that they could only be one gender, but oh well.

However... try experimenting with flag units. Turn a unit into a flag unit, but don't make it immobile, nor make it require an escort. Give it attack and defense values. Then stick a barbarian mech infantry in mountains next to it. Make it attack the mech infantry and die. Does it respawn? If so, I think you'll have something, as long as you don't move it into a victory point location (which, alternately, could be used as a "teleporter" to instantly go home).

That probably won't work though. Don't flag units need other units to carry them, anyway? I dunno. I'm gonna go try that.

EDIT: Nah, it didn't work. Once dead, it just stays dead, and nothing new appears. I don't know why it didn't work.

 

[nick0515]

Micaelus Thank you! I have all my pallete issues sorted now, and can create better pedia images.

 

[Aethelend]

I have an idea I've been toying with lately for this mod I'm working on. It's a weird idea, so bare with me.

I'm thinking of making an epic, crazy, all-in-one genre mixing mod. It'll be like this:

Each of the four eras of the tech tree will each represent a different genre. The ancient times would be the Age of Mythology, the midieval times would be the Age of Fantasy, the industrial age would be the Age of Steampunk, and the modern times would be the Age of Science Fiction.

Do you think I should make such a mod, or am I totally ******** for thinking of it? Let me know your opinions.

 

[Blue Monkey]

This discussion is waaay off-topic. Buried in this thread the people who could help with these questions are unlikely to ever see it. Start an appropriate thread.

Moderator Action: Thread Closed