Enhanced Mars, MasterOfMagic, MasterOfOrion Test of Time scenarios plus ToT graphics for MGE mod

[Blake00]

Done a little bit more preliminary work on the Master of Magic Jr Enhanced ToT Edition scenario.

Have added the two extra Wizards into the title/loading screen image. It's not perfect so you can probably work out which 2 wizards I added in haha but it'll do lol.

Have also made up this test publicity/teaser shot (at 2x zoom) so I can get on with finishing my other scenarios and their tour videos where I can stick this picture into to advertise this future project (that I'm not working hard on until I finish the others).

 

[Patine]

Done a little bit more preliminary work on the Master of Magic Jr Enhanced ToT Edition scenario.

Have added the two extra Wizards into the title/loading screen image. It's not perfect so you can probably work out which 2 wizards I added in haha but it'll do lol.

View attachment 571565


Have also made up this test publicity/teaser shot (at 2x zoom) so I can get on with finishing my other scenarios and their tour videos where I can stick this picture into to advertise this future project (that I'm not working hard on until I finish the others).

View attachment 571562

To take up a bit of the Necromancy school myself (although the post's not THAT old - it just made a good pun), has there been any progress on the MoMjr remake version with the separate shadow world map, perchance?

 

[Blake00]

To take up a bit of the Necromancy school myself (although the post's not THAT old - it just made a good pun), has there been any progress on the MoMjr remake version with the separate shadow world map, perchance?

Hey Patine!

Haha you all have to put up with me Necro'ing your 20 year old threads so it's only fair people necro my threads lol. In fact I welcome people bumping my mod project threads as it shows someone gives a damn which gives me extra motivation to work as fast as I can so I can get back to them asap!

But yes unfortunately all my ToT modding projects are on hold until I finish my remaining MGE modding projects which are also all on hold until I've finished my MGE scenario preservation project which (thanks to lots of amazing donations from people) has massively blown out over the last 2 years. As you may have seen over in my preservation project thread just as I was finishing up a few weeks back I got given the ultimate donation of Dustin Dunn's utterly massive lost collection of rare scenarios (many of which are not found anywhere else) so I've been busily working through that over the last few weeks (thankfully RL work gave me a couple of extra weeks off so I was able to power on through it) and am just going through the last cool scenarios in his collection atm (encourage people to go check the CFC Civ2 downloads area and you'll see pages of new stuff uploaded) and should have things wrapped up by next weekend hopefully!

I'll be happier than anyone when that moment comes.. the preservation project wasn't meant to eat up 2 friggin years of my life! And I want to get back to my modding projects so bad and just get them done and released! The only bright side to all my mod projects being delayed by 2 years is that I've learned a lot more about modding (especially ToT) and as a result I've got all sorts of cool ideas to improve them further before release.

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[MISER SVM]

Given the appearance of the remake by MuHa games in a month or so ... I still found this project quite exciting as the ToT seems to be the only iteration of civ that can implement a key feature of the original.

I know unit slots are rather precious (or can ToTPP extend them even further), but I would like to ask if a representation of all 14 races in some limited way is planned? Obviously the route taken by the original FW scenario makes more sense, as in having the civs be representations of the wizard factions rather than the races like in Midgard. But maybe at least in the form of their most iconic unique units such as Gnoll Wolf riders or Dwarven Hammerhands...? The backlog for appropriate high quality unit art from the Civ2 community should make this easy, right?

Anyway all the best for your current endeavours.

 

[Blake00]

Thanks! Admittedly my plans for the ToT version were just to add the extra myrror world, reactive a bunch of techs and buildings they mysteriously deactivated in the original MGE mod, and add a small handful of extra units to any faction lineups I felt were lacking. I was then also going to do a graphics 'demake' and import original MoM graphics over the top of everything (converting from 2D to 2.5D isometric similar to what I did with the Civ1 mod for Civ2) just for fun. A full reorganization of the tech tree to switch from the current magic school based factions to a racial faction system I deemed "too much work" as I really don't enjoy that stuff and am more of a graphics guy lol. However there's always a chance my work (when it's eventually done lol) may plant the seeds for someone else to do a different scenario with a more MoM like racial tech tree, or maybe I could convert the custom fantasy tech tree MetroPolis made for our Heroes of Might & Magic scenario over into the MoM scenario. Although you can never truly get the factions like MoM since despite all the amazing advancements to ToT over the years (eg massively increasing the unit slots) no one has overcome the hard coded 7 playable Civs limit (8 if you use Barb slot for a tech limited non-playable faction) so there can't be 14 individual playable races sadly.

Oh and since my last post was back in May I guess I should give a general update here that as I'm sure many of you guys have noticed I'm finally back working on my mod projects again and over the last month and been working towards finishing the Heroes of Might & Magic scenario! Once that big step is conquered I'll then apply finishing touches and upgrades to my Command & Conquer and Red Alert scenarios, release them all along with the big Civ2 videos, and then I'll be ready to finally move on to Tot and work on this project again. I estimate the remaining MGE stuff will take a while still.. always hard to know lol. Generally with me everything takes too long haha, but I get there eventually!

 

[Blake00]

Then I'll consider this mini project done!

This mod is pretty much ready for release now so stay tuned!

Yeah stay tuned everyone lol! Well 5 years after saying that and 6 years after starting the project it's probably time I released this one.. obviously the work didn't actually take me 6 years lol but knowing there's (understandably) next to no interest in an ToT graphics for MGE mod (although VWPsycho1984's original seems to have over 1k downloads amazingly, and that's just on the current CFC site lol) this 'just for fun' project was only ever gonna get done when I randomly felt like it (in between my other bigger & more important projects) and unfortunately I too lost interest in this one for years.

However as I close in on the finish line of all my MGE projects I saw this old one and realised I'd better finally dot the i's cross the t's and get it out there to get some closure. One big benefit of the delay is that I've learned a lot over the past few years working on my other mods so I decided to redo a lot of stuff using better colour dithering conversion techniques used in my more recent mod projects as I didn't like VWPsycho1984's original conversions and my old colour corrected ones either!

I have finished converting across the remaining ToT graphics and made better custom GUI and city backgrounds than my original attempts too. Here's the full list of changes below:

• Fixed all Civ colours, flags and city alignment issues
• Reconverted grassland, desert, prairie, tundra, and artic with colour dithering as straight ToT to MGE turned them grey & other strange colours
• Switched swamp tiles around as MGE was using the least interesting one
• Switched jungle tiles around as MGE was using the least interesting one
• Switched whale to above water version and darkended it due to underwater one being too hidden
• Made salmon fish less pink
• Fixed graphical issues caused by certain greys converting to the same grey used for transparency
• Switched GUI title box to ToT darkened title box background
• Darkened GUI window backgrounds to better match ToT
• Changed all Civ and building/wonder icons from MGE to ToT
• Changed people from MGE to ToT (slightly darker)
• Created 2 custom city backgrounds that simulates ToT but in MGE layout.
• Corrected all unit colour shield locations

Download is attached to the bottom of this post! Here's a screenshots of the finished product that you can compare to the matching ones earlier in the thread too!