Ethnic Citystyles

[GeoModder]

26/07/08 - Version 1.04
BtS patch 3.17

This mod is made to make the civilizations more culturally diverse with the available art made by freelance modders and unused art by Firaxis.
Basically, citysets of the different artstyle groups have been changed/altered until the Modern Era, where ever art was available for it. The future era has been made common for all artstyles. In some cases you'll still see the normal ingame cityset buildings, which means I haven't found art for those spots or I intended it to remain there. Also, for some units and buildings new .dds files are included which I felt made them look better without altering the basic model of it.
Besides citystyles, new facility art has been included for the different artstyles. This part is not finished yet since there's no art available for some artstyles/era's. Included are Sepamu92's fishingboat modcomponent and art has been replaced for some improvements too.

Pictures of an Egyptian Medieval -and Russian Industrial Era city can be found in the download.

LATEST INCLUSION: Added a few new city improvement graphics for some artstyles: renaissance/industrial European academy, Asian Heroic Epic and a Middle East theatre.

 

[mamba]

Nice, finally you made all the new buildings available

Is this the successor to Ethnic Artstyles ?

 

[Ekmek]

sweet. I cant wait unitl its added to VD!

 

[GeoModder]

Is this the successor to Ethnic Artstyles?

Yup.
I reckoned there's enough new stuff in it to start a new version.

 

[avain]

Cool, Geo!

How do you estimate, in terms of city style graphics, what percentage is new/modified vs. the (old) EA? I'm just curious

This will certainly go into the new VD, and again Big Thanks for this wonderful mod!

 

[psob2]

thanks for all your time and effort to put this together

 

[mamba]

Yup.
I reckoned there's enough new stuff in it to start a new version.

Speaking of enough new stuff, did you include the Burial Mounds and Palaces ?

 

[Chuggi]

Awesome, thanks Geo! Guess I have to work on getting my update uploaded for you guys now.

 

[GeoModder]

How do you estimate, in terms of city style graphics, what percentage is new/modified vs. the (old) EA? I'm just curious

For city graphics, the last 3 era's were extensively modified for all artstyles. City facilities are about half on half I think, and most of that concentrated in again the last 3 era's. A number of artstyles have now unique art for the Academy, Military Academy and Scotland Yard. I especially took notice of the complaint that the Scotland Yard graphic (the office building) showed up in the early era's too. Now all artstyles should have some kind of watchtower to depict this facility until the renaissance era, after which another graphic takes over in most cases.
As a surplus a few improvements use other graphics, especially the forts. I only lack a decent-looking fort for the Renaissance/Industrial era there, and the Middle East/African civs deserve something better too.

thanks for all your time and effort to put this together

Not a problem, since I like to play with ethnic graphics too.

Speaking of enough new stuff, did you include the Burial Mounds and Palaces ?

While some of the burial mound graphics look interesting, I couldn't see a use for them in the standard game. Perhaps once I've mastered the nifskope utility a bit better I might mix and match part of those graphics. The palaces on the other hand are mostly used, especially the updated version of Walter Hawkwood (see, I knew I forgot a contributor ).

Awesome, thanks Geo! Guess I have to work on getting my update uploaded for you guys now.

 

[Ekmek]

I'm thinking of doing some city graphics myself - like spanish missions and using the hippodrome as a base for byzantine (renaissance/classical) citystyles. Mind if I post them here for you to add?

 

[GeoModder]

Cityset graphics, or city buildings/facilities?
Cityset graphics means I'd need to include new artstyle(s), and check all the facility artstyle tags. :crazyeyes:. Adding buildings/facilities to existing artstyles is simple in comparison.
No problem if you post them here.

 

[Wolfshanze]

What's with the non-building stuff in the mod? I couldn't help but notice non ethnic building art in the download... there was a section for units that included Musketmen, Knights, Workers, etc...

I thought this was just an ethnic building mod... why is there unit art in this mod?

 

[GeoModder]

Those are just a few retextures of some units, Wolfshanze.
If you don't want them, simply delete the folder. It won't affect gameplay.
Same for the non-ethnic building art. Those are textures created by Ganart for his Extended Mod, and are (to me) looking sharper or fresher then the textures provided by Firaxis.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Those are just a few retextures of some units, Wolfshanze.
If you don't want them, simply delete the folder. It won't affect gameplay.
Same for the non-ethnic building art. Those are textures created by Ganart for his Extended Mod, and are (to me) looking sharper or fresher then the textures provided by Firaxis.

Well, the deal is, I'm looking to merge this into the Wolfshanze Mod... and I don't want any unit graphics to overload all the unit graphics I've already put into the Wolfshanze Mod.

Thing-is, there's so much custom XML code with this thing, and none of it is identified from the default code with any kind of flags, I can't figure-out what I need to include and exclude into my mod to get it all to work (and I'm afraid if I run some sort of "merge" program I don't want any of my custom unit XML getting overwritten by new unit code). It's a little upsetting that a "Ethnic Cityset" mod includes units (no matter how good), because it's no-longer an Ethnic Cityset mod... it's an "Ethnic Cityset and Unit" mod now (finding those units in this pack really took me by shock... I wasn't expecting new units in this mod). There's already so many custom unit mods out there you can't shake a stick without hitting a custom unit mod, so one would think an ethnic-cityset ONLY mod would be great (because you could merge it with ANY custom unit mod of your choice).

I know this was designed as a modular pack of it's own, but it does more then advertised with new units, and without any flags in the xml code saying "this is for the cities, and this is for the units", it's hard for a guy like me to merge it into my mod, because I'm not sure what is default, what is building-related and what is neither.

Not trying to be down on anyone... but what I thought might be a simple merge for me has become a major headache... I don't know how to get this into my mod without taking a new college class!

 

[GeoModder]

Wolfshanze, why are you insisting there are new unit graphics in this mod? Those are textures, not niffiles. They only change the coloring of some standard units. Take a look in those unit folders if you don't want to believe me. You can simply delete the whole unit folder and be done with it.
Not a single xml entry is related to units in the mod.

All the xml files you see are related to civ artstyles and building graphics only and are necessary for the good running of the mod. And it's hardly efficient to flag my adaptations in the xml code if it's at most a single line in case of the Civ4civilizationsinfo.xml for each civ entry, or in the case of the Civ4City -and Civ4PlotLSystems files almost the complete file.

Just ask for particular files you want to merge, and I'll give you pointers.
O yes, in the modules folder you can get rid of the TechInfos and TechSchema files. Those are superfluous.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Not a single xml entry is related to units in the mod.

Okay, that's good to know...

Just ask for particular files you want to merge, and I'll give you pointers.
O yes, in the modules folder you can get rid of the TechInfos and TechSchema files. Those are superfluous.

I'm looking to have what the mod's title is... "Ethnic Citysets"... essentially, I'd like European civs to have European buildings, African civs to have African buildings, etc, etc, etc (I'm sure you know what I mean! ).

Thing-is, I need to merge it into my Wolfshanze Mod XML without messing up anything I already have, so I can't just swap-out files if it's a file I've already altered...

Exactly which XML files do I need to use/alter... and which Art folders do I need to use to get the desired effect (and I'm okay with replacing default building tiles with new textures too... just wasn't interested in units, but you explained the units thing). I know those files in the "Structures" folder are needed... anything else?

 

[GeoModder]

It would have been easier if you just asked about specific files.

Also, do you want only ethnic citysets and not ethnic graphics for national wonders and facilities? Some people call citysets "buildings", while other use this word for facilities like markets, walls and such. Hence alot of confusion. Always use an example to make things clear.

On the art folder:
The "effects" folder is there to have better visuals on nuclear explosions. No xml is related to it. If you want standard graphics for mushroom clouds, delete it.
Both other folders under "art" are necessary for the changes in improvements and citysets/buildings. If you want ethnic facilities and citysets, but not improvements, you'll have a lot of work ahead cleaning out the Civ4PlotLSystem file.

On the XML folder:
In GlobalTypes.xml, do a search for "ArtstyleTypes". The whole entry under your first find is necessary for ethnic citysets/facilities/improvements. Nothing else in that file has been altered.

All files in the "Buildings" folder are related to the mod, and MUST be in that folder. Those are the most altered, so it's hardly possible to give you a description of what is still from Firaxis, and what not. PlotLSystem is related to improvements, CityLSystem to citysets/facilities.

On the Modules folder:
For the good working of the files inthere, the Civ4...Schema.xml files are necessary. Otherwise your custom xml files inthere won't be loaded when starting your mod.
The EthnicEraArt_CIV4ArtDefines_Building.xml file is completely custom. I created it to "free" the size restrictions of facilities ingame as different artstyles have different-sized facilities/national wonders.
The EthnicEraArt_CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml file is only altered on the "<ArtStyleType>" tag of each civ entry. This determines what kind of artstyle a civ has. This will be a conflict file for you since you're working with the "<UnitArtStyleType>" tags.
As I already said, the EthnicEraArt_CIV4TechInfos.xml file can be removed, as does the CIV4TechnologiesSchema.xml file.

Now, that's what every xml file or folder does. Simple, isn't it.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Actually, if those are the nuke explosions I'm thinking of, I already have those in the Wolfshanze Mod!

On buildings/wonders/improvements/whatever... as long as it's not a unit, I'm okay with changing it... that's what interests me in your mod... changing building-type-thingies!

On the XML... phew... this is looking like a lot more work then I bargained for... time to find me a subcontractor!

 

[GeoModder]

On the XML... phew... this is looking like a lot more work then I bargained for... time to find me a subcontractor!

Why's that? There's basically only one file you need to look into, and check out the artstyle type compared to your mod.
If you can't find the civ in my civilizations file, it isn't altered for the artstyle. Simple as that.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Why's that? There's basically only one file you need to look into, and check out the artstyle type compared to your mod.
If you can't find the civ in my civilizations file, it isn't altered for the artstyle. Simple as that.

Maybe I can make some sense of this... I understand the XML folder... let me take a double-look at the Modules folder.