Ethnic Diversity (R.E.D. Unofficial) v.29 beta 5b

[The Capo]

So, I actually just got back into Civ V. Admittedly, I didn't play much when it came out. At the time I was really into Civ IV modding so Civ V just didn't appeal to me as much when it came out. From that point I never really got into it. So anyway I bought all the DLC due to the Steam Summer Sale. And here I am.

I installed this mod with the hopes that it would be all I was looking for. In Civ IV I had/was working on a giant "expansion-style" mod that added new civs, features, wonders, functions etc. Part of this was ethnic city-styles, improvement styles, and unit styles. I had unique ethnically inspired units for each civilization as well as the modular civs I made for my mod. This included every single unit. So I was hoping for the same thing with this mod. Don't get me wrong, the mod is great and I appreciate all of the work that went into it, I can not stress this enough as a former modder myself. But I do have a question; I noticed that some of the warrior and archer units weren't flavored. I've only played one game as Morocco but it appears that some of their units (archer, spearman) were also not flavored.

I just wanted to know if this was how it is, or if mine is scewed up. If it is the former, I would like to help get this units flavored. I have experience with units, nifSkope, Blender etc. so I think I am more than capable of helping finish things up. It would be helpful to have a list of units that need to be flavored for me to do this. If you have a list available that would make it easy for me to get to work. What do you think?

 

[YINGCHENG]

@The Capo

Hi, I am glad that you like this mod as well.

Yes, Nutty admitted that many units of this modpack have not got flavoured even in the latest beta version However, I believe Nutty is still busy working on this part of the modpack when he has time.

although I do not have privilege to invite you to work on this modpack (TBH I would really appreciate more unique skins of units and truly wish Nutty would allow you to build more flavoured units), I could Share something you may need more about this modpack.

I quoted a previous post of this thread in the following to show you that Nutty actually constructs an excel document to address every details of this modpack (including of what units are not featured). You may find all the infor about this mod from the Github (the link is shown in the quote below). Hopefully it may help you to grasp more before Nutty's reply.

Looking forward to seeing this modpack thrive again!

Where my beta testers at?

[EDIT: A couple of the Future Worlds units are causing crashes (only when FW and EDUP4M are enabled). I'll post a fix for that, and some other small fixes soon.]

Use at your own risk. You'll also need the Unit Pack not included below (it's unchanged since beta1). Delete your Ethnic Diversity folder first (the "vanilla scale" one replaces it).

Feel free to use the Unit Tester, it plops all of the units for you. Gedemon had crashes when he had more than a few civs enabled on his version of the unit tester, but even on my crappy laptop I don't have any problems with mine with 22 civs enabled. This version organizes by unit type instead of by civ, which makes it much easier to compare scales across the line.

If you want to play with the mod support diversity for Prehistoric Era, Renaissance Era Revised, Enlightenment Era, Future Worlds, and Vox Populi, you'll also need to enable the Unit Pack for Mods. Theoretically, nothing should be broken in those mods with the Unit Pack for Mods disabled, though that should be tested. I do apply a little diversity to mods even without Unit Pack for Mods enabled when the diverse units are already in the main Unit Pack, however the coverage is thin even with the Unit Pack for Mods enabled. But it's a start! I think I still have some issues with some of the Future Worlds units, and I just threw in light tanks for Vox Populi this morning, but I have no idea whether they even work or not or whether I just blew up the whole mod with a simple syntax error. (If so, the GitHub has the latest.)

* * *

@ST4LIN : Hopefully you've figured it out by now, but I'd suggest Ethnic Diversity v.29. You can try beta2, or give beta3 below a spin if you're feeling adventurous.

You'll see both civ5mod files and zip files on CivFanatics. If it's packaged as a .civ5mod file, it's really just a .7z (7-zip) file. You place it in the folder %userprofile%\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\. You can unzip it yourself into a subdirectory named for the file, or let the game do it for you automatically. If it's packaged as a .zip file, then you have to manually unzip it to the subdirectory of the folder above instead of letting the game do it for you.

You need to first enable the "Ethnic Diversity Unit Pack", then enable "Ethnic Diversity" [or "Ethnic Diversity (vanilla scale)" if you're using beta3]

EDIT: BETA3 removed

 

[heinous_hat]

@The Capo

The civ5 unit art library still has a lot of holes in it, while also inheriting the holes in the civ4 collection. Japan...

I think a good "quick and dirty" approach would be to assemble some period specific, default replacements for vanilla sets by ethnicity, instead of by specific civilization. That would mitigate the immediate problem you have when you enter a game and get generic warriors (which are awful), followed perhaps by something custom, but not period appropriate. A number of civs only have direct treatment for specific periods, due in large part to a lack of reference material. Japan, for example, presents difficulty in locating references for anything prior to their written history (~600AD). So you have an unsatisfying combination of vanilla artwork, followed by premature Sengoku period dress.

Another issue with some of the civ4 conversions is that the lighting model is different in civ5 (there's actual directional lighting, with specularity). The specular textures for a lot of converted units aren't appropriate, and make units look "flat" or dark. These are a real pain to fix, as each needs manual attention.

 

[The Capo]

Well, I am pretty familiar with making units in Civ IV. So I am pretty sure I can learn it here, and as far as the light/specularity goes, as long as it isn't more complicated than making leaderheads was in Civ IV I can probably figure that out too. But I think the first thing I'll try to do is go with generics. That's a good suggestion, because I wouldn't mind it that much. I just don't like that the game is filled with Gringos!

 

[Nutty]

@The Capo : I'm glad you've got it all figured out now. Yes, as you've found there are quite a few missing units, and the jarring presence of "gringos" throughout bugs me too. Of course, I'd love your help! I'm really excited that you're interested in filling in the gaps, and I'm sure the community in general would love to see some more conversions from Civ4 to CiV (not to mention 6).

Because of Firaxis' move to the proprietary Granny format, it's a bit tougher than Civ4, but @Deliverator has done a great job making the process much more tolerable with his work on Nexus Buddy 2.

As @YINGCHENG mentioned, the newunits.xlsm file included in the mod (and on GitHub) has a summary tab (Road to 100%) which shows that we're at less than 50% coverage, and about half of those are already being shared with other civs and city states. Note that the Unit List and Style List tabs contain the data from which the SQL that I use in the mod can be generated via macro.

 

[The Capo]

You are going to have to bear with me here, because I haven't modded since Civ IV and if you followed my stuff there you'll notice I am very meticulous, demanding (when it comes to what I consider quality), and sometimes tend to take a bit longer than most would like to "finish" something (I rarely consider anything good enough to call it finished). To be honest to anyone relying on me right now, I will probably take a while to feel the mod out and see what I think the biggest issues are. This will probably take at least a month. I am also going to need to learn the Civ V modding system/situation/vernacular/etc. so that's another thing that will eat up some time. For example when you say SQL I have no idea what you are talking about. I'll learn it for sure, but as of right now no idea what that last sentence you posted meant.

 

[KampfKorra]

Hey, will you still add smaller scales?

 

[YINGCHENG]

Hi @Nutty Will you post your modpack to steam in the near future?

 

[Sergio Alexandre]

Guys, I need some help... it doesn't work anymore for me at all. When I activate the mod the game always crashes as soon when I hit start, before even showing the loading screen with the leader text.

 

[Sergio Alexandre]

Ok, a little bit of extra info. I removed the extra units for mods and activated only the main mod and the vanilla scaling. Still crashed. Then I removed the vanilla scaling too, leaving only the main mod. It didn't crashed, but didn't worked at all! The game started with all the units in vanilla skin!

 

[Sergio Alexandre]

Oh, and there's also something very weird going on. When I put the 3 .civ5mod files, only the "Ethnic Diversity Unit Pack for Mods (v 29)" and the "Ethnic Diversity (vanilla scale) (v 29)" transform into a folder and appear at the mod list in-game. The main pack, or "Ethnic Diversity Unit Pack (v 29)", just stays in its .civ5mod extension. I had to manually change the extension to something I can extract and create a new folder with its contents, which is something that should be happening automatically. Only then, it appears ready to use in-game. Maybe that's why it is not working? Maybe the game crashes because it allows me to activate the extension (vanilla scaling) after activating the main mod, but since it is not recognizing the main mod, it crashed when it tried to load an extension without loading the main mod. That would also explain why only activating the main mod does not cause it to crash, but it doesn't work at all. I have no idea why this is happening.

 

[dilophosaur]

The main mod is VERY BIG. Sometimes the game is stupid and unable (sic!) to unpack mods that big automatically, so you have to unpack it manually - it's nothing wrong in it. Just Firaxis.

 

[Sergio Alexandre]

I know mate, but even if I do it and enable it in the mods panel, it doesn't work and the game starts with the vanilla skins... (or crashes if I add the extra mods)

 

[Nutty]

@Sergio Alexandre : Yes, the automatic .civ5mod unpacking doesn't always work, whether it's downloaded from Steam or not.

Anyway, the Unit Pack just contains the units, so that's why nothing happens until you activate the diversity mod (with the idea that you would choose between the multitude of available scaling options, of which there is currently only 1).

Unfortunately, I'm not sure why you're getting crashes and they're tough to troubleshoot. The big question is, what other mods are you using? Have you tried disabling everything except for the ED Unit Pack and ED vanilla scale?

If you have time for further troubleshooting, I need the contours of the problem. Are you starting a brand new game? Have you tried with just a few civs? Maybe try starting in a different era? There were certain units that caused crashes on my PC, so I pulled those out, but perhaps your machine is choking on one or more that mine manages OK. If your PC is a bit old, have you tried turning down your visual settings? Do you get crashes with R.E.D. semi-official v28 beta 2b?

 

[YINGCHENG]

Hi@Nutty Are you still going to work on this mod in the near future? Any plans you would like to spoil so far

 

[Nutty]

Hi@Nutty Are you still going to work on this mod in the near future? Any plans you would like to spoil so far

Sorry, but the story is much the same as the last time I answered this question from you (keep asking, though... squeaky wheels get the grease ).

My wife and I became foster parents to a little girl (we'll be adopting her in the next couple of months), so my already limited time is even shorter. But to the extent I find time to get back to it...

On the modding side, the first order of business is probably to get a couple of the alternate scales fully working. I'd like to fix the issues with the era+cultural variation Lua, but I haven't found as many units that could really use it as I'd hoped when I started, so it doesn't feel like a priority. There's a similar problem with the mod support pack. It has some issues that need to be resolved, but even though I've added more than 100 units to it, the coverage still feels very thin. I could do some more unit shuffling, but I really don't like stealing diversity from the main game.

On the art side, I haven't the time personally to work on units. Unfortunately @The Capo hasn't returned, and no one else is posting new units, but I'm happy to accept any that are sent my way. There are certainly plenty of Civ4 conversions that could still be done, but even some relatively simple reskins could be very effective additions. As I've mentioned, there may be some new civilization mods that have UUs that haven't been posted here that could be commandeered (I would of course seek permission first, but per the modiquette any assets of mods posted to this site are fair game to reuse unless otherwise stated).

...And of course anyone can feel free to contribute on GitHub.

 

[YINGCHENG]

@Nutty You know what, forget about my request, I am just glad that you have done something even more meaningful than modding recently in your life then. Thanks for sharing your story, I scincerely wish you and your family all the best. I will keep subscribing this thread and wish I could hear more good news from you.

 

[Sergio Alexandre]

Hey Nutty, thanks for the reply. I'm not using any other mods, just the Unit Pack and the Vanilla Scaling. I am starting a brand new game. I have tried randomizing the game options a lot of times. My PC is not old, and I have used the earlier versions of your mod with no problems. I have tried the R.E.D. semi-official v28 beta 2b that you provided and it worked just fine... the problem seems to be with the latest version...

 

[Nutty]

@YINGCHENG : Hey, man, a guy's still got to have hobbies!

@Sergio Alexandre : The only suggestions I have then are to: 1. delete your cache folder, 2. remove all versions of E.D. (multiple versions of the same mod can actually conflict even if they're not activated), 3. redownload and unzip manually. But that last bit hopefully won't feel like a waste of time, since I'm now uploading beta 5...

 

[Nutty]

Nutty updated Ethnic Diversity with a new update entry:

v.29 beta 5

v.29 beta 5 (November 12, 2017)

• add zwei833's Han spearman as pikeman for Asian civs
• add zwei833's Bashtnik as pikeman for Eastern European civs
• add zwei833's Lefegii as longswordsman for Eastern European civs
• add zwei833's Vitez as knight for Eastern European civs
• add zwei833's missionaries for India and Middle Eastern civs
• add zwei833's ambassador as Renaissance-era Great Diplomat for City State Diplomacy mod
• sharing of artillery models

Read the rest of this update entry...