European Middle Ages Mod Resurrection

Greetings and Salutations

Last year when Civ4 came out I was thrilled at the prospect that it would be easily modded, so I got ahold of it and built a scenario called "Foundations of Empire." http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169193. The scenario was well-received by Civ Fanatics dl'ers and has a rating of 3 stars. Encouraged (and having a hunger to do some more modding) I started looking around this week for another project. Thought I'd do something in the Middle Ages... and then I discovered your incredible mod.

What a thrilling accomplishment "European Middle Ages" is!

I have played four games so far and am looking forward to firing up another one very, very soon. (Probably as soon as I finish this post!) I started as Charlemagne, played for a few dozen turns and was struck by the fact that the essential dynamics of Civ4 are not the same. My old strategies weren't going to work! So I restarted as Vikings... twice... second time made it to 1349 before I realized I wasn't going to win. Re-started as Charlemagne and won a Hanseatic Victory in 1460.

All I can say is that this is one impressive mod. What I noticed most was the genuinely medieval feeling to the economics. My main ongoing struggle was keeping my cities healthy and it wasn't easy. That felt genuinely realistic to the Middle Ages. Especially as the Vikings, I had to generate settlers in regularly as a way of limiting city growth and send them off to find new land --- and, of course, the expanding population in Scandinavia is exactly what drove the Viking raiders historically.

Another big change in the game dynamics: This is no "conquer the world" game. You're pretty much going to manage your historically assigned country and maybe conquer a few neighbors ala the HRE but that's about it. One of the other posts here from Gringoesteban makes this point: in v0.5, domination victory doesn't really seem possible. My sense is that the only real chance to win is through the revised SS projects. But I actually LIKE this. I think it feels far more historically accurate than conquering all of Europe or the Middle East. I know you're considering nerfing the domination requirement but I'm not swure that's a great idea.

I also want to give you some input on a technical glitch. The six Hanseatic League Member icons are spilling off the edge of its tech tree panel and throwing off the graphics in the next tech tree panel. As a result, "Embassy to China" and "Trade Alliance with Merv" are not appearing in their panels. I noticed Craig has suggested moving the six members around to other techs and I would definitely encourage that if only to solve the technical issue of the icons being crowded out.

Finally, I also noticed that last month Ishockley offered to do 2D art for buttons. I don't know how far along that is, but I want to offer my services in this area as well. It's not hard to do, but can be time consuming... and seeing Al Gore's face on the Silk Route is driving me nuts!

Again, my hearty congratulations on what is turning out to be an amazing project.
 
I just played a game as the Moors, and started a new one as Armenians, and I have to say the new buildings are great, and they definitely add to the mod so instead of having nothing to do and try to conquer other people, you actually have to race with the other civs to prevent them from getting too much of an edge on you in production and gold. Very good so far, but I just want to say that there are wayyy too many buildings that give units experience. It's like you have an army of crack troops when they have been freshly trained. For example, I don't see how wooden walls will grant troops experience.
 
Well, I've been working on the Barbarian UUs for some time now, and have come to a dead end in one respect... I am unable to stop the random spawning of the UUs. I've tried all manner of ways to do this, but cannot.

So, I really need to know how people feel about allowing the UUs to spawn, or giving up on the idea. If Highlanders coming out of the desert really bother you, or camel riders out of the forest... let me know.

Of course, if someone can think of a way to succeed that I haven't tried, let me know...

lshockley... your idea of using nativeterrain and nativefeatures was good and I thought it would work, but apparently, it's only for animals. Even after I made the units animals, though, it didn't work out.
 
I don't know the details of your problem, but if you haven't already you could look at how in Warlords (version ?) spearmen can be built in barb cities but are not spawned in the wilderness. It was a bug; they meant to add spearmen in both places.

It would be great if you got terrain control working well. Unrealistic mass spawning of human barbs is a problem for earth-based maps that include large deserts.
 
@ Gordon Farrell :
Greetings and Salutations

Last year when Civ4 came out I was thrilled at the prospect that it would be easily modded, so I got ahold of it and built a scenario called "Foundations of Empire." http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169193. The scenario was well-received by Civ Fanatics dl'ers and has a rating of 3 stars. Encouraged (and having a hunger to do some more modding) I started looking around this week for another project. Thought I'd do something in the Middle Ages... and then I discovered your incredible mod.

What a thrilling accomplishment "European Middle Ages" is!

I have played four games so far and am looking forward to firing up another one very, very soon. (Probably as soon as I finish this post!) I started as Charlemagne, played for a few dozen turns and was struck by the fact that the essential dynamics of Civ4 are not the same. My old strategies weren't going to work! So I restarted as Vikings... twice... second time made it to 1349 before I realized I wasn't going to win. Re-started as Charlemagne and won a Hanseatic Victory in 1460.

All I can say is that this is one impressive mod. What I noticed most was the genuinely medieval feeling to the economics. My main ongoing struggle was keeping my cities healthy and it wasn't easy. That felt genuinely realistic to the Middle Ages. Especially as the Vikings, I had to generate settlers in regularly as a way of limiting city growth and send them off to find new land --- and, of course, the expanding population in Scandinavia is exactly what drove the Viking raiders historically.
Click to expand...
Thank you! I'm glad that you like how it's coming along right now.
Another big change in the game dynamics: This is no "conquer the world" game. You're pretty much going to manage your historically assigned country and maybe conquer a few neighbors ala the HRE but that's about it. One of the other posts here from Gringoesteban makes this point: in v0.5, domination victory doesn't really seem possible. My sense is that the only real chance to win is through the revised SS projects. But I actually LIKE this. I think it feels far more historically accurate than conquering all of Europe or the Middle East. I know you're considering nerfing the domination requirement but I'm not swure that's a great idea.
Click to expand...
Thank you, I believe it was Craig_Sutter who came up with a lot of the information for the production victories.
I also want to give you some input on a technical glitch. The six Hanseatic League Member icons are spilling off the edge of its tech tree panel and throwing off the graphics in the next tech tree panel. As a result, "Embassy to China" and "Trade Alliance with Merv" are not appearing in their panels. I noticed Craig has suggested moving the six members around to other techs and I would definitely encourage that if only to solve the technical issue of the icons being crowded out.

Finally, I also noticed that last month Ishockley offered to do 2D art for buttons. I don't know how far along that is, but I want to offer my services in this area as well. It's not hard to do, but can be time consuming... and seeing Al Gore's face on the Silk Route is driving me nuts!
Click to expand...
Right now we are working on spreading out the project parts across the tech tree more, and I soon plan on adding a few more technologies, especially near the end of the tech tree. As far as the tech buttons go, all help is appreciated, and it would be great if you could make those for us. However, lshockley has already started making them, so you'll need to talk to him to make sure you aren't doing the same ones he's doing.
@ Drtad :
I just played a game as the Moors, and started a new one as Armenians, and I have to say the new buildings are great, and they definitely add to the mod so instead of having nothing to do and try to conquer other people, you actually have to race with the other civs to prevent them from getting too much of an edge on you in production and gold. Very good so far, but I just want to say that there are wayyy too many buildings that give units experience. It's like you have an army of crack troops when they have been freshly trained. For example, I don't see how wooden walls will grant troops experience.
Click to expand...
One of the problems I see with removing the experience bonus from walls is that it would only leave them with a defense bonus, and an increased defense is oftentimes not very useful and would not be built often by the player. I can definitely see, however, possibly reducing the experience given by them.
@ Masri :
Head Serf,

sorry for the late reply but yes if you could please tell me where to find the conversations so i can translate them for you.
Click to expand...
They are in the Civ4DiplomacyText.xml file. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. It doesn't really matter how you translate it, but it will probably be easiest if you just put the translations into a wordpad, word, or notepad document. Feel free to take your time, there isn't any rush, and I know it's a lot to translate. Here's the Diplomacy file, you don't need to translate every line, just one of every type of response. For instance, there are like 20 different AI_DIPLO_DECLARE_WAR, we only need one translated. Thank you!
 

Attachments

re: XP from buildings:

Here are the buildings we have now that add XP for land units:

  • Armoury: +2xp, +25% military production
  • Keep: +1xp, +10% defense
  • Wooden Walls: +2xp, +20% defense
  • Stone Walls: +2xp, +20% defense (requires Stone, Wooden Walls)
  • Fortified Walls: +2xp, +20% defense (requires Copper or Iron, Stone Walls)

Assuming a player was able to build all of these, new land units would gain a max of +9xp, which is 2 promotions. With the Krak des Chevaliers wonder, +12xp (3 promotions).

  • Tourney: +4xp (mounted units only), +1 happy (max 4 per civ)
  • Royal Tourney: +4xp (mounted units only), +2 happy, +4 infl (Nat'l Wonder, requires Tourney x4)

For mounted units, Tourney or Royal Tourney adds an add'l +4xp for 13xp (3 promotions) or 16xp with Krak des Chevaliers (3 promotions).

If we all agree to tone this down, I'd suggest the following:
  • Armoury: (no change) +2xp, +25% military production
  • Keep-> +2xp, +10% defense
  • Wooden Walls -> +0xp, +25% defense
  • Stone Walls -> +1xp, +25% defense
  • Fortified Walls -> +1xp, +25% defense

This would give a max base of +6xp (2 promotions) from buildings. Krak des Chevaliers would remain as is, +3xp in all cities, for +9xp (2 promotions).

We could decrease Tourney and Royal Tourney to +2xp each for mounted units.

Hopefully the increase in city defense offsets the loss of xp for the walls - if not, perhaps we could consider making them a little cheaper?

What does everybody think? -Laina
 
@Gordon Farrell re: buttons:

hi Gordon! I'm glad you like the mod! I have only been working as part of the mod team a short while, but it is a very enjoyable mod to build as well. :)

I have already completed the buildings buttons, and I am nearly finished with the tech buttons. However, I welcome your help - I'm having a hard time finding good images for the remaining techs.

Also, if you would like to review the building buttons, please feel free to make new buttons for any that you think could look nicer. I was initially trying to keep them as consistent as possible, but it was tricky finding appropriate images for this era, and I realize the themes are somewhat mixed.

Here is a list of techs I still need buttons for:
Vassalage
Feudalism
Siege Warfare
Monastic Orders
Classical Heritage
Pilgrimage
Representation

Also, we are currently in the process of testing the new buildings for the next release. We have corrected the Hanseatic League Membership problem you mentioned in your post. If you would like to join us in testing it, or would simply like to review the building buttons, let me know, and I'll be happy to post the latest code. (You can also download it from recent posting, but you will need to be careful to download the updates in the correct order.)

Finally, if you rather tackle an art project by yourself, we do need work on the bonuses!

-Laina :)
 
hi Everybody!

I just realized you guys think my handle is Ishockley because I never properly introduced myself. My handle is Lshockley, for Laina Shockley, which is my name. (I wasn't feeling very creative when I registered.) Also, I'm a she. :lol:

Anyway, just thought I'd set things straight. :) -Laina
 
@Craig Sutter,

I'm sorry to hear the Terrain and FeatureNatives didn't do it. I wonder what in the heck that tag is there for? Maybe it needs to be used in conjunction with another tag somewhere else... I'll look around and see if I can find anything!

In response to your question - if we can't control it, non-characteristic spawning doesn't particularly bother me.

-Laina
 
lshockley said:
re: XP from buildings:

Here are the buildings we have now that add XP for land units:

  • Armoury: +2xp, +25% military production
  • Keep: +1xp, +10% defense
  • Wooden Walls: +2xp, +20% defense
  • Stone Walls: +2xp, +20% defense (requires Stone, Wooden Walls)
  • Fortified Walls: +2xp, +20% defense (requires Copper or Iron, Stone Walls)

Assuming a player was able to build all of these, new land units would gain a max of +9xp, which is 2 promotions. With the Krak des Chevaliers wonder, +12xp (3 promotions).

  • Tourney: +4xp (mounted units only), +1 happy (max 4 per civ)
  • Royal Tourney: +4xp (mounted units only), +2 happy, +4 infl (Nat'l Wonder, requires Tourney x4)

For mounted units, Tourney or Royal Tourney adds an add'l +4xp for 13xp (3 promotions) or 16xp with Krak des Chevaliers (3 promotions).

If we all agree to tone this down, I'd suggest the following:
  • Armoury: (no change) +2xp, +25% military production
  • Keep-> +2xp, +10% defense
  • Wooden Walls -> +0xp, +25% defense
  • Stone Walls -> +1xp, +25% defense
  • Fortified Walls -> +1xp, +25% defense

This would give a max base of +6xp (2 promotions) from buildings. Krak des Chevaliers would remain as is, +3xp in all cities, for +9xp (2 promotions).

We could decrease Tourney and Royal Tourney to +2xp each for mounted units.

Hopefully the increase in city defense offsets the loss of xp for the walls - if not, perhaps we could consider making them a little cheaper?

What does everybody think? -Laina
Click to expand...
Much better than before. Good idea.

@Head Serf
Now that I really look at it, in every game the Moors convert to Catholicism. since for vanilla there is only one more available nation slot, I think it should go to a Muslim North African civ. I think the Zirid Berber emirate deserves this slot, if only to keep the Moors company.;) At their greatest extent the Zirids controlled all of Tunisia, parts of Algeria, and th southern half of Sicily.
 
I thought about an alternative to the experience bonus for walls, and I think maybe all archer and militia units created in a city with walls get a city garrison promotion, 25% increased city defense. I think this makes more sense.
 
I don't think they should be implemented unless they can be limited to cities with the special building. Another problem I see, albeit a small one, is that having all of these extra UUs would really clog up the civilopedia. However, if these problems can be fixed, especially the first one, I fully support the idea.

I've been playing a few games and it bothers me that civilizations have absolutely no tendency to build the production victories that suit them best. The Byzantines are building the Hanseatic League, Germany the Silk Route, and the list goes on and on. I think that it might be a good consideration at this point to limit victories to certain civilizations, with civilizations on the edge recieving maybe two possibilities. For instance, I think that the Moors should be given the option of the Silk Route or the New World, but not the Hanseatic League. Also, the Arabs might be limited to the Silk Route, and Poland the Hanseatic League. Any thoughts?
 
Head Serf said:
@ Masri : Head Serf,

sorry for the late reply but yes if you could please tell me where to find the conversations so i can translate them for you.

@ Head Serf : They are in the Civ4DiplomacyText.xml file. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. It doesn't really matter how you translate it, but it will probably be easiest if you just put the translations into a wordpad, word, or notepad document. Feel free to take your time, there isn't any rush, and I know it's a lot to translate. Here's the Diplomacy file, you don't need to translate every line, just one of every type of response. For instance, there are like 20 different AI_DIPLO_DECLARE_WAR, we only need one translated. Thank you!
Click to expand...


Well, I've promised you translation too, but had no time yet:mischief:

I will translate the Hungarian diplotexts, and maybe offer some special, historical tweaks to some of the english versions as well. ;)

Kopiano
 
Ok, that's one nay, as is.

I've been thinking that, instead of giving the units to the Barb Civ, I'd create a Minor Civ civilization that would have the units. The Minor Civ has been removed from this mod (I don't know why since it is a part of Vanilla), but if I create a Minor Civ called Petty Kingdoms or some such name, then scenario makers could add that one into their scenarios and use the special buildings for those.

Only problem is that this solution would take up a Civilzation slot (unlike the Barb Cities idea).

It would prevent the spawning problem, though.
 
lshockley said:
@Gordon Farrell re: buttons:

hi Gordon! I'm glad you like the mod! I have only been working as part of the mod team a short while, but it is a very enjoyable mod to build as well. :)

I have already completed the buildings buttons, and I am nearly finished with the tech buttons. However, I welcome your help - I'm having a hard time finding good images for the remaining techs.

Also, if you would like to review the building buttons, please feel free to make new buttons for any that you think could look nicer. I was initially trying to keep them as consistent as possible, but it was tricky finding appropriate images for this era, and I realize the themes are somewhat mixed.
Click to expand...

Hi Laina!

Would love to review the building and tech buttons you've already done! That would help me do what I can to address the consistency issue in my own work. Although it's worth noting that Firaxis uses at least 3 different styles of art for buttons on the tech trees: There's the Pseudo-primitive Portraits (eg, Scout), the Looks-Like-Screenshot of the Unit (eg, Galley), and the Totally Realistic-Looking British Museum Catalogue Thumbnail (eg, Polytheism). And that's not including the modern stuff like Al Gore and Physics. Having more than one style (imho) adds visuasl liveliness to the tree. All the same style and it goes bland + is less exciting to the eye.

Here is a list of techs I still need buttons for:
Vassalage
Feudalism
Siege Warfare
Monastic Orders
Classical Heritage
Pilgrimage
Representation
Click to expand...

Would love to help with these. May have art for some of them already in my own files.

Also, we are currently in the process of testing the new buildings for the next release. We have corrected the Hanseatic League Membership problem you mentioned in your post. If you would like to join us in testing it, or would simply like to review the building buttons, let me know, and I'll be happy to post the latest code.
Click to expand...

If you could post the buildings and the buttons, and the current xml pages to update them into 0.5 that would be great. Otherwise, even just getting jpgs (or dds's if it's more convenient) of the buttons would be awesome.

Finally, if you rather tackle an art project by yourself, we do need work on the bonuses!
Click to expand...

Let me start with the short list above. Then I would like to at least take a pass at the bonuses. I assume they need to be done in the same style as the Firaxis bonus buttons?

Best
Gordon
 
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