ExtremeMod

[Drtad]

Hmm I played a little further along and found that the reason Sumeria never exchanged any territory with the Cham is because they were quite powerful in their own right even though they were small. And they had Kong units! hahaha

I'm not entirely sure about the AI but the Cham declared war on me and do have two big stacks ready to invade me. They're sieging a couple cities but they don't really have the strength to win (and they use siege weaponry poorly). It could be that some leaders have better warlike tendencies than others due to some XML? I used to mod a bit but I was never really sure of how to influence each leader to behave differently (I could only do xml).

 

[tchristensen]

Hmm I played a little further along and found that the reason Sumeria never exchanged any territory with the Cham is because they were quite powerful in their own right even though they were small. And they had Kong units! hahaha

I'm not entirely sure about the AI but the Cham declared war on me and do have two big stacks ready to invade me. They're sieging a couple cities but they don't really have the strength to win (and they use siege weaponry poorly). It could be that some leaders have better warlike tendencies than others due to some XML? I used to mod a bit but I was never really sure of how to influence each leader to behave differently (I could only do xml).

Curious how things worked out for you.

I am nearing to releasing another update, with the AI tending to be a bit stronger in many variant ways.

Also introducing two new cool units that can capture various barbarian units -- real fun!

 

[tchristensen]

New Version of Extreme Mod is available:

http://www.atomicgamer.com/files/89104/version-2-5

Biggest change is the addition of two new units that can capture Barbarian units.

 

[Soro]

Good deal. Downloading now.

 

[tchristensen]

Good deal. Downloading now.

I find that the AI are one tough SOB to beat, not that they are highly aggressive but just are diligent and resourceful -- even the weak empires can crank out troops (I may have to fiddle with this aspect a bit).

Make sure you build some Commanders and Some Quirra~~ (can never remember how to say those boats) but the two can capture barbarians -- and that is such a treat.

Again for those that download it -- my intentions are for people to play on Noble, Epic, with Raging Barbarians and Aggressive AI. Other choices have not been play tested as much, although that doesn't mean they are not fun either.

I am going to continue to test the balance aspects of the game and am always interested in hearing player's opinions.

Troy

 

[tchristensen]

I am in the final testing for Update 3.0, and it is a huge modification to Extreme.

I am adding several more fanciful technology lines including Atlantean, Fey, and Netherworld technology lines.

These in effect will add in a whole new strategic layer to the game with the inclusion of fantasy units, buildings, and wonders.

It was a tough decision, but 2.6 is a good Mod that should stand on its own for the playing of more "real world" game play (and I say that tongue in cheek knowing the problems with the present module as is).

From 3.0 on I will be adding a ton of new content with more of a fantasy feel -- of course it will be all playtested and hopefully balanced so that it won't be a simple rush to the fantasy unit and leaving the others to gather dust.

All in all it is shaping up to a fantastic new update.

 

[Pakhawaj]

Downloaded your mod because I saw it in the Thomas' War thread.
This runs really quickly, I don't know how because Thomas' War was rather slow. So well done on that!
Why have you changed the Thomas' War religions? The new ones are really off-putting to the point where I quit the game when someone founded "Goddess". How do I change them back to the religions of Thomas' War (if I can)?

 

[tchristensen]

Downloaded your mod because I saw it in the Thomas' War thread.
This runs really quickly, I don't know how because Thomas' War was rather slow. So well done on that!
Why have you changed the Thomas' War religions? The new ones are really off-putting to the point where I quit the game when someone founded "Goddess". How do I change them back to the religions of Thomas' War (if I can)?

There is no way for you to change back the religions to that of the Thomas War Mod because it would require some rather obtuse reconstruction of names and graphics. Why do you find the religions so "off-putting"? Goddess, for example, was the prominent religion in the world for tens of thousands of years.

I basically changed the religions because I found out how to do it and thought it would be interesting to see new names and abilities for religions -- just as I changed Corporations and Civics.

Please try the game again and look beyond the basic religions -- I hope you will learn to enjoy it.

 

[Pakhawaj]

Well, "Goddess" isn't an actual religion, people have worshipped Goddesses for a long time, but to my knowledge there has never been an organised religion called "Goddess". Does it replace the Vodún religion? Vodouisants are detailed, interesting and organised whereas (in my opinion) "Goddess" is non-existent and vague. Also, I might be incorrect but I thought that Wicca was essentially Goddess worship.
The other religions were fine because they were all fairly organised (though if you're going to stick with them, I'd give Wicca a more modern founding point) but I don't know why they'd necessarily be better than the religions Thomas had considering all of the buildings and units were present.
One of the reasons I like Thomas' War is that everything was well researched, every civ, leader, religion and technology had a good or an interesting reason for being there and I liked going through the Civpedia. It's also the only mod with a Sub-Saharan and an Arctic religion, which is pretty cool.
I think I just wanted an updated Thomas' War mod rather than a mod based on it. ^^;
I hope I'm not coming across as preachy or anything, obviously this is your mod! I just get put off games very easily.
I'll give it another go and I'll reply again if I've changed my mind.


Okay, I gave it another go. You've made some fairly perplexing changes which I dislike, I'm sure your game is more balanced and such but the new religions and civics are less interesting than they could be and a bit superfluous. May I ask you how you got the game to run so quickly? If that is not so difficult, maybe I could try modding something myself.

 

[tchristensen]

Well, "Goddess" isn't an actual religion, people have worshipped Goddesses for a long time, but to my knowledge there has never been an organised religion called "Goddess". Does it replace the Vodún religion? Vodouisants are detailed, interesting and organised whereas (in my opinion) "Goddess" is non-existent and vague. Also, I might be incorrect but I thought that Wicca was essentially Goddess worship.
The other religions were fine because they were all fairly organised (though if you're going to stick with them, I'd give Wicca a more modern founding point) but I don't know why they'd necessarily be better than the religions Thomas had considering all of the buildings and units were present.
One of the reasons I like Thomas' War is that everything was well researched, every civ, leader, religion and technology had a good or an interesting reason for being there and I liked going through the Civpedia. It's also the only mod with a Sub-Saharan and an Arctic religion, which is pretty cool.
I think I just wanted an updated Thomas' War mod rather than a mod based on it. ^^;
I hope I'm not coming across as preachy or anything, obviously this is your mod! I just get put off games very easily.
I'll give it another go and I'll reply again if I've changed my mind.


Okay, I gave it another go. You've made some fairly perplexing changes which I dislike, I'm sure your game is more balanced and such but the new religions and civics are less interesting than they could be and a bit superfluous. May I ask you how you got the game to run so quickly? If that is not so difficult, maybe I could try modding something myself.

It is too bad you do not like the Mod. I find it strange that for the hundreds of technologies and units I have added, that a simple name change would make the game unplayable for you.

From my research Goddess was an actual religion that was worshiped for tens of thousands of years before the introduction of far more complicated religions -- hence it is the first religion in the game. Wicca is definitely not Goddess worship as it has nothing to do with Goddess worshipping but I guess you could draw some parallelism between the two as much as you could with any two randomly selected religions.

But putting aside this hole religions issue, in truth it is really not much more than some simple name changes and reworking of some of the civilopedia. If you want, please edit a copy of ExtremeMod so that you find the religions acceptable -- with a bit of XML tweaking you should be able to figure it out.

As to how I got the mod to run quicker, I am at a loss for words because I did nothing to the Thomas War mod to enhance performance -- if anything I did the exact opposite by adding in a hundred new technologies and 150 new models. I could just say it was some secret tweak I did, but that would be untrue.

I am sorry you don't like the mod. And you probably won't enjoy version 3 that will be released very soon since it adds layers of new technology and units into the mod.

I encourage you to learn modding -- Less than 6 months ago I had never modded and thought I never could because of the complexity of it. But start small and backup you work constantly, and slowly you will learn how to do stuff -- I am still geeked when I learn a new trick on XML modification.

 

[Soro]

First off: I like your mod. Very much. Play it a good deal. So my comments that follow are not meant as criticism of it.

From my research Goddess was an actual religion that was worshiped for tens of thousands of years...

What you discovered were statues of female figures. They aren't evidence of worshiping a goddess, anymore than carved stone lingams dating back tens of thousands of years are indications that people in the Indus Valley worshiped gods. They probably *do* indicate a desire to support or propitiate female/male "qualities" in the earth, the sky, the water, etc. Both genders, not either. And worship may or may not have been involved. No one knows.

There have been some modern-day feminists who claim these female figures are full evidence of the worship of a specific over-goddess, but there has been no supporting evidence, and later cultures that do show female goddess figures were not only goddess worshiping, but had specific goddesses and gods: they were polytheistic. Current evidence points to monotheism first evolving with Zoroaster, and the worship of the male over-deity, Ahura Mazda. This could be wrong, but there's nothing here going back 10,000 years, much less tens of thousands of years.

I can't speak for Pakhawaj, but if you've been a pagan for a considerable length of time and male--and speaking only for myself--you do tend to get a bit fed up on occasion with a few members of this very general, amorphous group who make statements without supporting facts about some over-goddess who existed in the distant past and of whom no evidence survives anywhere. How do they know it existed? Because they do. The fact that a single deity could be limited by sex as determined by a bunch of human beings in itself is preposterous, but that's what you hear all too often.

Now: it's a tiny, tiny point in a very fine mod. I wouldn't even mention it if it wasn't mentioned, above. Is it worth correcting? For a future release, it's worth considering, at least. Is it significant? No, in my opinion, it isn't. Carry on.

 

[tchristensen]

Thanks for your insightful comments on the Goddess religion. I will of course take that into consideration, however, I must state that my sources for some of the information pertaining to Goddess worship and the other religions are from very reputable books and sources.

I will not labor the point since the context of the inclusion of Goddess worshiping in a Mod for Civilization IV in all truth is just a fun game to play. If Goddess really perturbs you that much, simple search for every word of Goddess in the Mod and switch it with whatever Mojo name you prefer -- in the end, it doesn't affect the game in any way.

There are so many other cool technologies and units to talk about, that I have spent enough time on this aspect of the game.

I am working on including a completely new technological line called Atlantean Technology that will open up avenues to introduce fantasy buildings and units into the game. I labored a while on this decision, but in the end there were just too many cool units, buildings, and technology that I could add.

Look forward to this in a couple of weeks; its really going to be exciting.

 

[tchristensen]

Downloaded your mod because I saw it in the Thomas' War thread.
This runs really quickly, I don't know how because Thomas' War was rather slow. So well done on that!
Why have you changed the Thomas' War religions? The new ones are really off-putting to the point where I quit the game when someone founded "Goddess". How do I change them back to the religions of Thomas' War (if I can)?

After mulling over your comment, I would have to say that I redid the GUI a bit and that could be a reason why it plays a bit smoother on some computers.

Other than that, I took my first build directly from the last Thomas' War Mod and proceeded to crank up the techs and the units.

 

[Pakhawaj]

It is too bad you do not like the Mod. I find it strange that for the hundreds of technologies and units I have added, that a simple name change would make the game unplayable for you.

Ah, I'm glad you didn't take offence! I find name changes to have a more profound effect on gameplay than actual gameplay changes because it changes how you imagine the world you've created.

I'm a picky man; I stopped playing Oblivion because Bestheda included voice acting (I almost did the same for Civ IV!), little things get on one's wick and if I want to play computer games, there are so many available that I can afford to be picky, whether this is a good or a bad thing, I don't know.

Thank you for your encouragement, I've started fiddling about with your and Thomas' mods, perhaps I'll produce something I'm happy with. And good luck with your mod, it looked pretty good for the most part.

 

[tchristensen]

I like to offer a challenge to those that have more insight into religion than I do. If you are up for a challenge, I pose that you construct religions to replace those that you find offensive such as Goddess and Wicca.

This is what you need to do: Name, three word description, then at least two full paragraphs of description on the development and long term growth of the religion. Also if it is a real world religion (not made up for example), websites where you got the information from and where I could acquire some images of the religion.

Here is a chance to make a difference and put your words to action. No modding experience required, but you will have to do more than talk about "doing something" but formalize a legible response -- I don't want a diatribe of what is wrong with my mod, nor a rambling nonsensical argument of what and how you would implement the changes, but rather a detailed examination of such religions.

If this catches on, I will offer this challenge to other aspects of the game....

 

[tchristensen]

I'm a picky man; I stopped playing Oblivion because Bestheda included voice acting (I almost did the same for Civ IV!), little things get on one's wick and if I want to play computer games, there are so many available that I can afford to be picky, whether this is a good or a bad thing, I don't know.

It's funny you say Oblivion because I worked on that project for Bethesda so perhaps you just find anything I worked on not to your liking

 

[Soro]

I like to offer a challenge to those that have more insight into religion than I do.

I would never, ever claim this. But I'm willing to work with your challenge, just for the fun of the thing.

This is what you need to do: Name, three word description, then at least two full paragraphs of description on the development and long term growth of the religion. Also if it is a real world religion (not made up for example), websites where you got the information from and where I could acquire some images of the religion.

Isis. Throne of the Night. There are tons of sites out there about this goddess, and surprisingly, Wikipedia's is quite good, providing a thorough introduction to her. (Actually, it doesn't appear to be surprising, at all. Looks as though some revivalists may have been doing all the spade work to get this stuff up there. Good for them.) Do you need me to boil it down into two paragraphs for copying? If so, approximately how many words, in all?

Dionysus. The Vine of Ecstasy. Again, Wikipedia comes through.

Let's start with these. Again, let me know what length of content you need for the paragraphs, and what sort of content you want them to contain.

 

[tchristensen]

Aren't the two you listed rather cultural specific? Isis being Egyptian and Dionysus Greek? I guess you could counter that each religion is rather cultural specific, though less so with the more advanced monotheistics such as Christianity and Islam, but Buddhism is rather open as well as it concerns the development with the India subcontinent and the Chinese mainland.

I also would need to replace Goddess with a very generic precursor religion and not something relatively advanced -- that is why I selected Goddess because it was the basis from which all other religions expanded upon.

I hope you are not basing allot of your ideologies on Wikepedia since that is not an academic source -- I mean anyone could put anything they want there. It is a good place to start, however. . . .

As for the number of words, the less the better. I am not a proponent of lengthy word counts equaling authentication or substance. If you can do it in 20 words, great. If you can do it in 10 words, even better. You get my idea.

 

[Soro]

Aren't the two you listed rather cultural specific? Isis being Egyptian and Dionysus Greek? I guess you could counter that each religion is rather cultural specific, though less so with the more advanced monotheistics such as Christianity and Islam...

All are, including the latter day monotheistic ones. The uniting language of Islam, for example, is Arabic, no matter which country is considered: Indonesia, Pakistan, Algeria, or the US. Christianity is actually a bunch of religions, but Latin still rules in the Roman Catholic Church, while the religion itself is an (at times) uneasy mix of Habiru-based triumphalism and exclusivity, and late Greek neo-platonism. I mean to give no offense to anybody in stating this. I'm just looking at original cultures, and their effects several thousand years on.

I really can't find a universal god/goddess. That's pretty much an anachronistic modern idea: because the recent monotheistic religions are "universal" in that they've spread, by conquest, it follows people 10,000 years ago, people who never went more than 100 miles in their lives must have somehow possessed universal god/goddesses. I'll gladly change my opinion on this, if any solid evidence can be presented to do so. I'm really not wedded to the idea. Only to the facts.

I also would need to replace Goddess with a very generic precursor religion and not something relatively advanced -- that is why I selected Goddess because it was the basis from which all other religions expanded upon.

The chest-based horse harness evolved in China at least 3000 years ago, but it didn't show up in Europe for another 2000 years or so. And many cultural groups never developed any kind of horse harness, because they didn't have horses. A god/goddess such as might be worshiped in the Nile flood basin would be very different from one discovered and worshiped in the frozen steppes of Siberia. The solar deity of Japan was a goddess. The solar deity of the Doric Greeks was a god. For some groups, solar deities were beneficent, but for others, who lived in deserts, they were malign figures who had to propitiated, rather than worshiped.

Yeah, I'm going on a bit, but I'm just trying to emphasize that there wasn't any monotheism, masculine or feminine, back 10,000 years ago. Even Jung postulated that deific archetypes were specific to certain ideas, so that while you could find numerous trickster gods, grain goddesses, travel deities, etc, you wouldn't find everybody worshiping A God, or A Goddess, spontaneously. Conditions differ per culture, and what people perceive as good or bad, their wants, their goals, their fears, color the kinds of deities they discover.

I hope you are not basing allot of your ideologies on Wikepedia since that is not an academic source -- I mean anyone could put anything they want there. It is a good place to start, however. . . .

An academic source? No, certainly not. If you'll reread what I wrote above, you'll see I was commending the person or persons who did those articles for getting them correct, although the information is relatively basic (while remaining extensive). This implies I've done my research from numerous other sources, and in this case, long before there was a Web . I wasn't going to recommend any sites or books that might give a newcomer acute intellectual indigestion. Do you want some scholarly info detailing acute similarities between Dionysian, Judaic, and early Christian religions? A discussion of Dionysiac prophecy? An essay on Aset/Isis? These are still pretty basic, but good. I can point you to some in depth books, but I doubt you want to go there just for a few paragraphs in a game.

As for the number of words, the less the better. I am not a proponent of lengthy word counts equaling authentication or substance. If you can do it in 20 words, great. If you can do it in 10 words, even better. You get my idea.

So Isis, Throne of the Stars, might be, "Isis, daughter of the Earth and the Sky, was first written of 5000 years ago. She was seen as the ruler of magic and fertility, secrecy and compassion." That okay? And Dionysus, The Vine of Ecstasy: "First written of 3500 years ago; likely much older. God of wine, sex, insight and intuition."

 

[tchristensen]

You certainly do like to fill up the page with words, but with all that you said we are still no closer to creating a pair of religions any better than the ones I already have in the game.

We need just some basic religious structure, not specific to sex, or insight, or magic that we can quantify into a first religion (and then push that forward into more advanced religions). Isis or Dionysus is just too culturally specific -- what are the archetypes of these deities? We need to broaden the field to encompass a whole range of cultures. . . See where I am going? If it is just your opinion, over mine (or any another gamer), is it worth updating?

I think we are moving in the right direction, but again we want simple religious concepts that the average gamer is going to understand. We need to keep it as culturally unbiased as possible and yet be vividly descriptive. Simplicity is the key here because although you can write 1500 words on a specific religion, the average gamer wants nothing more than a sentence.

Goddess is simple enough to understand but detailed where Average Joe would nod and think, "OK I can see this happening." The same holds for Wicca -- something everyone has at least heard about but probably on the average not allot of people know much about.

Continue on your discourse and keep mulling over ideas on how to simply the first religion. Once we nail that down, we can build on the rest. If things go well, we could substitute all the religions in the game.