[NFP] Fantasy History Builder Mod Project

[Irealys]

Hello everyone. To those who haven't heard of me, lucky you. A shame we will change that.

I'm a now 41 years, father of an 18 year old who loves tabletop roleplaying. I never got into it but I understand why he loves it, especially as the DM, he gets to tell stories. One day he spoke about how hard it was for him to create a brand new world because he ended up with the same issues as he always would in normal fantasy, he kept falling in the same traps. I thought that if he and his friends played a game of Civ while roleplaying as various races it would allow them to organically create a new world with it's own unique backstory, relationships between races and so on.

My first thought was to simply use the existing Civs and just take the closest ones to what we expected dwarfs, thiefling and 10 types of elves to be. But then I remembered that mods are a thing and well... you can figure out how that lead me here. But at this point, the project is getting on a life of it's own. I have multiple people offering to help me with code, some with art. Because yes, I started modding for this project, that was about 4 or 5 weeks ago and I'm still in need of learning some real basic stuff. But I'm also a smart 41 years old who remember a bit of his computer sciences classes from 20 years ago and knows how to be intelligently lazy.

To begin with, I will not make new 3D content. I will use what the game has, assets made available by others on those forums and if anyone else say they can do something cool then I won't refuse but I already am trying to tackle enough on my own to not be interested in learning 3D on top.

Now as far as what I want to do, basically apply a coat of fantastic paint to the world. I will change very little in terms of game play but I will do my best to make it a unique experience using fantasy as the backdrop instead of this realistic world that Firaxis rightfully uses for Civilization (althgouh a Civ 7 DLC fantasy paint job would get my 10$ Sid...). What I will change is every name, new descriptions when needed, new great people and about a gazillion other small things. And to top it all off I want the game to end more around the industrial ages because the aestetics after aren't letting themselves to fantasy easily. So that mean cutting down about half of the game and stretching the history of evolution as cities and Civilizations from the ancient times to industrial era while being a similar experience in terms of time to a normal game. So I will need to make a bunch of new techs that will fill the spaces in between. Similarly I will probably change the Civic tree a little althought not as much. But everything else... pretty much will be changed in one way or another.

I will need help for this project to be as cool as it can be, I can't do it all alone. It's my first mod, it's a bit pushing the expectations. But with some help from people who have experience and can point me in the right direction and help from people who want to be a part of the project, I know we can do something that will, at the very least, be interesting to play.

What help am I looking for? All kinds. I will need to rename a lot of things and I'm trying to accomplish some goals so maybe you will simply have the best idea for my project (the best idea would be something SIMPLE to implement). But if you want to make a fantasy looking building, unit, wonder... This project is too large and too open at this stage to not have things we could work with.

Also, after being less and less sure of how interested the people around me were I asked and now I know I need all the help I can get. Because I'm alone in this but I've made too many strides and had too many ideas I want to see finished to stop there. It might just mean I'll rely on creative commons images way more than I originally wanted to.

However that just threw a wrench into my plans so I will now need to take a day or two to put things back into place in my head as to what else I need. Once I am a it more clear there, I will upate the next three posts, the reserved ones. For now, this is what I plan on having down here:

1. What I am trying to do by myself (meaning in the event that no one helps and I have only the game content and the units shared by the community).
2. The things I'm thinking someone in the community could do or help with
3. An FAQ about me, the project etc. For now mostly humoristic.

All of this will be upgraded regularly with your suggestions, ideas, contributions and disussions.

I hope for one thing, it's that this can be a giant brainstorming for a fantastic version of Civilization. Maybe some ideas won't be for me but maybe it will also give ideas to others who weren't interested in modding but might be with a subject like this. Or maybe it will give ideas to the high end modders who are NOT "kind of like Neo but small scale"... or so I was told repeatedly.

Until I update everything else, thank you for your interest and I promise this will get into high gear very soon.

 

[Irealys]

Project goals I aim to achieve by myself.​

Here I want to describe what will be the game if nobody helps me with anything that will be described in the following section. I still think the project would be good and interesting without any of the additional flash and cool stuff that could be added. That doesn't mean there is nothing in this list where I would appreciate help, it's that the help would most likely be during discussions, brainstorms or simply take a load off my hands and write some of the content based on decisions. But I'm getting off track, here are the goals I aim to achieve with this project. Also this is subject to change based on suggestions from the forums, I'll update these first few posts as needed.


Let's begin with my internal design rules: Priority is to help immersion by removing as many "real world reminders" as possible. Next priority is to try to use the systems that exist in ways to help create unique backstory to every game/world history created. For those who already forgot, this is mostly intended to be used by DM and storytellers. Or at least it's the idea. Third priority is to keep everything in a timeline (and look) that can exist between the normal world creation (by Civ standards) and the industrial era with a hint of "steampunk is right around the corner". And last but nor least, I want to create as little as possible. Anything that is not used either because it's a unique unit I didn't reuse or something that got cut from a later era, if it can be reused for something, I want to do it.


Now let's get into some specifics.

• I want to create a minimum of 12 completely new Civs. No dwarves, elves or any other classic RPG race. Some races will be well known groups (ex: pirates, undeads) but will have a significant twist to what would be the expected way they handle themselves.
  
  
• Renaming all of the great people to nicknames. I'm not a fan of the "your Civ amount of culture made someone from another country decide to become a great person in your country". Great people became like that because their countries allowed them the opportunities, Shakespeare didn't move to England because of their culture, he was able to become a writer because of it. So to use the game system to our advantage I don't want the names of Pirates, Undead and other races, I want nicknames to allow players to use the system to create a history that will be randomized.
  • Prophets will have nicknames to indicate if the religion creator is the deity itself (The savior, the messiah), someone who remembers him (the follower/apostle), predicts the end of time (Doomers?) etc.
    
    
  • Artists will have nicknames that will indicate that they either invented a style (the grandfather of horror) or improved on it in a significant way (the master of horror). That will be true for writers, artists and musicians. Their art will also be renamed and if possible changed. For books, a single quote from an imaginary book is easy. For artists, it's a drawing or picture which I'd probably take online. Music is the one I'm not sure I will be able to do. So it might be a rename and no music to accompany it.
    
    
  • Great Engineers and scientists could be nicknamed for their invention/discovery. I know I will need to change a few of the effects, I'll need to see what I'd prefer to have for replacements. Some with low level effects could be bonified with an extra book or art. This is still a work in progress in my head.
    
    
  • Great merchants. If you think the previous one was not an advanced concept, this is worse. I know Jeans will need to be replaced as a resource, the rest is still in the early brainstorming phase.
    
    
  • Great generals and Admirals. Simple nicknaming should do. The death of a famous war leader is an easy one to include in any storytelling.

• Create new cultures. Although it might not be the best way to describe it. In the current game, the culture artdefs controls the look of the city center, the houses built all around, the canal, the monument etc. I want to be in control of how every look from beginning to end which probably means redoing that entire system. This is one I will need some help to make sense of things but I'm fairly certain I can make it happen and thanks to Leugi's generosity with his city styles assets I know the Civs will be able to have interesting and different looks.But it also mean being able to stop units, buildings and others (roads for example) from changing their look to something too "futuristic" compared to what the world will look like.
  
  
• Redo the Tech tree. And the Civics tree will also need some work although not as bad. There's no going around it, even a rename is not enough for what I want. I need to remove the techs that are too advanced, make the latest techs the game uses that I want as the last (mostly industrial) and then I need to plug holes in between. It was suggested as my first attempt to try and keep it as is (keep the tech tree and connections like they are) to make it simpler. While by the end there is virtually no chance I will not be messing around with the connections and requirements, I still think it's a good exercise to keep myself from trying to reinvent the wheel. I will also use the game's unit balance mostly unchanged. (i.e. 5 ranged units over the course of the game, 7 melee units, etc.)
  
  
• Replace the Giant Death Robot. It doesn't fit at all. But it is needed to a certain extent. The game use it to give a boost to domination seeking Civs which we don't need so it doesn't HAVE to be as overpowered. But it could still help resolve some wars and make some nice changes and stories opportunities so I want to use it in some way. Without help, I am down to few options. I am not decided yet (and that's one I really hope someone comes with something smart). For now I'm thinking either a giant (I want to have all units be smaller and in groups so having this be the ONLY giant sized unit could have an impact) or replace it for "Ultimate Unit". Since I know for a unit, a Civ could have a different one (without being a unique unit that gives bonus points) because of their culture. In game it's mostly used for things like shields but it could be ENTIRELY different units So this could be the best unit for every Civ, the one overpowered unit (that can fight it against other equally superpowered units).
  
  
• You know what I've just said about cultures allowing for different units? Well I plan on using that as much as possible. I'm planning a "works with animals as allies" Civ that already can use a new unit I made consisting of 6 of the dogs from the scout unit without the scout. It will also use wolves, jaguars and other big cats, thanks to Deliverator's generosity with his assets, as various melee units. My undead will use zombies and the vampire castle in some way (NOT as the game intends them to be used). Which is why I want to use the NFP and not just GS, there is so much content I can see myself use with buildings and units. I understand it will limit who can play it (I assume) but unless I get some real help in creating units and buildings that's the way I will need to go.
  
  
• Create magic. Because it sounds like something I can do when bored on a rainy Sunday. Ok it will be a MUCH longer process because I still haven't decided what to do with the units. I'm hoping there is a way to basically convert the air/anti-air system to a magic/anti magic system. And I'd have to use probably the faith combat animations so there would be a question of do I keep that as part of the game or try to change it? But I'd need more effects so can we use the weather effect? Could a mage cast a tornado type attack against someone? A city?
  
  
• I don't want to remove the pollution system. We'll just change it to imply it's the magic in this world that is having an effect. That will have a lot of repercussions but it's a NEED for this to work. We are removing pollution by where we stop historically (it would be the last era so no effects would be really felt) but the disaster system is a really nice one for a game where we want as many opportunities for storytellers to create side stories. Volcano eruptions, cities being destroyed, armies being wiped by a blizzard, those are all great story opportunities. Oh and because I want horrible stories, I don't plan on having a life saving measure to rising sea level. I'm willing to have the equivalent of the carbon recapture, even stronger so it can feel like you make a difference, but water won't leave and cities will disappear, the map will change and it will be ripe with stories.
  
  
• Having all of this magic to replace pollution means a few more things. The polluting elements will need to be changed, reworked, reimagined or replaced. From the resources that will change to something that could be used for magic (work to do there but will give building opportunities) to the polluting units, mostly everything will need a hard look into.
  
  
• We're not stopping at magic replacing pollution. It replaces everything we can. One of the abilities an airport gains is to transport troops to another location instantly. That sounds like portal to portal teleportation to me. This is the idea I'm most proud of. I'm saying this to try and put context into what I'm really after when it comes to changes: clever recycling of in game content for something that serves our purposes. It's true also for the rest like the great people and all but this is the most interesting one I had (in my opinion).
  
  
• The clock or calendar. I want to find a way to change it somehow. Going from 4000 BC to 0 to 2050 is great for a normal game of Civ but any deviation here could help with the "this ain't earth" feel. I have no other ideas yet.
  
  
• Barbarians.Have been decided. There are a ton of decisions to take mainly because I have no idea what can be done or not so this is one where I'll need to talk with people who understand the code and we can discuss what is feasible and what is not. In an ideal world I'd use the barbarian clans mode but they wouldn't turn into city states at the end. Or at least, not into just another random one. I'm picturing something closer to a type of free city that doesn't plan on ever joining anyone? Or at least one with a much longer "fuse" before deciding to join? It could remain aggressive to anyone going to their borders but also start to build itself as a civilization (and start upgrading itself). But I'm aware that might be way too long and complex so I might end up having to use the normal barbarians. One thing I would like to do would be to have sea monsters. Thanks to, once more, Deliverator being a crazy madman, all the units from Civ 5 AND Civ beyond have their assets available to use and by looking at the pictures, I see a few tentacle sea monsters that could ABSOLUTELY work. Now would be a question of having them spawn their own ways. Anyway, the point is, there are options and I need a brainstorm.
  
  
• City States. Technically would probably be impacted by the result of the brainstorm but for sure will be renamed. I also look at what other changes could be made to make them feel a little bit more different from one type to the other but for now that is a very low priority. Any ideas are welcome right now though!!!
  
  
• Improvements. Some need to be removed. The Sphinx is too obvious. Golf... I mean the idea that every planet would end up with a sport of getting a rock into a hole somehow (launching, hitting, kicking etc) is kind of obvious to me. Maybe with just a slight touch up so it doesn't look too much like a golf course it could work? I'm getting off track a bit. The improvements removed from city states could be replaced by the unique improvements that won't be used. I also want one Civ who refuses to build districts, they'll have multiple unique improvements instead.
  
  
• Ressources. On top of what I said up top, there is space to make other changes to ressources. Some can be renamed without even needing a change in artwork. I'm open to suggestions. One thing I will most likely need is a few more flower types (for a potential alchemist). I will also need to keep some ressources that can provide artisan opportunities (cacao being turned into chocolate, coffee beans to coffee etc). I have a plan for an artisan district.
  
  
• New districts. Gonna need to create a few because I also want to replace everything I removed in that sense too. The airport will be replaced by a magic district with a portal at some point. I have one idea for another district that would have multiple options of buildings. It would be an artisan district and based on resources you have on your land (and would cost you that ressource) you could have different artisan shops to give you two different resources in exchange. Ex: cacao to chocolate, sugar to candy etc.
  
  
• And because cultures are always fun, let's see if we could also have this used to have pirates make rum out of sugar instead (and plenty of other unique cultural buildings could be done)
  
  
• Artifacts and relics will need to be looked into. I already know the bad news that there is a maximum. But at least removing the too obvious references and replace them with more "neutral and boring" names (shirt of the great prophet, sandals of a dead missionary etc) to give some indication or idea to players (and future storytellers) but leave them the room to think what they want and not imply it need to be on the level of the ark of the covenant!!! (I know the mad scientist Deliverator also has a way around the maximum, I'm not sure how needed it is for our purposes)
  
  
• Remove obvious wonders. This will be mostly a World wonder issue as natural wonders most of the time are close enough to represent something but wouldn't feel out of place renamed and in a fantasy world. But the Statue of liberty obviously will be too real for my intentions. How many I can remove would be dependent on how easy it is to make new ones and how much help I can get there. But something will need to be done there.
  
  
• Government and policies. Not the most fun part of the equation but clearly something I will need to also do a clean and replace job. Could still be interesting to try and make new types of governments.

Edit: the first few things I remembered and added back.

• Eras will be renamed, I could use some suggestions.
• The notification texts will be redone to help sell the immersion.
• I will take a look at the competitions, this is another area where I could change the text to help make things more immersive.
• I want to change the continent names to avoid earth names.
• All units names (when a unit get strong enough to have a name). Need to look if adjectives can be used as prefix/suffix (ex: Adjective - Legion can become Canadian legion or Pirate legion etc.). Also want to look at numbering them. (1st Pirate archer)
• I want to do more with antiquity sites and shipwrecks.Right now I just gave them +2 culture but I feel like it could be more. Like a different, smaller version of the national parks. I'm looking for ideas here.
• I will not use the Rock band. I will try to replace him with a bard looking unit and just cut all of the animations and other crap around it.

(end of first additions)​

And so many more things I am sure I forgot but for the intent of a first explanation, I think you got a rough idea of what I'm aiming for now don't you think? Looking at it as this long list is kind of scary now... but thankfully, that's why I'm also making this a project openly asking for help. The little I have been around modding communities, I've seen they always have a few "retired modders" that stick around, are more often than not still interested in modding, are also often willing to help and create stuff but maybe don't feel like doing it full time because of the expectations or because they don't want to deal with supporting the mod and updating it and removing imaginary bugs from people who don't screw up by themselves etc. You know who you are and YES, you should come back to modding. And I hope that I will get a few of them to help me and I REALLY hope I can get some of them to come back. This is a GREAT game and it is far from dead in terms of what this modding community can to with it. And I hope I can spark someone's interest in doing it again, maybe even trying a new type (fantasy) that they never would have thought of.

Anyway, in the next post I will talk about what can be done to help me. Again, this is where I'll get more specifics of the help I'm thinking about. It will use the exact order that this post used. It's gonna take a few hours to write and edit it properly, might be tomorrow morning considering it's 10pm here, we'll see. But I will see you there!

 

[Irealys]

What help could I possibly need for this simple, first mod?​

I will be following the list made in the previous post and talk about the big contributions that could be made. So this will mainly be either 2D Art, 3D Art, Research (and I mean good research, not a simple visit to wikipedia, something a bit in depth), Complex coding and probably others that will come along the way. But here we stop talking simply about brainstorming or other more passive help. In some cases I won't really see a need for help, in some cases I will explain what help I could use and in some cases I will explain what help could change the situation completely. You'll see if you read along.



Here is how I think I could be helped.

• I already have a decent idea of two thirds of the Civs I want to make. I am planning to use 3D models I found online under creative commons licenses meaning they are free to use. Unless someone or a group of people want to make all of the art for the leaders, any addition would need to fit with the look of the content I can get. For the background I am still open to suggestions and ideas. I haven't made any definitive decision there.
  
  
• SIDE NOTE: I'm wondering if maybe we could completely change how the system works. Right now it's using a black background and a "hole" to see something else. We could change this to look like the leader is in a room and the hole is a window to the outside. This could give room for 2D artists to have fun with the room and the view. But I'm not even sure I like the idea. Feedback would be appreciated here.Not changing this after all.
  
  
• This might not be super complex coding but if someone wanted to help with the re-coding of a few great people that don't fit (ex: talents are too specific to late era content) that could be a big time save for me too.
  
  
• Technically for the cultures I need to understand them better and then understand how to control them. Code is not gonna be enough. If someone who understands VERY well can give me a crash course on what I need to know to redo what is used when etc, then that's what I would actually need. STILL HOPING FOR HELP THERE!
  
  
• Tech and civic tree... coding but that's something I feel I'll need to do by myself. One thing I could use would be a "tester" to know if some of the things I want to do are feasible. For instance, could we use the rock animation from the slinger on a weaponless warrior to make a rock thrower? Could we make the first melee unit be weaponless? etc.
  
  
• To replace the giant death robot. I could use a super steampunk, old school looking robot, I could use a dragon, I could use a lot of things but that would mean someone who can program this entirely. movements, attacks etc.
  
  
• I am still in need of thinking about how many and which units I will or won't use from the big asset clusters made by Deliverator. But I will never use more than a small % of them and because of that, I could use a slimmed down version of it. It's not urgent as I'm still thinking but if someone could be interested in doing it I'd still want to discuss that early to know where I'm going. Not needing this type of help after all.
  
  
• Info and Code. How to make use of things that weren't meant to be used in that way, like a tornado as a magic spell, that's something I will most likely need someone with knowledge to hand me over instant knowledge, if not full on code. But there are a lot of things in the magic system that I can absolutely do by myself, they just won't be as cool.
  
  
• Clock: someone with an idea and the means. I got nothing right now.
  
  
• Barbarians: I'd need someone to help me understand my options and the difficulty level of each and then I'd update this and the city states at once. I like the idea of using aliens from Civ BE as ennemies instead of barbarians. And that's what I'm doing. I already identified the types of aliens I want, I need to understand how to replace basic barbarians with the new ones so anyone with knowledge there would be appreciated.
  
  
• Minor changes to improvements, buildings, districts etc is something I MIGHT have time to do but I would always welcome it if someone can do something about it. IF you are wondering what I mean by small changes, an example could be the factory. The bulding would fit in a fantasy/medieval going to industrial setting but maybe the metal bins at the back would be better off not be there. Either replaced by something more fitting or simply not there. Small things that would not be game breaking if I weren't to do them. So if anyone with experience could getin contact and give me a crash course, that would be SUPER appreciated.
  
  
• For ressources I could use ideas. Maybe 2d art for the icon, maybe 3D art or at least enough to make some current in game ressources look different and magical (looking at gypsum in particular as a potential option)
  
  
• Districts... honestly I have not worked with those yet so until I get a crash course I won't know much about what I can be confident I can and can't do. After that I will be updating this space. UPDATE ANYWAY: One new district I want to make: Artisans District. Before corporations get the profit, I want to make a district that would allow for Civs to have artisan shops based on what ressource they have. I'm thinking it could be a trade (ex: require 1 cacao to have a chocolate shop but it would give you 2 chocolate luxuries). Any feedback appreciated.
  
  
• Artifacts and relics will come down as a decision first of "do I need it" so for now I'm only asking for your opinion please. UPDATE: COME ON! NO FEEDBACK WHATSOEVER? SOMEONE GOT TO HAVE AN OPINION ON IF THERE ARE ENOUGH ARTIFACTS AND RELICS IN THE GAME OR NOT.
  
  
• The Wonders to change will be a pain. That will most likely require at least a 3D artist to make new ones. I could potentially use some of the natural wonders that have human architecture but even then that would replace very little. This might be the only place where without help I really would be stuck either using content I really don't want to use or not following the "1 for 1" creative challenge I gave myself. The "cheap and easy way" would be to do a reskin job on various wonders. Reusing everything once would double what we have to work with right?
  
  
• And last but not least the government and policies. I honestly haven't looked at them much yet modding wise so I don't have a strong opinion yet but I feel like this would be relatively simple coding that I could manage. UPDATE: I tought about it and I'd like to make TWO gouvernment types available from the get go. One military based (that we have) and one pacifist

Edit: (My first series of addition on this list, was made immediately after the previous additions)

• I really hope someone who finds the rock band as annoying as me will help me make a cool unit to replace it (bard band?). I'm hoping for either a single small unit or a combination of small units, most likely taken from Deliverator's Civ 5 units which had a lot of musician type units, and maybe the same "pan effect" of the camera but with the units much smaller and NOTHING BLOCKING WHERE THEY ARE. It was always insane to me to have "play at spaceport" and then hide the spaceport. Maybe we could have a small 3 to 5 second music moment there but even that would be just icing on the cake. I'd take them without sound 100% if it means not having to deal with the rock band repetitive sound.
• I saw a video a few weeks ago about how with a different athmosphere earth could have different colored plant life. So thats something I'm hoping someone will want to do because I will never take that time with everything else on my hands. But if you want to make the world different shades of blues and purples instead of green, change the color of sand to pink and who knows what else, I'm game to make this a fantasy looking place too.
• I hope the coast water can be made a little bit different tint,something to make it easier to differentiate quickly at a glance even for colorblind peeps.

And I'm gonna stop it right there for today. That was a lot of content to go through. I feel like I probably forgot a thousand small things but it's the beauty of a long term project, I'll come and edit this as needed over time.



Thank you all for your time reading, for your support and for the feedback I'm hopeful I will receive.

 

[Irealys]

Frequently asked questions​

Since for now the project is very early, I haven't had many questions. This will get updated over time.



Q: Why are you doing this?
A: Shut up, voice in my head. This project started as something I wanted to make just for my son but at this point me and the people who are helping me seem more interested in this project that he is. I'm still doing in in a way that he will be able to use it but I am making it for me too. As a goal for myself.

Q: Why would someone want to help you?
A: Maybe they have the skill to perform one of the tasks but no desire to release an entire mod. Or maybe they are just nice people you know. Those exist. I mean I know in Canada we still have a few of these.

Q: Do you really think you can do all of this yourself? Are you insane?
A: To the first question, I know that if I can get at least knowledge help (crash course on some specifics) I can do the first detailed section. And depending on the help I will get the level of coolness of the mod could vary quite a bit but I still maintain that in the form where I get no help other than how to do things, it will be unique, fun and worth it. For the second question the jury is still out but I mean... it's kind of obvious right?

Q: Did you start editing the original messages?
A: Yep. Didn't want to keep writing more. The next reply has to be an actual reply.

Q: Why is there text so small?
A: Cause I didn't find how to do a strikethrough on this forum. None of what is small is still relevant.It's "too small to read" because it's not worth reading?

 

[Irealys]

Update on the project. To begin with I did a Puzzle Pirate memorial version and posted it. It was more about having a released mod to jump that hurdle so to speak. Now I will update it as I go along since it's still my test Civ for now. That being said, I will be looking for help to make a version of my pirate for the real mod. More on that later.

I'm pretty much done with the background ideas for the 12 Civs, now it will be the slow process of filling in the blanks as I learn and do everything else. What will most likely happen is that when other things will discourage me, I'll go back to finishing a Civ, get the adrenaline going and go back to try and resolve the big hurdles.

I also have some questions and I am a bit disapointed nobody offered to help in a brainstorm. I will ask again, maybe it wasn't clear for this part what I wanted. At the end of the post I'll have a list of all the help I'd like to have in a short period of time. But if you are interested in more of what I would like over time (especially if you want to start working on some things early) the above posts are full of things I'm looking for.

Probably the biggest newsworthy item is that I got my hands on the last DLCs I was missing and now I can test and see what I can use and what is not compatible with my mod, including game modes. I will need to look deeper into it but at first glance I could use the corporations, Heroes and maybe the societies DLC. Apocalypse could be a seperate project where one would create the Civs before an apocalypse but I'm NOT going to try and mix it with Fantasy world building. I'll avoid zombie mode for multiple reasons, one of them being that I want to use those in my Undead Justice Civ.

I did find a lot of interesting unit from Civ Beyond that would be great as cannon fodder instead of barbarians and with some unique enough to want to create new "boss type" units to fight. This is all speculative on me being able to do something about it. I also looked at the list of content from Civ 5 and there are quite a lot of units that could be useful too. And yes, way more units than needed for a replacement to the rock band.

Now let's talk about the elephant in the room.

Hi everyone, I really could use some help!!!​

How? Many ways. You can make leader images? You have ideas? You can write short descriptions or bios? You can come up with names? You have knowledge of what we can do as modders? You could teach me to use the asset tool to make a unique district/building/wonder? You could animate the dragon from Civ 5 with the tutorial Deliverator made? You can help with code even in small ways? Then read on.

Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware how this is my project alone and I can't assume people will have time or even want to help. However I also have a hard time thinking there is nobody interested in helping in any way considering some of this is talking with me about ways things could be done, something a lot of you already do from discord.

But I also realized that maybe I didn't have yet a clear description of how you could help. So here is a non exhaustive list of how anyone could help.

1. I am working to have a link to an excel sheet where all of the names that I need would be listed along with descriptions or bios if needed. For instance, all of the great leaders, I want to replace the real life name and offer nicknames for their counterparts. That way, the "real" name of the person can be decided by the person doing their story but a backstory is still present to give them a base to start from. If we take Religion as an example: Son of God as a name and a description of "Claims to be the son of the creator of the entire universe. Performs miracles before the discovery of magic" is one of the included potential great prophets. I don't need more than 2 or 3 lines, although you could have three paragraphs if you feel like writing. If interested let me know and I'll give you access to the GoogleSheet I'm making.
2. For coding, I will talk about a need for high experience later, this one will be for people who know very little but still want to help. There will be MULTIPLE TONS of things I will need to re-write over and over again. For instance, for all of the great people I need to redirect all of the paragraphs to the new ones we make. It's not a hard code, it's maonly copy pasting two lines and changing the name and description lines to the right ones. I can do it, it's jsut very time consuming. If you wanted to help, let me know. That's one thing that could help me in terms of how fast this project can be done.
3. For experienced modders, I'm always looking to understand more. If one of you can take some time to talk me through using the asset tools for various things like making districts, placing items etc, that would help me know what can be done. Also, if you can give me a crash course on small things that can easily be changed, please let me know as those could make me need less complex solutions to other problems. So if you respond to any of these two and have discord I would greatly appreciate if you could let me know.
4. I can't draw. I mean it completely. I will be using images from online content creator that are distributing through creative commons licenses (free to use). An example can be seen with my female pirate for those who have seen her on discord or you can find another example there: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/elf-druid-fantasy-fantasy-character-2044697/ There are kind of 3D realistic looking (not sure how to describe them). In any case, I couldn't find a single Male Pirate character that was fitting and also looking forward (as the leader talking to you should be). If you can make a good leader portrait of my gray haired, gray beard, old pirate that can fit visually with the rest, that would be REALLY appreciated cause that's not something I think I can do at all.
5. On a smaller scale of drawings, I wanted a logo for an undead superhero team called Undead Justice. It would also be the logo of the Undead group. I'm looking for something specific. So if you can make a logo of a skeletal hand coming from the ground and holding the scale of justice, let me know, that would be reallt sweet because what I've done is... bad...
6. Now about the most fun part: I want people to do brainstorming sessions with. I want people who will be available to have a discussion once, maybe twice a week, they may be as long as a full hour and I'd have them scheduled in advance to make sure we can be a group at once and discuss a few things. Things like what to do with the things I hate from the game? How to deal with wonder being built by two Civs at once and the ridiculous "here's 4 production back from having worked on the pyramids for hundreds of years"? So if you would like to discuss how we could make some changes to some of the facets of Civs that don't really work and can give an hour or two per week (probably eastern time evenings) please let me know and we can see how many we are and how we can do this.
7. If you can animate or create 3D models and want to help let me know. I gave the option of the dragon up there but it would not be the only option possible. If you can do something else, I know I still need to find a good idea to replace the Giant Death Robot.

EDIT!!! October 2nd UPDATE​

I am working on my second Civ. It won't have the text, dialogue or anything else for a long time (unless I get some help) but it will at least be present in game for me to see. Any positive news is a huge boost of confidence right now. I'm struggling with bringing the zombie, vampire and vampire castle with art asset working. This is new territory for me so it may take some time to understand what I'm doing wrong.

I finished renaming the continents and making them work. So no contient will sound like a Earth continent, I basically made them as if I was writing a new language.

Slowly advancing the rename of the great people. To be honest now that I know it works I kind of put that to the side and started working on the next thing I would have to fix. I can easily ask someone to write text and then myself insert it into the Civs or the right great people or Eras etc. So the more I fix the more easy things I have that others can do (I can't ask someone to literally fix my mod)

I had a brilliant brainstorm session with Zegangani this week and that gave me a few new ideas to work with. I'm hoping to kidnap some older "retired" modders for similar sessions soon.

And one last thing: PLEASE, GIVE ME FEEDBACK! I've been in this community for a short time but I do see why it's not easy for new modders, there is very little reactions and comments made in the forums. I'm seeing threads with a thousand views and their first reply in 4 years??? If you want a community that does more, you got to do more too. They try modding, try encouraging them with feedback, ideas, help if you can but don't feel you have to. But at least if you find a project even somewhat interesting tell the modder. I know that personally, a positive reaction to my idea from an experienced modder is making me proud and even more likely to push through the hard times. I'm lucky, I was accepted by your community and your discord very fast. I have quite a lot of modders talking to me on discord but not every forum goer has that and not all of them can count on positive reinforcement anywhere but here. So I think we all need to do better if we want the CIVILIZATION modding community as a whole to be more lively.

Ok that will be it for this update. I hope you guys will have found it interesting and feel free to reach to me in private if you prefer but also don't feel like you can't answer here. I made this in a public forum so you can publicly tell me I'm an idiot if you feel like I am.

Again thank you all for reading, I do see those numbers and here's hoping for the conversation to get rolling.