Final Fantasy Mod Progress Thread, Part III

[Grandraem]

The blue definitely suits Final Fantasy. Looks great!

 

[Goldfool]

drats, double post

 

[Goldfool]

So you like this version? Or should I try and grab Casus Belli & Amesjustin's bamboo resource, do some C&P with the "cattail" heads that I modded on the corn, and re-do this thing?

Also, the Sugar Cane is Sugar in the Default Civ 3 Conquests.

I made a few new icons including sugar cane, I posted them on page 5 of my library, not sure if they are up to your standards, but they are different.

 

[Stormrage]

I think it looks very cool, Hikaro. Perfect for FF

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

The blue definitely suits Final Fantasy. Looks great!

Well, I've been trying to emulate the "classic Final Fantasy menu" interface as much as possible.

Also, as soon as I figure out which icons on the "cursor.pcx" are actually used, I'm going to try and grab the little hand icon from either one of my FF VII PC screenshots or something and use that as the cursor I already figured out the civilopedia cursor slot (which has an arrow with the book attached to it when you hover over certain items), which I'll probably turn into the hand with a "?" (a la most FF games)..... I'm trying to figure out which slot is for the MAIN cursor so I can have the classic Final Fantasy hand pointer.

The next major project, until I get that figured out, is to start converting all the advisor pop-up dialog boxes, the victory status screens (I already have all the main advisor screens, space race screen, wonder screen and demographics screens done)....

 

[Grandraem]

Well, I've been trying to emulate the "classic Final Fantasy menu" interface as much as possible.

You've done a great job of it. FF instantly pops to mind with those screens. Can't wait to see what the cursor looks like when it's done.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Blue Monkey]

A very clean and beautiful interface - enough so that I actually found myself wanting to click on the "X" to close the window.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

A very clean and beautiful interface - enough so that I actually found myself wanting to click on the "X" to close the window.

Thanks guys!

BTW, I am planning on releasing the interface as a separate pack for those who wish to use it.. I actually find this to be more readable than the standard Civ III UI, personally.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Thanks guys!

BTW, I am planning on releasing the interface as a separate pack for those who wish to use it.. I actually find this to be more readable than the standard Civ III UI, personally.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

OK, I know it's been a long time since I posted any updates (I kind of decided to download Age of Imperialism......), however, I've been thinking on some problems and/or solutions:

First of all, as for the remaining "treasure" buildings:

Ivory Carver's shop: Dunno... Have to figure out something
Perfumery/Incence Maker/Incense Seller: Odegai the Mad is making an Incense Manufactury as part of his newest Building pack
Rubber Plantation: If I can get the AoI staff's blessings, I can use the one from there... Otherwise, I'm going to see about making something in Bryce (IIRC, in their "Tree Designer," They have a rubber tree already.)

For the time being, though, I'll just use the resource graphics for the building icons and the resource pedia icons for the building's pedia icons.

Secondly:

I've run into an issue that has made me re-consider how to implement Airships in the mod.... Namely the fact that the AI (and I'll admit that I do as well) pumps out WAY too many of them, despite the exhorbitant costs I've assigned all Airship-Class units (I'm talking combat airships, here).

The only way I can think of to limit the number of Airships floating around during the game is to have an "Airship Factory" SW associated with the "Flight" tech that has a relatively low shield cost (about 100-150) that auto-produces the normal Airship that all civs could build every 10-15 turns.

That SW, in turn, will become Obsolete with "Advanced Steam Engines" (which is now going to be a required tech), which will allow the construction of a city improvement called "Airship Boiler Plant" (or something like that) that must be built in the city that has the "Airship Factory", and produces Steam Airships every 10 turns.

That improvement, in turn, will become obsolete with the Makou Power tech, which will allow techs that give the civs that research them the ability to produce their particular variety of Advanced Airships...

Here's What I have thus far:

Makou Power + FFV (era-none tech) => Hiryuu Breeding, Hiryuu Roost
Makou Power + FFIV (era-none tech) => Red Wings, Red Wing Academy
Makou Power + FFVI + EVIL => Magitek Flight Research => Magitek Air Corps
Makou Power + FFVI + GOOD => Edgar's Inovations => Returner Airship Yards (I'd have to make the Black Jack, though)

The rest COULD be worked out by simply making their Airships no longer UU, but rather, game-specific... I.e.

Makou Power + FFVII => Makou Flight => Cid Highwind's Workshop
Makou Power + FFVIII => Advanced Space Flight => Ragnarok Program

Also, I'm thinking about limiting the ability to produce settlers, although that is rather hard due to the fact that I have flavor settlers for all the different races....

One work around, since the Orcs and Dwarves already have unique techs for them, I could just have an improvement (low-cost, like 5 shields) that requires those techs and the Palace that auto-produces settlers every 20 turns, but for the Elvaan and Taru-Taru, things aren't so easy... I could add a "Humans" "Elvaan" and "Taru-Taru/Mithra" techs, but I'd rather not if I can find a work-around...

So, what do you all think of these ideas, so far?

 

[Stormrage]

Up until

Also, I'm thinking about limiting the ability to produce settlers, although that is rather hard due to the fact that I have flavor settlers for all the different races....

looks good. As for the thing in the quote, limit in what whay? Autoproduction? Why is it not easy for the Elvaans, etc.? Explain some more please, we do not have insight in the .biq

 

[Civinator]

In my upcoming mod I solved most of these problems about units with "Advanced Autoproduction": http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7491442&postcount=68

May be, this can be helpful for you, too?

 

[Stormrage]

Thats why I wanted more info from Hikaro, so I can link it to your post if it would be appropriate

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

First of all, Civinator, that's an interesting idea, but I don't think it would work so well for my mod.....

looks good. As for the thing in the quote, limit in what whay? Autoproduction? Why is it not easy for the Elvaans, etc.? Explain some more please, we do not have insight in the .biq

Right Now, All settlers have the same stats, but the following civs have different settlers than the normal "Human" ones:

Dwarves: Dwarven Settler
Orcs: Orcish Nomad
Lesalia, Bervenia, Archades and Dalmasca: Viera Settler
Light Warriors & San d'Oria: Elvaan Settler
Windhurst: Taru-Taru Settler.

Now, the Dwarves, Orcs and Ivalice civs would be easy: All I need to do is give them a building that requires their game-specific Era-None tech and the Palace to build that spawns settlers.

For the Light Warriors, San d'Oria and Windhurst, it's a little more complicated, since they share game-specific techs with other civs that use the standard (more or less) settlers.....

And that's not counting all the other civs that get Human settlers, since there must be some way to make it so that ALL human civs can build a SINGLE structure that the special civs CAN'T that spawns human settlers.

The easiest way to do THAT is to create three new techs, Humans, Taru-Taru and Elvaan (although TECHNICALLY, since Dr'zzle is on the Dark Warriors and Elvaan can be found in ALL the FF IX civs, giving the Elvaan settler to ALL FF I and FF IX civs wouldn't be out of the question.....)

The reason for doing this, as I stated before, is to make the Barbarians more of a concern, limit expansion (and thus help offset the OP "agricultural" trait, although they'll still be able to pump out workers relatively quickly), and make the players use the "colonies" for a change.... i.e. To basically make the game more like actual FF (where, with a few exceptions, most of the world is a monster-infested wasteland), as well as keeping the "settler booming" in check.

Here's how the "settler" buildings will work:

Palace + "Humans" => Town Center (easy enough to convert from AoK... can even make it culture-specific!), spawns Settler every 20 turns

Palace + "Elvaan" => Elvaan Council House (again, I can get the graphics for it from one of MRTN's conversions), spawns Elvaan Settler every 20 turns

Palace + "Windhurst" => TaruTaru High Council (can probably use a different Elven building from MRTN's set), spawns a TaruTaru Settler every 20 turns.

Palace + "Ivalice" => City Center or Keep (can probably use some kind of mid-eastern or Mediterranean town hall or castle), produces Viera Settler every 20 turns.

Palace + "Orcs" => Orc Town Center (can use one of MRTN's Evil/Orc buildings), produces Orcish Nomad every 20 turns.

Palace + "Dwarves" => Dwarf Great Hall (can use one of MRTN's Dwarf Buildings), produces Dwarf Settler every 20 turns.

....Although I may end up just leaving settlers the way they are.. this is getting complicated :crazyeyes:

On to the second thing:

I've come up with some more solutions for the "Airship" problem:

I remembered that there are TWO versions of the Highwind out, so here's version 2.0 of the Airship conundrum:

Makou Power + FFII + GOOD => Fynnish Ingenuity => The Enterprise Project

Makou Power + FFIII + EVIL => Arcane Technomancy => Master Levitation Spell (produces Flying Fortresses)

Makou Power + FFIV (era-none tech) => The Red Wings, Baron Flight Academy

Makou Power + FFV (era-none tech) => Hiryuu Breeding (tech), Hiryuu Roost (building)

Makou Power + FFVI + EVIL => Magitek Flight Research => Magitek Air Corps

Makou Power + FFVII + EVIL => Makou Powered Flight => Shinra Air Corps (Highwind... A flavor unit)

Makou Power + FFVII + GOOD => Shinra Space Program => Cid Highwind's Workshop (Highwind JP)

Makou Power + FFVIII + Neutral=> Advanced Space Flight => Ragnarok Project

Makou Power + FFIX + GOOD => Regent Cid's Airship Research => Linblum Airship Factory (produces Hilde Garde III)

Makou Power + Ivalice + Good => Air Piracy => Air Pirate's Charter (produces Pirate Airships)

Makou Power + Ivalice + EVIL => Air Superiority => Archadean Airship Factory (produces Air Dreadnoughts)

For all the civs WITHOUT unique or flavor Advanced Airships:

Makou Power + Default AS (another era-none tech) => Advanced Airship Design => Advanced Airship Factory (produces advanced airships).

...Granted, this WILL, in some cases, eliminate any "free" normal starting techs that some civs get (since you can only give each civ 4 free techs, and civs such as, say, Alexandria, which will have FFIX, Neutral, Humans and Default AS taking up all their free tech slots), I'll likely have to set it so that NO civs start with any free ancient-era techs to balance things out.... BUT, it will at least be workable.

So, any questions, comments ideas?

 

[Civinator]

So, any questions, comments ideas?

The different settlers can be easily produced with one (!) building using the methode I described. You only need a building with "barracks"-ability, let´s say the palace that autoproduces an immobile upgradeable basic settler (in CCM a clan). This basic settler now upgrades to a Dwarven settler that only can been built by dwarves, this settler upgrades to an Orcish nomad that only can been buil by orcs, that settler upgrades to a Viera settler that can only been built by the civs that are assigned to build it, and so on. To start the upgrade-chain for the AI the basic settler must be a unit with attack/defense values.

This always worked for the AI. There were no cases observed in the pre-betatesting of CCM that the AI didn´t upgrade the units. Of course the upgrade-costs were set to zero.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

The different settlers can be easily produced with one (!) building using the methode I described. You only need a building with "barracks"-ability, let´s say the palace that autoproduces an immobile upgradeable basic settler (in CCM a clan). This basic settler now upgrades to a Dwarven settler that only can been built by dwarves, this settler upgrades to an Orcish nomad that only can been buil by orcs, that settler upgrades to a Viera settler that can only been built by the civs that are assigned to build it, and so on. To start the upgrade-chain for the AI the basic settler must be a unit with attack/defense values.

This always worked for the AI. There were no cases observed in the pre-betatesting of CCM that the AI didn´t upgrade the units. Of course the upgrade-costs were set to zero.

Yes, however, that solution is a bit too "Messy", IMO...

Not to mention that I just thought of something that may render it moot anyways:

This idea just popped into my mind: IF I were to, say, make the Palace require the "Humans" tech, the Elvaan Palace require the "Elvaan" tech, the Orc Palace require the "Orcs" tech, etc.....

THEN gave ALL the palaces the "Center of Government" (or whatever denotes a capitol) flag and the same cost, THEN WOULD THE APPROPRIATE CIVS AUTOMATICALLY GET THAT BUILDING WHEN THEY BUILD THIER FIRST CITY?!?!

The reason I'm wondering this is that I can just give the Palace the ability to spawn Human settlers (and require the Human techs), and then give the other palaces (with the appropriate flags, and settings) to the matching civs, and be done with it!

If nobody knows the answer, I'll run some tests tonight and let everyone know what happens!

 

[Grandraem]

THEN gave ALL the palaces the "Center of Government" (or whatever denotes a capitol) flag and the same cost, THEN WOULD THE APPROPRIATE CIVS AUTOMATICALLY GET THAT BUILDING WHEN THEY BUILD THIER FIRST CITY?!?!

You've probably already done the tests, but if not I'm pretty sure that only one building can be checked as the "Center of Empire", because it puts a grey check-mark over all the other buildings.

 

[Civinator]

THEN gave ALL the palaces the "Center of Government" (or whatever denotes a capitol) flag

Unfortunately this is not possible. On the other hand you can set the different settler-spawning buildings to have the palace as a perequisite.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Unfortunately this is not possible. On the other hand you can set the different settler-spawning buildings to have the palace as a perequisite.

Yeah, I figured that out last night when I went to create a "test" scenario.

...On the other hand, as I said before, I'm going to have the settler spawning buildings (which will either have a 0-shield requirement or 5 shields) require the Palace, as Civinator said.

I've even got the graphics "assimilated" for them...

For the Human civs, the building is called a "Council Chambers" and uses some graphics I made from the Age of Kings town centers

Elvaan civs have a building called an "Elvaan High Council" and uses one of MRTN's Spellforge conversions (elven HQ)

World of Ivalice civs (that get the Viera settler) can build a "Royal Court" that uses one of Ronnings Rise of Nations conversions (Persian Palace/Temple).... ALTHOUGH, I may use the mid-eastern-styled palace that I used in the Background of my Princess Fiona and Marche LHs (I used different colors and other background elements for the two, but it's still the same basic building)...

The Dwarfs have the "Great Hall" that uses (again) one of MRTN's Spellforge conversions

Orcs have a "Clan Hall" that uses the largest Yurt graphics from Age of Kings

...and finally, the Federation of Windhurst has the "Orastery", which is the name of the tower that houses the mage council and serves as a kind of auxilliary to the high council (whatever it's called) in Heaven's Tower...

Of course, I'll have to make the settler-spawning buildings SWs, otherwise human players would be able to cheat and just keep moving their palace and building the settler-spawning structure in practically all their cities.

OOC, Civinator, what do you have your settler spawning rate set at? I was thinking 15-25 turns, but I figgured you'd have more experience in this area......

EDIT:

A few other thoughts: Starting with the cannons (Bombards), I'm going to introduce "fast" artillery (such as light Cannons, Mountain Guns and Towed Artillery) as well as reducing the cost of all artillery to encourage both the AI and human players to use it more.... I've already increased the effectiveness of ALL artillery.

 

[Civinator]

OOC, Civinator, what do you have your settler spawning rate set at? I was thinking 15-25 turns

This depends on the aims of your mod, for example if you want a soon crowded world or not. In my epic mod CCM the palace produces an immobile clan-unit every 20 turns that is always upgraded by the AI to all different kinds of settler-units the next turn.