Full History MOD

[JoeHollywood]

Hi All,

I think back to when I first experiences a mod on a game I purchased. It was the "Antioch Chronicals" for Starcraft. This led me search out more of these gems, initially for starcraft and expanding into other games...such as CivIII.

This led me a great mod for CivIII called "Double Your Pleasure", or DYP for short. This of course led to "Ryhse of Civilization"...I hope I got that one right. I'm not so familiar with that title, because once I found it, it was no longer an add on, but the only version of CivIII I played.

The aspects of that game that thrilled me so much was of course the extended tech tree and game time, but also the way that development of ones Civilization was "stunted" at different levels of the game.

It used game mechanics to slow down a civilizations growth, especially at the beginning, to simulate eras of our own history that had prolonged periods of time with limited cultural, technilogical, or military enhancement.

Now to the point of this post and thread...

It is my intent to recreate that with CivIV to the best of my ability. Rather than jump right in and start editing files, I'm going to take the approach of a project manager and ask for some freeform analysis and debate on this forum, and as that develops, selecting a team to help me make this MOD a reality. My estimated timeframe for this projects release would be 4-6 months.

This estimate is based on three things. First the development of the game, this is obvious. Secondly, even before the expansion is released, this will be designed to be played with the expansion and any relevant patches that come with it. Thirdly I want to take as much time as needed to deliver a quality product rather than something that just isn't quite there.

Features this mod will include -

1) A hugely expanded tech tree - any of you who played the aforementioned CivIII mods I mentioned know the direction I'm going with this.
2) A large expansion on the Civic options, as well as tweaking of bonus/penalties.
3) An addition of 15-20 happiness and health resources ( some doubling as both, and some counterproductive, ie. tobbacco adds happiness but reduces health )
4) Extended Gameplay options...yes there will be more turns, but it is not a focus of using turns themselves as a way to extend the game, rather allowing a person to "savor" each age.
5) An addition of hundreds...yes hundreds...of units to the game.
6) The use of game mechanics to "stall" civilizations, thereby simulating "dark ages"
7) A large addition of wonders/national wonders.
8) Increased tree of promotions and upgrades.
9) AI diplomacy tweaks that will focus more on government/humanitarian/technology level and change throughout time.
10) Religeon will stay equal but most likely not identical espicially in reguards to health/happiness resources.
11) There will be many aspects of this game that will not be politically correct. It is not meant to offend, but issues such as slavery, fascism, abortion, prohibition, birth control, and genocide are part of history...I feel that it will also create a new way to enjoy the game by either trying to develop a strong civilization without using deplorable methods, or for those few of you out there, to allow you to become even more of an "evil tyrant".
12) Anything else that makes sense...grin

Before this project starts I want to thank the developers of CivIV for allowing such a wonderful product to "mod". I intend this to be a compliment to their incredible product, that has brought me a great deal of enjoyment all the way back to the original "Civ".

Now for those of you who are interested in helping with a project like this, post any ideas you'd like up here. For those of you who'd like to be involved further, get some of your information to me as to how you'd be an asset to this project and a way we can dialog.

Thanks to everyone in advance,

Joe

 

[Kael]

Hi All,

I think back to when I first experiences a mod on a game I purchased. It was the "Antioch Chronicals" for Starcraft. This led me search out more of these gems, initially for starcraft and expanding into other games...such as CivIII.

This led me a great mod for CivIII called "Double Your Pleasure", or DYP for short. This of course led to "Ryhse of Civilization"...I hope I got that one right. I'm not so familiar with that title, because once I found it, it was no longer an add on, but the only version of CivIII I played.

The aspects of that game that thrilled me so much was of course the extended tech tree and game time, but also the way that development of ones Civilization was "stunted" at different levels of the game.

It used game mechanics to slow down a civilizations growth, especially at the beginning, to simulate eras of our own history that had prolonged periods of time with limited cultural, technilogical, or military enhancement.

Now to the point of this post and thread...

It is my intent to recreate that with CivIV to the best of my ability. Rather than jump right in and start editing files, I'm going to take the approach of a project manager and ask for some freeform analysis and debate on this forum, and as that develops, selecting a team to help me make this MOD a reality. My estimated timeframe for this projects release would be 4-6 months.

This estimate is based on three things. First the development of the game, this is obvious. Secondly, even before the expansion is released, this will be designed to be played with the expansion and any relevant patches that come with it. Thirdly I want to take as much time as needed to deliver a quality product rather than something that just isn't quite there.

Features this mod will include -

1) A hugely expanded tech tree - any of you who played the aforementioned CivIII mods I mentioned know the direction I'm going with this.
2) A large expansion on the Civic options, as well as tweaking of bonus/penalties.
3) An addition of 15-20 happiness and health resources ( some doubling as both, and some counterproductive, ie. tobbacco adds happiness but reduces health )
4) Extended Gameplay options...yes there will be more turns, but it is not a focus of using turns themselves as a way to extend the game, rather allowing a person to "savor" each age.
5) An addition of hundreds...yes hundreds...of units to the game.
6) The use of game mechanics to "stall" civilizations, thereby simulating "dark ages"
7) A large addition of wonders/national wonders.
8) Increased tree of promotions and upgrades.
9) AI diplomacy tweaks that will focus more on government/humanitarian/technology level and change throughout time.
10) Religeon will stay equal but most likely not identical espicially in reguards to health/happiness resources.
11) There will be many aspects of this game that will not be politically correct. It is not meant to offend, but issues such as slavery, fascism, abortion, prohibition, birth control, and genocide are part of history...I feel that it will also create a new way to enjoy the game by either trying to develop a strong civilization without using deplorable methods, or for those few of you out there, to allow you to become even more of an "evil tyrant".
12) Anything else that makes sense...grin

Before this project starts I want to thank the developers of CivIV for allowing such a wonderful product to "mod". I intend this to be a compliment to their incredible product, that has brought me a great deal of enjoyment all the way back to the original "Civ".

Now for those of you who are interested in helping with a project like this, post any ideas you'd like up here. For those of you who'd like to be involved further, get some of your information to me as to how you'd be an asset to this project and a way we can dialog.

Thanks to everyone in advance,

Joe

This forum is only for posting completed mods. You will probably want to have this moved to the Creation and Customization forum.

Rise and Rule was the 2nd excellent iteration of Double your Pleasure. As I understand it they are making a new version for Civ4 and you may want to see if you contact them and help them out.

 

[dh_epic]

I always felt that the danger of going for total and complete historical accuracy is you'd end up imbalancing the game. After all, if you wanted total realism, you'd basically make it impossible to ever conquer the world, because no empire would ever be able to hold together such diverse peoples. You'd also probably banish the victory conditions, since they lead to all kinds of ahistorical behavior (like shifting all your production towards the space ship in the 20th century, or nuking the planet like there's no tomorrow -- those are highly unrealistic behaviors that are common in Civ by design).

It's fine to say "political correctness aside, government X does not work". But if you design strategies (e.g.: civics) to fail for realism's sake, you end up in a spot where those strategies might as well not be there. Without balance, you don't really have a game. You have a simulation. Or, at best, a puzzle -- "there's one right answer, and dozens of wrong answers".

As a designer, you have to set the goal: realism is fine and dandy, but what's the gameplay you want to create? Do you really want the player to play through a few times and find out that you should never use Fascism? Never try to conquer the world? Always pick a European Civ?