Future Mod

[Vylinius]

Tholish when will all the old civs from pre 3.19 come back?

 

[Tholish]

They won't come back as they were. The core mod will stay as it is, and I will create a set of optional patches to add more. But the additional civs and leaderheads will be different: more era specific and numerous. I've completed a playable "Ekmek Leaderheads" mod (just the leaderheads working with otherwise standard Civ IV 319) and just have to adapt it to FutureMod. I stalled on the "CfKane Leaderheads" mod because I was burnt out on cloning AI personalities and wanted to use CfKane's actual personalities from Fictionalization where possible, but just got preoccupied with other things and only just now downloaded the current Fictionalization to get this. I don't know wether to do the CfKane Leaderheads mod next or adapt the Ekmek one as a patch.

EDIT: added all the Ekmek leaderheads and civs for them. The optional patch is in the first post. Needs work though, better city lists, proper flags and more colors.

 

[Vylinius]

It seems that it didn't add as many civs and leaders as you said. Only about 10 leaders and 4 civs were added. Also 5 of the new leaders have the same traits.

 

[Tholish]

All is not as it seems. The future mod offers different civs and leaders depending on what era you start in. Here are what the Ekmek pack added.

Leaders: Arnold, Marcos, Jackson, Davis, Stonewall, Lee, IbnSaud, Basil, Theodora, George III, Napoleon III, Attila, Metternich, Francis, Franz, Michael, Kossuth, Ostenaco, Mursilis, Henry, Dom Pedro, El Cid, Cixi, Wu, Curtin, Maria Theresa, Meiji, Khomeini, Dandolo, Garibaldi, Urban, Pius, Putin, Abu Bakr, Amina, Atotoztli, Santa Anna, Ben Gurion, David, Skeletor, Muir, Ohiggins, Kruger, Cleopatra, Hector, Akbar, Xerxes, Zenobia, Geronimo, Pahacuti, Smoke Jaguar, Cobra Commander,
Idi Amin


Civs: Argentina, Confederacy, Late Arabia, Uganda, Ancient Huns, Austro Hungarian Empire, Cherokee, Hittite, Brazil, Renaissance Russia, Ancient Spain, Industrial China, Australia, Modern England, French Republic, Industrial Japan, Venice, Modern Spain, Modern Italy, Papal States, Modern Russia, Ancient Arabia, Ancient Aztec, Industrial Mexico, Ancient Babylon, Modern Israel, Ancient Israel, Halloween, Late Celt, Afrikaaners, Apache, Sioux, Modern India, Ancient Inca, Renaissance India

However, fair enough about the traits. In fact the added civs are generally pretty rough currently, with a lot of duplicated flags and city lists. I'll shine up the whole thing when I add the other two packs, which will be after I figure out how to make barb civs have randomly generated city names.

 

[Vylinius]

Your new access to leaders and civs in later eras isn't working.

 

[Tholish]

It works for randomly generated custom games, its just that when you try to pick civs it will offer you an old list--the box that lets you change era doesn't register until you start the game, but the information is retained for the next game, so the program offers you a selection of civs and opponents from the era of the last previous game. Start a custom game, select your era, and start a random game. You will see only civs from the selected era. The next custom game you start will offer you options from the era you had selected the time before. So you can start all games in one favorite era, play with randomly selected civs, or start a dummy game in between games in order to reset the era.

 

[DeLuca]

Hi Tholish,

I found your mod an I fall in love with it. (= You are a genious.

Questions:

Every time I created a "Custom Game" I had a problem with the AI. I could select my difficult, but could't change the difficult from the AI. Around the year 1000BC I am the best player and no one could beat me. No one had a little chance to kill me.

I set the difficult on monarch with aggressive AI. But the game is boring, because I had no real enemys...

Ideas?

Thanks (=

 

[Aleenik]

I'm downloading this right now.

One thing that can drive me crazy about civ is not knowing what improvement to build. I'm assuming this mod adds in new improvements so Ill ask...Is there improvements in this mod where like all hills should be X and all flat lands should be Y?

I noticed in the screen shot it looked like there was new improvements at least. So ya, just wondering. Help is appreciated.

Also...I deleted Road to War but replaced it with a newer version of it...so it contains the older version stuff plus more things. So will this work even?

EDIT: The mod has been downloaded...I go into civilopedia and only saw regular civs from the civ game, is that normal? When i went to play a game I got an error that was something like this

WARNING! FutureMod.Ini not found! Revolution components using default setting.

What does this mean?

Help is appreciated.

 

[Tholish]

I found your mod an I fall in love with it. (= You are a genious.

Thanks. Not compared to many, but I have developed a skill at generating and capturing ideas and some halfway servicable modding skills. There's a lot of good stuff folded into this mod that doesn't make a good screenshot or modcomp, clever arrangments of effects. Yet it is also still being improved. Version 2.0 (The Span of Time) will be awesome. Currently I'm making a big batch of improvements to the mod itself, and straightening out the naming system and files to make it more organized, rather than trying to develop and add new modcomps (Random Barb City Names was the last for a while and will be in the next update).

Every time I created a "Custom Game" I had a problem with the AI. I could select my difficult, but could't change the difficult from the AI.

I have never noticed this. I always adjust difficulty by changing my own difficulty level.

Around the year 1000BC I am the best player and no one could beat me. No one had a little chance to kill me.

I set the difficult on monarch with aggressive AI. But the game is boring, because I had no real enemys...

Ideas?

This is a problem. In fact the AI cannot handle the ancient era very well, but a higher difficulty level will imbalance the rest of the game. Part of the problem is the ruinous civics. One solution I might add for the next upgrade is to carefully set the favorite civics of ancient era civs so they have go for adaptive stuff. Another problem is that for some reason the AI does not use the ancient era chop (slash and burn) nor do other builds. Which I need to fix. A partial temporary solution to this is that if you are doing an ancient era start, play on a standard map such as Fractal, not one of my maps such as Solar System or 3 Planets, because those are really forest heavy (my philosophy is that really the default terrain of the Earth is really forest, with plains and desert only emerging in really special cases or as a result of human action). Maybe I could add something that does era dependent handicaps also. Or I could offer a "Human Civ" that has no traits or free anything while giving the AI ancient era civs various free techs. Also, you could play on a faster speed and get to the Renaissance quicker.

 

[Tholish]

One thing that can drive me crazy about civ is not knowing what improvement to build. I'm assuming this mod adds in new improvements so Ill ask...Is there improvements in this mod where like all hills should be X and all flat lands should be Y?

Not really. The improvements change with era and have different capabilities. Also some depends on civics. For example, in the ancient era farms deplete after a while and are useless, but if you are running Shamanism your depleted farms remain productive (at a gold cost). If you sacrifice a Work Gang you can build an ancient town (which increases gold but never grows), and these produce extra hammers if you are running slavery. But once you get past the dark age you can go build regular farms which can also get a bonus from switching to serfdom. Its quite complex and goes from 12000 BC through three future eras, where you are planting controlled singularities inside hills using Workbots or Nanoswarms.

I noticed in the screen shot it looked like there was new improvements at least. So ya, just wondering. Help is appreciated.

What you need is a good civilopedia.

Also...I deleted Road to War but replaced it with a newer version of it...so it contains the older version stuff plus more things. So will this work even?

I think so. The Road To War material was all done under BtS 3.17, so your road to war needs to be current as of then.

EDIT: The mod has been downloaded...I go into civilopedia and only saw regular civs from the civ game, is that normal?

From there I see the civs available to the last game I actually started. Start a custom game (with random civs) in the Industrial Era and tell me what you see the next time.

When i went to play a game I got an error that was something like this
WARNING! FutureMod.Ini not found! Revolution components using default setting.
What does this mean?

That means the mod is working correctly. I need to find out why it does this (there are several places in the Python where the ini is reset and I thought I got them all, but there must be one still there somewhere). Anyway, the default setttings are fine, since I'm only using selected parts of Revolutions, so it doesn't affect the game, though it is poor form to leave it there like that.

 

[DeLuca]

Hi Tholish,

thanks for your help, I will try that. (=

But please, integrate a terraform unit in the game. I really need units, which can terraform other planets into green planets. (=

 

[CiverDan1]

Downloaded this and have playing a game into the near future eras. Like the concepts involved and everything. I have a few suggestions:

Hash out the worker upgrade line as it relates to worker actions and pedia stuff regarding worker improvements. I could upgrade a Work Gang to a Worker but I couldnt chop any forests with him until I got steel, since he can't slash and burn..

Libraries and universities shouldn't go obsolete, just my opinion. Too much obsoleting of building in this game IMHO. I just hate rebuilding too many buildings, especially in a longer game.

 

[Tholish]

The reason I don't have any Terraform units is that I believe Terraforming to be global. You can't give part of Mars a terrestrial atmosphere or temperature because the effects would instantly spread. To contain it you would have to have a dome or something--so there are domefarms. Since there can be no terraforming units, there are Terraforming buildings. With Environmentalism you have World Wonders that do various kinds of Terraforming, and with Terraforming you get them as National Wonders. The best approach is to build Flood Planets and then Drain Planets. Pressurize Planets and Warm Planets work depending on what planet you are on. All of them are set to convert everything within your cultural borders within approximately a planet sized area around the building city, which will be a hemisphere or so if the city is off center (on multiplanet maps--on single planet maps the area will still be a large region). I suppose I should make versions that work outside cultural borders (additional world wonders that come with Terraforming) However, I suppose I could give some of the advanced workers the power to convert mountains to hills or hills to plains or water to plains. Altitude can be local.

OK, I'll give Worker the slash and burn build. I'll look at the rest too. I kind of reasoned most of them out, though. The dark age enhancing effect of no chops is not worth the plausibility hit of a medieval worker who can't slash and burn. Until then, just hold out on researching Renaissance until you have most of the preindustrial techs.

I think Libraries and Universities WILL go obsolete and will be basically replaced with the superior Internet Access and Research AI. This process is ongoing right now. Maybe I should add a BrainJammer and VR University (to implant clinic and vr facility) but research already really picks up late game despite steep cost increases.

A full panoply of ancient buildings going obsolete in the dark ages is definitely intentional. If you play the ancient era like there's no tomorrow you can build up a really great empire but sooner or later it will fall. Alternatively, you can beeline Dark Age and get the cheaper better units as well as a crack at research of longer term value. The only buildings that survive the dark age are the palace, religious buildings and, for a while, some of the defensive ones. The effect of researching dark age really IS a dark age. Also, forcing rebuilding is a way to keep building construction an important part of the equation while maintaining an incredibly long game without just building more and more over the top. You have to rebuild, but what you rebuild with (or prerebuild in anticipation of obsolescence) is slightly better.

EDIT: The version I am currently working with is losing the city screen whenever the city has a functioning corporation.

ANOTHER EDIT: Even the current version has problems with upgrading improvements. Cottages don't upgrade and Boreholes upgrade to Nurseries.

 

[Tholish]

I've been spending so much time testing the new ancient eras that I never noticed something: ever since I added ancient era imps, around version 1.5, upgrading improvements have not worked correctly. Somehow adding the ancient imps exceeded a limit and cottages were never upgrading, for example. By simply putting all these kinds of imps at the front of improvement infos the problem seems to be solved. So to play this mod correctly you need patch 1.61.

 

[CiverDan1]

Ah, was wondering why cottages weren't upgrading...Couple other things I was thinking about:

Even in the Distant Future era, I find myself using lumbermills to generate hammers on wooded hill tiles. This seems a bit silly. Why no mines on hill tiles w/no resource? I find hills with the wood chopped to be pretty useless, especially later in the game.

The food/lux resource spawn rate for domefarms. I am sure this is mean to represent the ability to generate new food resources in controlled environments, but getting 100+ food from my corp is a bit much, especially when stackde with micro & manobot stuff. Maybe cutting down the corp food/resource would be better.

I also seem to find I really dont even have to worry about happiness/health late game because food is soo abundant i can have 30+ unhealthy and unhappy people and yet grow a city every single turn.

 

[Tholish]

Yeah, it coincided with my testing out a non cottage strategy also, I'm amazed it went unnoticed so long, at least by me. And kind of curious about why it happened at all. There are several mysterious effects associated with the order of stuff in an XML file, and another one, as I recall, has to do with Terrains. I've also seen it with promotions. I had to put some of the promotions at the top or unit types that were supposed to have them available didn't.

You can always put a quarry on a hill, it increases hammers and doesn't require any special resources. It functions much as mines on hills do in regular civ. My thinking is just that unless there's an ore deposit there, what you are mining is common stone of some kind, and that would be a quarry. Admittedly, it's inferior to a lumbermill. Also in the late game you can put singularities inside hills. Hills really do remain wooded longer simply because they are more difficult to build on.

I set the resource spawn of domefarms to 1000 initially and it seemed about right, since there are simply so many different resources the amount of any one spawned should keep it from being so much. My thinking is that it really WILL be over the top, the capabilities generated by advanced technologies. Especially since it takes you a while to get there, then a while to build the domefarms all over, then a while for them to generate resources. Maybe I should try 500.

The last is a consequence of my having to combine food and power into one yield. Perhaps it would be best balanced by having some of the later buildings and wonders consume food (power) by actually having direct negative yields.

EDIT: I'd like to report another bug with my own mod. If you do an ancient start on Quick speed the game will crash in 2000 BC, every time. This is a game speed problem I had licked long ago, but on playtesting I decided the eras and tech progress were right if I subtracted 35 years from everything. Since then I have not tested on Quick. So don't play on quick until I patch it.

 

[Tholish]

I've posted version 1.7. There are exactly 20 civs per era (up through the near future), for a total of 100 civs, using the same 20 colors consistently throughout. Reorganized a lot of files to be more orderly, have consistent systems. In addition to making future fixes more efficient, this eliminated some redundancies, repeated tags. I forgot that these will cause the problems with stuff having to be at the front of the file. Something to do with memory. Fixed the gamesspeed crash on Quick. Repaired and the way a lot of units look (especially in the civilopedia). Got rid of some logic problems, like Transhuman workers being able to build railroads (meaning railroads in space). Tweaked the Barbarians. Still not fully satisfied. I'm trying to make sure you never see low tech barb cities in space. Tried to make new barbs always start with any tech any civ has. Works sometimes. Also, barb cities just don't start emerging until Modern times (same as standard Civ). Still have a long list of tweaks to patch in. Basically this version doesn't change the game a lot, its just a strong foundation.

EDIT: You need patch 1.71. Without it the Space Settler, aka Space Shuttle doesn't work right. What it is supposed to do (and does now) is cross all terrains other than the feature "margin" which is found only on the polar edges of non Terran planets. So you (and hopefully the AI) can use it to colonize near Earth space. Also it is supposed to be raised in the Z axis, but apparantly I had to rais it in more than one place to keep it from sliding around on the ground like a snail. To go with this I also made Air Migration upgrade also to Nanoswarm so it stays around.

EDIT: Instead you need patch 1.72, which is what is now attached to the first post. Old improvementinfos didn't work after all, still must be some duplicate tags somewhere. So it includes the version that has all growing imps at the top of the file and they work right.

 

[Tholish]

Another update. Has to be a complete download. Too much art changed. Got a pretty good selection of leaderheads now, some out some in, all era appropriate. Assembled some pretty good future leaderheads by messing with backgrounds. Working on flags. Next, looking at SOTM civ collection as non playable civs (emerge from barbs only) using the icon dds leaderheads there as backgrounds for spare rtw leaders.

Also made the polar seas a distinct terrain type so Terraforming wonders don't open up a land bridge into space. Not that it will matter if I make orbit a land terrain as see below.

Also changed DLL to encourage settling. Earlier efforts to inspire interplanetary settling merely discouraged local settling.
Now the AI is settlement happy. Now I'll try making Orbit a land terrain. The "Area" thing is keeping them from expanding into space. I was hoping they would settle other planets if I put a "sea" in between, but that just made things worse. Now they'll fill up space first, but at least they'll leave Earth.

Then I need to do a search for Early in the DLL for where it talks about Early aggression and take out the limit--let the AI be that aggressive all the time.

Gave some units slightly fancier art that changes with era (hordes that are still around by industrial get various muskets, auxilliaries become outlaws)

Also sea monsters can occassionally depart deeper waters to get blown ashore or attracted by plankton blooms, and if they make it ashore they can slither around in the forests and jungles until they eventually dry up.

Fixed some python exceptions, hopefully all of them.

http://www.telefragged.com/file.php?id=81497

EDIT: Oh yeah, I also made it so any time a civ builds a spaceship part they get a free Space Colonizer.

 

[DeLuca]

Hi Tholish (My CivGod!)

I played your last mod and I have created a list for you. I am not sure weather you fixed it already. And I am not ready with testing, but now I will play your new version and will send you a list.

- Tribal worrior can’t move
- Tribal worrior doesn’t make the people in the city happy
- I can see iron and can build a mine on it, but it was not clear to me, that I need Ironworking to use it.
- The discovering of DarkAge results in a complete shutdown of my economic. To obsolete so many buildings is to much.(but possible)
- On a standard map there are only 7 races although I set more in the beginning
- Discovering leads to a lot of religions in my cities, even when I discover things like “Meditation” very late. The computer doesn’t research them
- The fortress looks in the DarkAge like a fort in the future
- Modern sanitation in the Middle Age?
- The walls around the cities are sometimes shown and sometimes not
- The picture of the TajMahal is an Alien in a labor???
- The jump from MiddleAge to the IndustrialTime is a not good balanced. Factorys in Cities which look very old
- With national museum I can build wonders a second time! ???
- The time between railroad an highway is very short
- Nice animation for Commenwealth
- The EnviroDom is to small compared to the city
- No resources on other planets available
- Unit Transhuman is a defense unit and a settler???
- Workbots can use the “Build road to…” Mod. They only build one gravetube and ask for new orders after finishing
- Barbarian raider strength 6?? LOL



I hope I could help you to better up your mod.

 

[Tholish]

Thank's for the feedback. You are correct, I need to clean up little indiscrepancies not make future era leaders.

- Tribal worrior can’t move

Tribal warrior has Animal AI, keeping it from entering civilization borders. If you happen to capture one, it will be unable to move except outside civilization.

- Tribal worrior doesn’t make the people in the city happy

Only the Police State civic allows military units to make citizens happy. Being a barbarian "animal" unit that you probably got from an Archeological Site (AKA goody hut available only on rennaissance or later start) the tribal warrior probably doesn't work even then. However, you are correct I need to make sure it is not awarded by goody huts.

- I can see iron and can build a mine on it, but it was not clear to me, that I need Ironworking to use it.

That's just more evidence I need to work on the civilopedia. Sites rich in iron ore were important even before Ironworking was mastered. Thus you can see it and put a mine there once you research mining, and gain hammers, but will not have the bonus Iron until you get the tech.

- The discovering of DarkAge results in a complete shutdown of my economic. To obsolete so many buildings is to much.(but possible)

You got it. Dark Age leads to a dark age. Glad its working. Think of ways to get through it.

- On a standard map there are only 7 races although I set more in the beginning

That's Barbarian Civ working. It kills off some civs so there is room for it to make Barbarians emerge. I set the civs on each size to be higher so that once Barbarian Civ has done its work the number of civs is back to the standard number for the world size. Even so, I can understand your consternation if you set up a specific set of civs and some died.

- Discovering leads to a lot of religions in my cities, even when I discover things like “Meditation” very late. The computer doesn’t research them

I haven't noticed this so much, but in the latest version I've granted free techs for rels to the relevant civs that discovered them. Thus if you start in the Ancient era and you are playing the Olmecs you start with Sacrifice and thus get to found MesoAmericanism. Divine Right and Theology are now defined as Renaissance techs and are free to the Renaissance era civs "Arabia" and "Byzantium" (my thinking being that really Christianity was a product of the Roman Empire of late antiquity, aka Byzantium, which controlled Jerusalem at the time also. Also Justinian has the chant.)

- The fortress looks in the DarkAge like a fort in the future

That's one of those details I need to fix. That and the future era great wall (a force field barrier) used to have a futuristic skin.

- Modern sanitation in the Middle Age?

Its not really the dark age any more, its the Renaiassance, getting on to the Industrial. The name "modern" might be a misnomer. Water closets and sewer systems seem modern to those used to throwing chamber pots out the window into the street.

- The walls around the cities are sometimes shown and sometimes not

That's the way it is with buildings. Sometimes they decay or something blocks the view of them and then they reappear.

- The picture of the TajMahal is an Alien in a labor???

And that's inappropriate how? But seriously, I've been meaning to fix that.
But my attempts to force the AI to settle on other planets (particularly important now that the arctic seas are really impassable ice and thus the AI won't even consider crossing them even if it has a settler that can cross impassable terrain) keep crashing and I put it on the back burner.

- The jump from MiddleAge to the IndustrialTime is a not good balanced. Factorys in Cities which look very old

The Renaissance. The Renaissance started as soon as the dark ages reached a nadir. There are a few buildings like that, I'll double check. The cannon factory I'm using for the later forge is a good example of how it should be. In the latest version, Scotland Yard requires Scientific Method, if that helps.

- With national museum I can build wonders a second time! ???

Not all of them, and its not really the same. Its a replica. An exhibit. Problem with this is that the AI doesn't use it much, even though it is quite powerfull.

- The time between railroad an highway is very short

In the big picture it was. Railroads started being built on a big scale in the mid 19th century and Highways in the early 20th. However, there are some paths possible due to Or prereqs that allow for some wierd transitions around the Industrial era. I've plugged some more of them with the latest.

- Nice animation for Commenwealth

You should compliment me on the XML for putting it in there, that's the real work I tell you. But really, I downloaded it. Credits, I have to work on credits.

- The EnviroDom is to small compared to the city

This actually IS explained in the civilipedia, as I recall. Like medieval cities that flooded outside the original encompassing walls, domed cities of the future will also flood outside the domes. The oriiginal domes will only cover the city center. The ugly sprawling domes of Next War that change size to cover the city make me puke. Not the domes, but the way they change size and cover the whole terrain. Sorry to somebody who did impressive work making it happen but its horrible. I guess its all taste, many people think my mod is horrible. Go ahead and say, I'll just work harder to make it better.

- No resources on other planets available

Not until you research Spaceport. They are available to cities on the other planets prior to that. A bigger problem is why I can't get He3 to show up and the AI to colonize the other planets at all.

- Unit Transhuman is a defense unit and a settler???

Yeah. For now. The idea is for it to go out as pairs. Never really happens but it doesn't hurt anything.

- Workbots can use the “Build road to…” Mod. They only build one gravetube and ask for new orders after finishing

Really? That's strange. I would have never known because I manually control workers until I have everthing developed and then set them to Build Commerce or whatever that map looking button is. (That way they improve roads and automatically fix any bonuses that get disconnected, but don't go around reversing my decisions and working against each other). Theres something about category of unit and what kinds of missions it can do. I'll look into it.

- Barbarian raider strength 6?? LOL

The same unit is used by the barbarians from the start of the game to the end (though they get more advanced ones eventually these remain major cannon fodder). The look just changes: initially a stone axe man, then a horse archer, then a couple of soldiers in a flying space car. The combat value has to work for all eras, and I figured six was good. The early barbs are particluarly tough customers who know how to fight, and you had better cower behind good defenses. Later, they are comparable to your own units. Finally, they are an annoyance that kills unprotected workers and pillages outlying improvements but is no real threat unless you leave a city totally undefended. And still looks good on other planets or in space or wherever.

I hope I could help you to better up your mod.

I need to fix up the details and civilopedia and credits. But that's drudgery you see, I'd rather try to do something I'm incapable of.