How to handle custom Civs?

[Beam]

How to handle custom Civs?

Firaxis is to my believe making a great game! Yet the number of standard Civs has been reduced to 16. There is however an editor where we can create our own civs. Great, and I love it. And what I read from many posts many will just do that!

Big question, how can all of us leverage on that, i.e. for scenario creators do you want to reinvent the wheel? Would it not be nice if we can have a "pick-and-choose" from MANY civilizations when we start an Earth-Map game and make a personal and/or random selection from all the Civs available? How nice would it be if you can start with any other Civ in the game with the Civ where you want to start with?

Lot of this is big questionmarks since we do not know yet what is technically possible, still by some means we should be able to share these custom create Civs between us.

What are thoughts about is?

Bulletsponge, SvenSlayer and lkendter and me already shared some thoughts on this in the Japanese Isolation thread.

btw, this is NOT A BEST CIV thread!

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

I hope Firaxis will release a addon CD with a supply of the most common tribes, i.e. all the missing ones, as well as some alternative leaders, all in the same graphical style of the original game. I think this would be a good idea. They could combine this with the multiplayer release.

But then again, scenario creators will all have different opinions on how the leaders and units should be, so my bet is really that the animatedness of it all has a limited life-span, if there's not some extremely talented people who can dosh out new alternative animations. And we don't even know if the editors allow that. But maybe... if it's possible, it will be done! It is promising what has been said, that the editing tools will be improved accordingly, when the people "digging the trenches" in the mod community reaches its present limitations. I guess there is some limitations in this area still, especially concerning the animated bits.

Otherwise I guess we'll see a rapidly expanding database of "custom" tribes, with still-image leaders and civ2 style artwork, in the like of modpacks and scenarios, just like was the case with Civ2.

 

[Beam]

MB,

Thanks for your input!

One of my key questions here is, is civ.fanatics the place where such a civ-specific database is kept?

In my mind this site is a terrific place where anything creative can be exchanged on a non-commercial base. Might be wrong, doubt so.

lets not assume, it stands for ass u & me

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that TF will open a download section for Civ3, once the game is out and people are creating mods and scenarios, as well as custom tribes and graphics etc. I bet Civfanatics will continue to be THE place for Civ-related material.

 

[Damien]

U will be able to create ur civs n share it with others.

 

[bulletsponge]

Well, it'd be nice if someone could/would make a section for custom civs that later civers can come to download everything they need about a certain civ and it'd be ready for play...for instance, i'd want to play the Spanish, but they arent in...I could do all the reserch to find names of cities, leaders, abilities and stuff like that, not to mention a special unit...but instead I propose that Civfanatics has a place where they can download this and BAM, its done...I'd like to talk to Thunder about this, but i dunno how to cantact him...hmm...

Im also interested in doing scenarios, but doing one all by myself seems like quite a bit of work, If civFanatics has mod teams or such, id like to know...and I do have 2 ideas for Scenario deals that Ive never seen one done on with Civ2...hehe...Ive done some reserch on these already, but I suck at art stuff, and It looks like so will everyone else when it comes to making 3rd animation for custom units..lol...If anyone would like to contact me about this, msn=yakopepper@hotmail.com or AIM=yakopepper...thanks

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

bulletsponge, post some more details in the scenario creation forum and see if you can get some help. I'm not much of an artist myself, but one can get by without artistic ability..

 

[Beam]

Suppose it can be arranged from CivFanatics! Which civs can we think of?

I guess we have votes for the Spanish, Dutch, Danish. Who else??

 

[.:KNAS:.]

DANISH! WHY THE HELL DANISH?!? i would rather have the vikings there, or even the swedish

if i had my way, the spanish special ability would be commercial-expansionist, same for dutch? vikings would be expansionist-reiligious? i said this in another thread but im so proud of it so ill say it here; the viking UU could be a swordsman called "berserker" and be able to make amphibious assaults like the marine..... what do u think?

 

[Ilspana]

mmmmm.... Danish..... *drools*

well, i think when most people think 'berserker' they think of a strictly ground unit, not the raiders that navigated the long boats (perhaps long boat should be the unique unit..). If you wanted to give the vikings an early marine-type unit, you could simply call it a viking raider.. or even a berserk raider. A crazed berserker just doesnt seem to fit in a coordinated amphibious raid.

Aside from the name, i love the idea. Its a great bonus for a civ to gain early on. So good in fact that i dont think they should get a bonus to attack or defense in addition. Maybe a bonus to movement, but even that would be a stretch.

 

[.:KNAS:.]

yeah, but i hardly think that u can call the raids on lindisfarne and such "organized"......... if the viking UU would be a longship, i think it should be able to navigate up rivers, cuz the vikings did alot of that

 

[Beam]

OK guys, Swedes are voted for as well, didn't you split from Denmark early 1600 and had a great time in the 30 year war? What shall we do with Norway?

Mwah, the Vikings, were they ever organized???

 

[Beam]

Originally posted by .:KNAS:.
if i had my way, the spanish special ability would be commercial-expansionist, same for dutch? vikings would be expansionist-reiligious? i said this in another thread but im so proud of it so ill say it here; the viking UU could be a swordsman called "berserker" and be able to make amphibious assaults like the marine..... what do u think? [/B]

Dutch expansionism???? Have you ever been over here? Its about +15 milion people on land thats about 50% below sealevel! The only area where we expand every now an then is into the sea, depending on cash and goverment etc. Science and Commerce suits the Dutch better.

 

[Ilspana]

What i'm saying, is that to move into the docks of an enemy city and lowering planks to empty the ships and start the attack takes some amount of procedure and organisation. After all, the berserker cant very well swim with all of the heavy hides and weapons he wears.

I just cant picture a crazy berserker putting aside his intense rage for just a moment while he engages in those neccesary activities. Its almost comical when i picture it.

Did the viking crews consist of only berserkers or did they have actual non-berserker crewman who could perform these tasks? If the berserkers could rely on those guys to dock directly in an enemy city and put up the planks so they could transfer, then i could see how it would work. otherwise i dont know..

 

[.:KNAS:.]

do the words "dutch east indies" tell u anything? vasco dagama?

 

[.:KNAS:.]

the swedish UU could be the Karoliner, kinda like the musketman, but with two movementsand 4 in attack?

 

[Beam]

Originally posted by .:KNAS:.
do the words "dutch east indies" tell u anything? vasco dagama?

On Vasco, please read http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/WestEurope/DaGama.html as a starter.

Dutch east indies tells me something indeed, it is now called Indonesia, basically being Java expanded over all of the islands there. What is your point?

 

[.:KNAS:.]

sorry, bout dagama, but the indonesian thing is that it was a dutch colony, as was parts of india and africa, and america

 

[bulletsponge]

Originally posted by Beammeuppy
Suppose it can be arranged from CivFanatics! Which civs can we think of?

I guess we have votes for the Spanish, Dutch, Danish. Who else??

Well...back to the original question for this thread...

A few that we can all agree on...
Spanish
Mongols
Arabs--seems popular
Vikings and/or Norway
Sweden
Dutch seems quite popular too...
Inca
Poland
Byzantine Empire
Mayan
Carthage
Korean
Celtic

There are a few really old civs that Firaxis blended into the babylonians which if inserted would need to be disected outta them...example...Assyrians and Sumer

All these Civs are very reasonable to consider...its very much each individuals prefrence...but I think a nice be player friends site like CivFanatics can provide these Civs will full details and all the data required for a newbie to come in and have, without all the reserch needed, which could take some time...

Now its very understandable that each individual will switch and/or mix-match their prefs, as there are hot topics over why Bismark is the germs leader and not other well know leaders, thats why everything is editable...But with all our Brains put together, we can come up with a really good list...

 

[bulletsponge]

Now with that said...First off, we should keep the theme of what Firaxis has put into place already...

Each Civs Leader, UU, and abilities comes from that Civs Golden Age...thats why we have a russian Cossak instead of a Mig, a Catherine the Great instead of Stalin...

Now each of these Civs should follow the same path...Identify the Civs Golden Age and work from there...using the same list...heres what we have...

Spanish--Renassaince
Mongols--Medivel
Arabs--Medivel
Vikings and/or Norway--
Sweden--Renassaince
Dutch--Renassaince
Inca--??
Poland--Renassaince
Byzantine Empire--Medivel
Mayan--??
Carthage--Ancient
Korean--??
Celtic--Medivel or Renassaince

Give suggestions, compliments, arguements and/or correction to this and Ill edit...
Thanks