Latest Version: Download Here

I can tell that TC01 is still active (very much so :) )... Hopefully he could post here and tell if he ever plans to continue with this mod. I was just reading about the Donner Party... I thought to myself -- why there are so few finished Colonization mods? Real history beats the fiction hands down any day of the week. But fictional mods get more attention for some reason... Like Final Frontier instead of Wild west mod...
 
I can tell that TC01 is still active (very much so :) )... Hopefully he could post here and tell if he ever plans to continue with this mod. I was just reading about the Donner Party... I thought to myself -- why there are so few finished Colonization mods? Real history beats the fiction hands down any day of the week. But fictional mods get more attention for some reason... Like Final Frontier instead of Wild west mod...

Rather late to reply to this, but I checked these forums recently and saw an interesting thread about a scenario map for this mod, which I admit guilted me into posting.

Westward Ho was one of the first mods I started working on. I had gotten both Colonization and Railroads!, and unlike quite a large number of other people, I enjoyed both games.

I was also at this time getting into modding, and I saw this project. Flintlock had been working on it for a few months, I think, but was running out of steam. He posted saying he needed help with it, and I thought "hey, I could help him out, I know XML and a bit of Python". So I posted and took over the mod and eventually released Westward Ho 0.2. (Flintlock's unfinished release was what I considered to be 0.1).

Now, I felt like a wild west mod would be cool- a chance to play with some of the features in Colonization I liked but felt were under-emphasized, but in a new setting (the wild west). To develop the economy and so on.

After I posted some patches to 0.2, Kailric stepped up to help with some DLL work, and we released 0.3 and then 0.4. And then... I had laid out a roadmap of what I thought would need doing by release 1.0. Unfortunately, I wasn't looking forward to working on any of those features. So I wasn't much inspired to work on 0.5.

Also, there were too many strange issues popping up- with land transport units, with the home cities being on the map, and so on. We tried fixing a few but to my knowledge most of them are still there. At the time (and honestly, still to this day), I lacked the C++ knowledge to fix them. Whatever enthusiasm I had for the project waned as the issues with trains and home cities became more obvious.

I also found myself increasingly getting involved with projects in other areas: writing computer programs and messing about with Linux. I was still working on Final Frontier Plus because, first of all, Final Frontier Plus was my project. This was a project I took over to help out Flintlock, and while I thought it was cool, all the crazy issues that popped up didn't help motivate me further to help out with someone else's brainchild.

And second, I didn't have a series of goals I was trying to reach with Final Frontier Plus. We were developing as we went, saying "Okay, let's make a release, what features would be cool to add?" I didn't increasingly feel like I would be unable to meet the goals I was setting for myself there. That's the other main difference between the two projects I see: Final Frontier Plus will never be done, but Westward Ho would have been "done" at v1.0 (even though more releases could still happen)- and I realized I could never get there.

Perhaps someday I'll spend more time on this mod, but today is not that day. It would certainly help if people who were willing to actually work on this project would step up, like I did for Flintlock. Having said that, please don't volunteer unless you actually know how to mod. If you're good at DLL modding, graphics, Python scripting, adding a lot of cool new content to the XML, scenario design, mapscripting, etc, then I'd be glad to pass over parts of the project to you. If all you can contribute is ideas- then no offense, but we have quite enough of those already.

And if someone wants to take over the mod completely, go for it!


There are so few finished Colonization mods because Colonization, as a game, is far less popular than both Civilization IV and Civilization V. It was a bit of a niche, enjoy Colonization, but I haven't played it for a while and I don't know when I will again. (Maybe soon, though, now that I've made this post). So it hasn't attracted nearly as many modders. Some have gone onto Civ V, some have fallen back to Civ IV, some have just gone on to other things in life.

Oh, and as to your other comment- there are plenty of people who prefer real history and plenty of people who prefer fiction. Personally, I enjoy stories more than I enjoy history, and stories I don't already know the ending to more so. I love playing Civ, but I'd say given the choice I would rather play a fantasy or science fiction variant on it (ex: Final Frontier, Fall from Heaven 2). No offense, of course, but just recognize that many disagree with you.
 
There are so few finished Colonization mods because Colonization, as a game, is far less popular than both Civilization IV and Civilization V.
...
So it hasn't attracted nearly as many modders.

That is true of course. :thumbsup:

But overall quantity of modders is not that important.

You just need a handful of skilled and experienced modders to join forces and have fun working on one project together.
Then you will be able to create a great mod pretty fast and have a great time doing so.

:wavey:

To prevent misunderstandings:
I am not interested in working on this project, since I am having too much fun working on Religion and Revolution.
(Which is supposed to go on for a long time.)
 
That is true of course. :thumbsup:

But overall quantity of modders is not that important.

You just need a handful of skilled and experienced modders to join forces and have fun working on one project together.
Then you will be able to create a great mod pretty fast and have a great time doing so.

:wavey:

To prevent misunderstandings:
I am not interested in working on this project, since I am having too much fun working on Religion and Revolution.
(Which is supposed to go on for a long time.)

Well, I was responding to his comment that there are not many finished Colonization projects.

I'm not completely sure what point you're trying to make here. Yeah, it's easier to do a project when working with people, but the more active projects going on the more interest will be generated in the modding community for a game. More interest means more people playing, giving feedback, coming up with ideas, perhaps starting small projects of their own, etc.

A single team of interested modders is not all you need for a modding community to be successful. Only for a single project to be successful- and that's assuming your team stays together and keeps working on that project.
 
A single team of interested modders is not all you need for a modding community to be successful.

I must disagree. :)

For a very long time (several years) the complete German CivCol community was basically focusing on one single project (TAC)
created by a really big and experienced team of modders that joined forces (10+ modders).

The community was extremely active and very "successful".

I really believe:

One big team (of skilled and experienced modders joining forces) is better than having many small teams.

Only one single great mod, is enough to make a community successful.
(Of course, it is even better if you have many big teams creating many great mods.)

... and that's assuming your team stays together and keeps working on that project.

Of course, if the team breaks up, the mod cannot be as successful any more.

... but the more active projects going on the more interest will be generated in the modding community for a game.

And here I disagree again. :)
It is not quantity of the mods alone.
It is most of all quality of the mods that generates interest and a successful community.
(But of course, there are many high quality mods for Civ4. :thumbsup:)

Edit:

Sorry for spaming your thread. :blush:
But when I read your post it sounded a little bit like "CivCol community is too small to be successfull".

There is no doubt, that Civ4 community is much bigger and "more successful" than Civ4Col community. :thumbsup:
But there are enough skilled CivCol modders left, to create really great mods as well.
(... and I was simply tempted to say a few words about that.)
 
Sorry for spaming your thread. :blush:
But when I read your post it sounded a little bit like "CivCol community is too small to be successfull".

There is no doubt, that Civ4 community is much bigger and "more successful" than Civ4Col community. :thumbsup:
But there are enough skilled CivCol modders left, to create really great mods as well.
(... and I was simply tempted to say a few words about that.)

I was (in theory) responding to a poster who was complaining about the lack of finished Colonization mods.

In that context, and with that definition of success, wouldn't you agree with me? That if there were more people interested in modding Colonization, there would naturally be more projects, either being worked on or finished? You can define success as an active community based around project- that wasn't how I was defining it. What if I don't like that project? What if I would rather play different kinds of mods, or simply more mods? Or making them?

I can understand your slight defensiveness, because I've been a modder for this game and felt the same way- that just because we're smaller than Civ 4 or Civ 5 doesn't mean we can't produce good content. I agree. But I was speaking to quantity, not quality. :)
 
In that context, and with that definition of success, wouldn't you agree with me ?
...
I was speaking to quantity, not quality. :)

In that context:
Yes, I do agree. :)

Let us wait and see, how this community will evolve in the near future. ;)
(As I said, there are still a few of us "old and experienced CivCol modders" around and Civ4Col has an enormous potential ...)
 
I have seen people on other forums complain that Civ doesn't really have a Wild West mod...but, in fact, it does, and here it is. :)

In terms of Civilization IV vs. Colonization, these days a $25 Civ 4 complete download/disk also includes all of Colonization (and, usually all of Civ 3 for good measure), so pretty much anyone who has bought Civ 4 in the last year or two will have Colonization.

In terms of making a mod for the players, I do not. I update and fix mods for myself; if anonymous lurkers or others like them, nice, but I'm not looking for anyone else's approval; my goal is to make a game that can immerse me in another world. Right now, I'm playing -- and fixing bugs in as I play -- a mod that no one else seems to have any interest in (since, among other things, it's a Warlords mod in a Beyond the Sword/Civ 5/Diablo 3 world). I'm having a lot of fun, I'm posting updates when I get around to fixing bugs, and maybe some lurker will enjoy my updates...or maybe they will a few years down the road.
 
Another thing: I will not download this mod. weplayciv.com has been black listed as a malware site, and, with all due respect, I'm not going to risk getting a virus and having to reinstall Windows just to play a Civ mod. Please upload it to another site (I was able to get Final Frontier Plus and install with with great difficulty since the version that uses the Final Frontier files isn't on weplayciv.com); I really don't mind waiting a couple of minutes at Atomic Gamer, for example.
 
I have seen people on other forums complain that Civ doesn't really have a Wild West mod...but, in fact, it does, and here it is. :)

In terms of Civilization IV vs. Colonization, these days a $25 Civ 4 complete download/disk also includes all of Colonization (and, usually all of Civ 3 for good measure), so pretty much anyone who has bought Civ 4 in the last year or two will have Colonization.

In terms of making a mod for the players, I do not. I update and fix mods for myself; if anonymous lurkers or others like them, nice, but I'm not looking for anyone else's approval; my goal is to make a game that can immerse me in another world. Right now, I'm playing -- and fixing bugs in as I play -- a mod that no one else seems to have any interest in (since, among other things, it's a Warlords mod in a Beyond the Sword/Civ 5/Diablo 3 world). I'm having a lot of fun, I'm posting updates when I get around to fixing bugs, and maybe some lurker will enjoy my updates...or maybe they will a few years down the road.

I make mods for myself as well. In fact, that's sort of the problem here- this was a mod I took over for someone else. So it wasn't really a mod being made for me from the start.

While more people these days may own Colonization, there's still a huge percentage of people who already owned Civ 4 who don't, but then we have all the people who own Colonization but don't like it and don't want to play it. Just because they got it in a bundle doesn't mean they're going to spend much time playing it or modding it.

Another thing: I will not download this mod. weplayciv.com has been black listed as a malware site, and, with all due respect, I'm not going to risk getting a virus and having to reinstall Windows just to play a Civ mod. Please upload it to another site (I was able to get Final Frontier Plus and install with with great difficulty since the version that uses the Final Frontier files isn't on weplayciv.com); I really don't mind waiting a couple of minutes at Atomic Gamer, for example.

The site is now safe. And you can also look at Google's current opinion- malware was last detected on the 20th. I understand your concerns, of course, and I can upload the mod elsewhere, but it should now be safe.

However, I'm not sure where, because I mind waiting a few minutes at Atomic Gamer, I mind clicking through three pages of garbage to download anything from a place like Filefront ("Gamefront", sorry), I mind seeing dozens of advertisements pop up on almost all of these sites... and so on and so on. There is a reason I have not uploaded files to any of them in the first place- I do not want to force people downloading my files to sit through the same garbage that irritates me when I download other people's files.

I'll try to find the, ah, least objectionable place and upload it there, though.

Also, this is not really the place for discussing Final Frontier Plus, but it is also available for download at Sourceforge. A download link which should be more publicized by me, yes, but it's there and contains both downloads. I'll add it to the main post now.
 
I agree that weplayciv.com has a lot of advantages over Atomic Gamer and other ad-ridden sites. Personally, I think it's best to have a mod on at least two different sites because it minimizes the chances of the mod disappearing in to the sands of time like this mod did:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246217

- Sam
 
Mediafire does not look like a very bad place...
 
I've reposted my original comment about the future of Westward Ho in a thread aptly titled 'Future of Westward Ho'. So any replies to the mod's future/stagnation/etc can go over there, and we can keep talking about hosting

I agree that weplayciv.com has a lot of advantages over Atomic Gamer and other ad-ridden sites. Personally, I think it's best to have a mod on at least two different sites because it minimizes the chances of the mod disappearing in to the sands of time like this mod did:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246217

- Sam

Yeah, there have been plenty of mods that have done that, alas. :(

I'm looking at ModDB, which is pretty nice, although as I've not used it before I'm not sure what hosting opportunities they have. (Of course, I always could just create a Sourceforge page for the project if I can't find anything better, I suppose).

Mediafire does not look like a very bad place...

It's been some time since I downloaded a file from there, so I'm honestly not sure- if you have a link to something you know is hosted there, then feel free to post it here and I'll see what I think.
 
I'm putting my money where my mouth is: I used a safe browser you've never heard of called Dillo ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/dillo-win32/files/ ), downloaded the file, scanned it with Microsoft Security essentials, and have uploaded it to my personal web page.

It can be downloaded here: http://samiam.org/Civ4/WestwardHo_0.4.exe

I am not making any guarantees about how long this link will still be good; if I get too many downloads, I may have to take it down (there's a reason AtomicGamer and pretty much everyone else has all of those obnoxious ads).


- Sam
 
Is this Mod playable? I hope so. So far both RaR and Doane are quite bug ridden and give repeated CTDs. And yes I have the Col 1.01 patch.

JosEPh
 
Is this Mod playable? I hope so. So far both RaR and Doane are quite bug ridden and give repeated CTDs. And yes I have the Col 1.01 patch.

JosEPh
No, it's not finished. Not sure what can be done here, but in previous versions the AI was simply not doing anything. In last one the AI does build settlements, not sure about the rest.

Just play RaR because the problems should be fixed soon due to constant development or wait for DoaNE with the next version, since previous versions are not playable versions.
Also AoD should work without problems.
 
Does anyone still have a copy of the main 0.4 download? Unfortunately it's a redirect to WePlayCiv's downloads area which is gone now. I spoke to Solver and he's regrettably informed me that he's lost the entire WPC downloads area as for some reason it wasn't in his site backups.

The 2 patches are fine as they're hosted locally here at CFC, but the big main download is lost forever unless someone has a copy they can share. I have cloud storage that files can be dragged and dropped into and I have large file upload access here at CFC so I can get it uploaded to CFC to ensure it doesn't get lost again if someone has it.

.
 
Does anyone still have a copy of the main 0.4 download? Unfortunately it's a redirect to WePlayCiv's downloads area which is gone now. I spoke to Solver and he's regrettably informed me that he's lost the entire WPC downloads area as for some reason it wasn't in his site backups.

The 2 patches are fine as they're hosted locally here at CFC, but the big main download is lost forever unless someone has a copy they can share. I have cloud storage that files can be dragged and dropped into and I have large file upload access here at CFC so I can get it uploaded to CFC to ensure it doesn't get lost again if someone has it.

.
I used the link in this comment:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/latest-version-download-here.331224/page-2#post-11640998
and it works so far for me.

Just make sure not to rename the folder "Westward Ho" like I did and run into a bunch of errors that seemed to have no solution. Keep the folder name as "WestwardHo". Also, the patches might try to save it in a different folder name. They all have to be installed to the same "WestwardHo" folder.

Perhaps off topic, but do you have or know where to get a copy of the Mare Nostrum Civ4Col mod? It also was hosted at WePlayCiv and is undownloadable now.
 
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Urgh that's embarrassing, it was right above me lol. Thank you very much for pointing me to it!

Have uploaded a copy to CFC here:
https://www.civfanatics.com/users/downloads/civ4col/WestwardHo_0.4.exe

Update patches in the OP are still all good and already on CFC so no need for me rescue them. :)

Perhaps off topic, but do you have or know where to get a copy of the Mare Nostrum Civ4Col mod? It also was hosted at WePlayCiv and is undownloadable now.
No sadly, I don't have that one either. I'll look into it and reply in the appropriate thread where I see you've recently posted:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/beta-v0-05-download-issues-discussion.323007/

.
 
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