Leaders go away!

[Mustakrakish]

Good evening.

I love the game, obviously. But I hate the leaders. I hate their faces, their voices, their existence. Most of all I hate seeing Washington rolling that damn globus in the age before invention of wheel. I hate them with every fiber of my body.

Their existence hinders badly my enjoyment and meta gaming with this game lately.

I want to play as the empire of Germany, not as Bismarck. I want to wage war against Russia, not Catherine. I want them to be represented as countries (kingdoms, empires etc.), as nations.

I dream of a mod that would change the leaders into static art like the advisors who'd change their appearance according to era. If that cannot be, then at least the removal of any focus on the leaders and instead on the civ itself. When I contact Persia I don't want to hear / see "I'm Darius...", but speak with Persian people or ambassador etc. I think I got my point across.

So I ask you, good people, is there some kind of solution to that problem?

 

[otaman1]

Yes. Remove all the leader sound codes and 3D models and replace the arts for the leaders with anything else. Besides, I think it might cause errors.

 

[Nutty]

I'm not sure why, but I started working on this request.

In addition to some of things otaman1 mentioned, you also have to change at least 4 text entries per civ (the name and the 3 random first greetings), which I'm currently working on, but it's a bit tedious.

I just realized, however, that you may not be using US English, SickFak. What language do you use for CiV?

EDIT: Also, you have used a [BTS] prefix for this post, which is for Beyond the Sword. I assume you mean Brave New World (or did you post this in the wrong forum? )

 

[otaman1]

EDIT: Also, you have used a [BTS] prefix for this post, which is for Beyond the Sword. I assume you mean Brave New World (or did you post this in the wrong forum? )

I'm pretty sure he meant BNW. He said "their voices [...] Washington rolling that damn globus ... ".

 

[Mustakrakish]

Thanks very much Nutty! I'll be waiting with excitement. I do use english and did mean BNW. Haven't used CFC actively for some time and I'm a bit clumsy.

 

[Nutty]

SickFak,
OK, find your request attached. It's not as polished as I would have liked, so I'm not uploading it to the Workshop in this state.

Here are the changes I made:

• Replaced Diplomacy leaderheads with sukritact's Civ Accurate Maps (or the default map where there wasn't a CAM replacement). Many of them still reference a leader's name ("country" at the time of "leader name"), but at least it's now often in a foreign language. If you have a better idea for leaderhead replacements, let me know.
• Removed the Diplomacy voices.
• Tried to replace the Dawn of Man screen with the same CAM map, but just changing the database entry didn't work; I'm not sure why. I might just have to change the image dimensions or something. Don't know how big a deal that is to you.
• Turned off Dawn of Man audio, and initiated changing the (U.S. English) Dawn of Man quotes to more generic ones. I never actually finished the task though, so at the moment they're all blank.
• Replaced the U.S. English texts at first diplomacy meeting of the leader to generic ones. I often had to be creative with these, but I think they work.
• Replaced leader names with Civ names, and leader icons with the civ's icons (which means you have 2 of the same icon in different sizes on the trade screen).

[DOWNLOAD REMOVED; see new download at post #12]
[Note the CAM files aren't compressed, so the download is 11 MB.]

 

[Mustakrakish]

Thanks a lot, Nutty. Really appreciate it. Will try it as soon as possible and write my thoughts later.

Are you planning on "polishing" it further and can I write suggestions/thoughts as I test it out?

Dawn of Man screen isn't important for me as I never watch it, usually doing something else while the game loads and I use a mod that silences Dawn of Man and tech audio (makes me think if it conflicts with this mod then?). So I'm fine with default background screen while loading, though I'll take the change gladly of course. But more empire oriented text, instead of praising the leader, would be a very nice touch.

Not sure what would be a better solution for leader screens. Obviously advisors style art that change appearence according to era and of same size (more civ4 style little window, not entire screen) would be the perfection, but since there's no such art made of leaders, that will remain a silly dream of mine
More realistically... I would rather take an empty screen (MP style) than see them default leaders TBH. I will write my thoughts about CAM replacements.

And again, thanks.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Ok, so I'm trying out the mod right now and have a couple thoughts...

- You said you "tried" replacing Dawn of Man screen with maps, but it didn't work? I tried a few civs and there were little maps on loading screen instead of default screen with leaders. Not sure what you meant here, but I think it's perfect. I don't mind leaders being mentioned in some maps because of what I'll mention next.

- I take it it's impossible (or not worth the trouble) to remove the "leader name slot" so to speak? I mean the full name of civ/player: "America - America", "The Ottomans - The Ottomans" in the choose civ menu. Also I encounter buds like: Morocco the Great of Morocco, Consul Denmark of Denmark etc. So taking this into account I think leaving leader names is more "polished" solution right now. Better they have some "name to represent" them so to speak as long as no one screams it in my face.

- Changed greeting texts to more generic that won't mention the leader are good. No more, no less could be asked here.

- Replaced leader icons with civ's icons is GOOD. Very good solution.

- I think simply adding the "history" section of each civ from civilopedia to the Dawn of Man quotes is more than enough.

- I think using those maps as leader screens is a good solution (at least I can't come up with a better one right now). Can't decide if it'd be better if they were a little bit smaller or not. On one hand it would look just perfect when you're in trading screen and the map is right above the trade table Civ4 style and wouldn't be so blurry/stretched, but on the other hand greeting screen might look weird with so much... black.

Though I can't help but think how else one could utilize those civ flags/icons more. They're very convinient.

If these changes could be made, this mod will be close to perfection for me and definitely my favorite.

 

[Nutty]

Odd that the DoM image change worked on yours but not on mine...

I changed one place where it was originally "Leadername of CivName" to just "CivName," but there are more that I have to find apparently. Some may be easy to change, some less so. It would help if you let me know where they appear. I'll start with the "choose a civ" menu.

The history section of the civilopedia is quite long for many of the civs as I recall, but I'll take a look at reusing those for DoM quotes.

I could add black borders to the maps for the diplomacy screen (though that means 2 copies of each map; either way I can compress them a bit so the filesize isn't so large), but it will always be stretched to fill the screen. What resolution do you play in? I'm not sure there's anything I can do (easily) to change the size of the maps on discussion vs. trades.

I'm not sure what you mean about utilizing civ icons...

 

[Mustakrakish]

1. Indeed it is odd...

2. So "choose a civ" menu, where it's currently "America - America", Carthage - Carthage" etc. Note that there are some, maybe one or two that are still "Harun Al Rashid - Arabia". Also in-game in the drop down diplo menu list of met civs and CS there is bigger text "America" and little text "America" underneath (not so important).
In the diplo screen (greeting screen) with a civ it states their title, like "America the Great of America" if they took Honor tree, where it would be "Washington the Great of America" by default.
Also in the beginning of every turn there usually appears te t on the screen stating turn number (if I recall correctly) and YOUR title. Example: "Lord Denmark of Denmark, turn 51" etc.
Can't think of another examples right now...

3. Didn't mean the entire entry in civpedia, but the first introduction section, before it goes on to break it down by eras/categories. I remember them being about same lenght and shorter than the default DoM text. might be wrong, I'll check it out.

4. I'm playing in in 1080 res. Probably better leave it at that, more black borders around would probably make diplo screen look weirder. Can't really make bigger res maps so...

5. I was thinking if it would look good or bad the icons would be somehow displayed in diplo screen with the maps... Not sure how though.

 

[Mustakrakish]

"Lord The Iroquies of The Iroquies"s' said "I am a place holder. Report me as a bug"

So no map there...

 

[Nutty]

Sorry for not getting back to you. I'd already been frustrated with the UI stuff from City States Leaders, and trying to mess with the UI stuff for this mod didn't help.

FWIW, I fixed the Iroquois bug (someone at Firaxis can't spell) and added the DoM quotes, and I think the diplo titles should work now (had to get creative with the suffix style ones), but those are the easy ones. There's still quite a few places to fix where it's hardcoded to one extent or another that I haven't found the energy to tackle [successfully].

The latest version is attached.

EDIT: Oh, and to remind myself if I come back to it, the atmospheric sounds need to be removed from the diplomacy screen (e.g., crackling fire for Songhai and Aztecs).

 

[Mustakrakish]

Just started, but right away I can say Iroquois bug isn't fixed.