Long Winded Changes (LWC) Mod

Def bonuses for Arty....make sence that they would aply...

UU: how about 1 per age for every Civ? of course IRL some of the Civs in the game never made it past the acient of middle ages so you would have to extrapolate what their culture would likely have become had they continued to survive.
 
:D Really diggin this mod, Have ERP-3 loaded, and just started a game as Germs. No crashin so far but I have not tried some o the new units, ect. so we will see this eve... Anybody heard from Plutarck re, ERP-4? Anyhow, UU's. I like the 2 per civ idea and the UU each age idea is also good. Each civ deserves a close look, but to address the comments on America and England... I like the Longbow/England/early combo. I also agree that the Man o War is trivial, Soooo, to give historic credit to the Royal Navy how's about (brainstormin here) a beefed up Ironclad, it could be faster, or tougher, cheaper, Ideas anyone? Also really like the "Redcoat" idea, a more offensive type of Inf. or some such. The discipline of the Brit. line Infantry in the 19th cent. is to be noted, it was the deciding factor for decades, ask Frenchy!:D The Americans... I like the MinMan idea. higher-D w/ greater movement. Then maybe just leave the F-15? Or perhaps that Sherman tank notion I've seen, Cheap/quick to build but lower -D than others. Though I am more attracted to the idea of a Naval Air UU for USA. Also I would put the T-34 up as a slam dunk Russian UU, (Like the Sherman ...except, well... not half-assed:rolleyes: ) Not to turn this into an armor game, but the Tank has been rather big for a number o nations for close to 100 yrs. These are just my quick notes, but am eager to hear what u-all think on late uu's for the others, Bab's, Persian's, Aztec, :egypt: ect.
 
I have been playing your mod and it's cool. The new units are very nice to play with, especially the naval units. But just some things I have noticed:
- I had on my map 16 silks on a 10 by 10 square! Dunno if this is the mod, but I haven't seen something like that before.
- In the research screen, it does only show the picture of the research, now what you get with it (buildings etc.)
- I know creating unit graphics is very difficult (I guess), but maybe you can just, for example the trebuchet, put a little T in the corner or something, so there is a difference with the catapult, I guess this is easier to do than make a whole new image.

That is all I can think of now. I like the idea of several UU's per civ too, but there's shouldn't be too much tanks, how about the SEAL's for US, an improved Special Op's unit?
 
I've learned that when you don't hear from Plutrak, it is a GOOD thing! :goodjob:

I LOVE the idea of special units every age. I think they should still have mech warrioirs in the future age. Along with hydroponic gardens.

great wonder of the Biosphere?

Anyway, An easy solution to creating a new unit icon, is to just change the colors of it to be different from the original. Easy to change the pallette.
 
:confused:

Hope someone can help me out here as I'm quite new to this whole Mod gig. I downloaded and unzipped the LWC mod from the website but when I run the game the smilies and resource markers appear but (apparently) none of the new units. I was previously running another Mod and did not change back to the regular Civ 3 before installing LWC. Should I be running LWC as a scenario? Help.
 
Originally posted by joost1110
I have been playing your mod and it's cool.
- I had on my map 16 silks on a 10 by 10 square! Dunno if this is the mod, but I haven't seen something like that before.

I have seen this a number o times, most recently a very large grouping o Ivory, not a problem really but I was wondering if it is tied to map size or the type of world, warm,wet ect.
Also anybody know what the tie-in is to map type/size and the # of Goodie huts on the map? Also a quick ERP-3 observation... Barbarians (on raging) are a real threat now:goodjob:
 
2 more things I noticed:

I played a game in which I started on quite a large island, and when it started it had 6 iron, but 4 disappeared and not 1 has appeared. Maybe this is just badluck, because I thaugth that when a resource disappears, it reapears somewhere else, is this so?

another thing is that either the musketman is too expensive, or the musket infantry is too cheap. Because the musketman is 2.4.1 and the musket infantry is 7.4.1, but the musketinfantry is only slightly more expensive (the costs are 6 to 7 I believe)
:shotgun:

if this mod is just a 'regular' thing, I wander how great a 'good thing' must be, gorilladf ;)
 
Announcement #1: The LWC website now has a domain name, thanks to Realm! Give 'em a big thank you for providing it. It is: lwc.realmofgaming.net. To get directly to the main LWC page just add /civ3 onto the end of it.

Nifty, huh? Now you don't need to remember a whole IP addy :D


Announcement #2: The website is back up, thanks to some quick reinstatement of service by Kolyana. ;)

(inside joke, don't try to figure it out)



Now, about the unique units. I'll be posting a thread about it in the general forum to get lots'o'opinions on what a 2nd UU should be for each civ.

I'm currently decided on 2 UU for each Civ, instead of more (such as one for each age). The reasons for this are many, with the most important being:

- It'll be quite a bit of work to add 16 units to the game anyhow, and have them fit in with their Civ, be worthy of UU status without being unbalancing, and be significantly different from other Civs UUs.

- For each civ to have one for each age I'd have to add 64 units! Um...no.

- Having 2 UU instead of 1 is twice as good, but adding more comes with greatly diminishing returns.

- It won't be hard to come up with 2 units for each civ, as every civ at LEAST somehow existed in 2 eras, even if just the early Middle Ages and the Ancient Age. So Zulu/Persians/Aztec/etc could get one in the ancient and middle, while America could get one in the industrial and modern.

- Each civ will have a greater amount of custom strategy, without becoming too much so.

- How much of a stretch would it have to be to come up with a unit in the industrial and modern age for the ancient civs like the Zulu and Aztects? Or an ancient and middle age unit for america?


So I think just about everyone will agree that 2 UU per civ is the optimal solution. I'll include them as soon as I'm reasonably convinced of what civs should have what UUs, but no earlier than ERP5-6.


Other notes:

-I hope to do the government overhaul by ERP6, at least. It sooo needs doing. It's the number one sore-thumb in the game, or it will be after ERP4.

-No ETA on ERP4, but I'm working on it. Probably will be available next week, as there's no way I can finish it this weekend.

Gotta do plenty of other stuff IRL, so I can't give anything firm. Car troubles, car shopping...ah well, what can ya do.

-I don't know what ERP5 will be about, but probably will be more tweaking and adjusting than anything else.

-Later on, perhaps even after ERP4 (depending...), I'll try to wrap LWC up into some maps and make them available in an add-on pack! So you could play the earth maps with LWC rules and units :D

The only thing required, other than using the CopyTool, to import the maps into LWC, is to place Oasis where they should be and decide if the disappearance ratios should be changed for that map.

Since you can ensure everyone get's a fair shake from the begining, you might just make all disappearance ratios 0, and things like that.

Other than that, I know of no obstacles.



Replys going in reverse order:

joost1110:

On the resources, they probably just reappeared somewhere you couldn't see them. Though there is a possibility that the game doesn't immediately make disappeared resources available, but I'm doubtful of that.

Good point about the musket infantry, and thanks for pointing it out. I'm going through all the units, again, and tweaking their stats along with their costs. The most effected by this will be Naval units, so finally the water should be a fun place to wage war :)

It's definately going to be more fun in the middle ages, without a doubt.


Count Coup:

Yup, you have to load LWC as a scenario (thus requiring version 1.16f of Civ3, or later...whenever that becomes available). It will be "LWC Mod.bic" in your /Scenario[s?] folder.


joost1110:

1) Never seen that much of a clumping occur, but I have had similar things happen. But I recall it happening in Civ3 itself too, so the mod didn't cause it.

2) That happens only occassionally, for some strange reason. Might be when techs overlap each other, but I dunno. Hopefully won't happen in ERP4, since I'm fixing the way techs overlap.

3) All the units will definately be changed somehow so you can tell them apart...I just haven't done that yet. Also as more full-featured unit graphics are done by people I include those, so that could also solve it.


gorilladf:

Oh if only the game allowed such things...as it is, I can't allow anything of the sort. So many possibilitys...*sniffle*

I loved the Fusion Tank from CTP...could turn it into a Hovercraft for Civ3...but no! *crys*


TRACE:

Actually, you _shouldn't_ have to start over. Since ERP1, which is when LWC started being loaded as scenario instead of just choosing new game, you should be able to install LWC while still being able to play all your old saved games!

However, the rules won't take effect on Marla's map.


chosen5:

Open your civ3 directory and go to art\units\Pioneer. Is there a Pioneer.ini file inside it, and when opened does it seem not to be corrupt?

If so, I don't know why the game would crash. I've personally checked on it, and all the needed files are included with ERP3 and the Pioneer doesn't cause my system to crash. :confused:


rapid:

Have you read the instructions in the readme.txt for installation and use instructions, such as using Load Scenario, and you have 1.16f installed (of Civ3)?


Octavian X:

All instructions are in the readme.txt that comes with the mod.


Goat_Guy:

It's hard-coded into Civ3, and not easily fixable. To fix it I'd have to change the names of at least 83 graphic files, then make them available for download, and I'd still have to figure out which techs to rename to what. And that's assuming that would work...

So if it's not fixed in the next few patches by Firaxis, I guess I'll go to the trouble of fixing it :D




Back to grindstone for me :)
 
Plutark,

My game crashed when i entered a new age!!! I was quite happy w\ this game and wanted to keep playing!! Here's a copy oof it:
 
If anyone has a problem when switching ages, please open your Civilization III\Text\pediaicons.txt file and go down to the very bottom. The very bottom should be this:

################################################################
#Era splash art begin
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_0
art\erasplash\ancient.pcx
art\erasplash\medival.pcx
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_1
art\erasplash\medival.pcx
art\erasplash\indust.pcx
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_2
art\erasplash\indust.pcx
art\erasplash\modern.pcx
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_3
art\erasplash\modern.pcx
art\erasplash\modern.pcx


If it doesn't then that's what's causing the crash. Delete whatever is below that line of #s, and paste in the above. Save the file, then try playing Civ3.

If your game still crashes, let me know as there could be some other bug. Gotta go run some errands, so I can't check it till later on.


For some strange reason it seems some people are having a problem with the pediaicons.txt file, yet I am completely sure that the file included in ERP3 does not have such problems.

So confusing...
 
I took a guess and just added the entire selection (including bth rows of # signs) on the VERY bottom and it magicly worked and i can continue my wonderful game...THANK YOU VERY MUCH PLUTARK!!!!:-) you are king:egypt:
 
I've used the mod, an it is very good:) . Of course, I've had some problems. The main thing is, I've exhausted iron and horse resources, without even building anything that requires them:( .

Also, since warriors have axes, couldn't they be used to clear forests?

One more thing. If I put a reqular combat unit on automate, what will it do:confused:
 
Goat_Guy: Glad it's working again :D


Octavian X: Yeah, that's a problem with Civ3 itself in that resources can be depleted without even being within your territory, much less being worked or connected by a road.

In ERP4 resources will move a little bit less than they do now. They're jumpin' around a bit too much :)



Ok, here are my latest entrys into changelog.txt:


01/19/01:

-Mining: Costs 16 turns instead of 12. Mining is a bit more valuable now, and also curbs the "mine all the grasslands" problem a little.

-Fortress: Costs 12 turns instead of 16. Is there

-Plant Forest: Costs 20 turns instead of 22. I'd make it 18, but I don't think the AI knows how to use it, so it would purely be for the benefit of the player.

-Clear Forest: Costs 12 turns instead of 10. They do provide an extra 5 shields now, and deforestation should take a bit more effort (since it comes with few consequences).

-Clear Pollution: Costs 22 turns instead of 24.

-Fruit: New resource. Like Oasis for Jungles, but gives +2 food and +1 commerce.

-Mountains: Now provides 1 commerce instead of 0. Thus it now has a base of providing 2 production and 1 commerce, and when roaded and mined provides 4 production and 2 commerce.

-Tundra: Now has 2 movement cost instead of 1.

-NOTE: While playing with units in the LWC calculator I suddenly realized a whole new dimension of units that needs to be tested. Cost must be factored together with stats to decide what is a more powerful unit. I have failed to do this up till now, because I was assuming that 1 old unit would equal 1 new unit; which can reasonably be true because of how production increases over time, but we'll put that aside for now. Thus the LWC combat system still works pretty darn well, but I'm refiguring the details now. Consider this:

I had given the War Caravel (WC) a Cost/Attack/Defense/Movement of 7/8/6/4, and the Ship of the Line (SL) 10/13/10/5. I figured this would allow the WC a reasonable chance of success if attacking first (36% chance, it turned out), but it would be pretty easily thrashed if the SL attacked first. However, I failed to factor in cost.

For the cost of 21 (210 shields ingame, though the AI can build it for less on higher difficulty levels) you can build 3 WCs, and for 20 cost you can build 2 SLs. If 3 WCs attack 2 SLs (assuming all ships are Veteran), one right after the other, the WCs have roughly a 68% chance of victory (2% less of a chance if all ships were Regulars)! That means it is actually better NOT to be able to build the SL so you can just build WCs instead, as it regards ship to ship warfare! Obviously not acceptable, even if that's only when the WCs are on the attack.

If the WCs have only a 7 attack the chance of success is reduced to 55%, but that still isn't all that good. But if the SL also gets 11 defense, then the problem is altogether solved, leaving a (reasonable) 46% chance of success (20% when 1 on 1) when attacking. But if the SLs attack first then they have an, appoximately, 80% chance of success.

This is of course ignoring other factors involved, but it's not a bad rule of thumb to go by. So warfare should be alot more balanced now, without tipping the scales too much in any one direction.

One more calculation which is important to make: Figure the chances of 2 attackers winning against a defender, not just one. Otherwise the stats may look good at first, but once you add another attacker right behind you see that it gets pretty darn Ugly.

-NOTE: It is only now that I realise how awful and difficult Civ3 is to actually make "good", because of the lack of any ability to give increased hit points to units as well as the lack of firepower (and to a lesser extent, armor). Why?

Well, I'll tell you why. To get the ships balanced properly so that it's actually worth developing in technology to conduct warfare, by the advent of Steel I must have ships with 37 Attack and 30 Defense. It's not even the second half of the industrial age! It's a darn good thing the maximum stat for a unit goes over 99, because otherwise I'd have very little room left for the Modern Age!

To figure out the chance of one unit winning over another with such high numbers (and I mean with only a LITTLE accuracy), you just about HAVE to use a combat calculator or just settle for "well, this should be a better than 50% chance of not totally loosing...I think. ...well, I guess not."

I sware, the more I think about the sickeningly sad state of Civ3 the more I like the idea of accepting the offer to join the Clash of Civilizations development team - after I finish with the LWC Mod, of course (don't want to let anyone down, and I'm sure I can make Civ3 at _least_ be a major step forward for the series...as long as you only count Civ1. Otherwise, I might as well try to bend the golden gate bridge with the power of "PSI"...which might actually be easier, come to think of it).

Ah well, never let it be said that I did not make headway into doing the impossible in my lifetime. :D

-NOTE: By the way, did I mention that Civ3 handles Submarines like a complete POS? I didn't? How, I must have LOST MY FREAKIN MIND. X-|

-Nuclear Attack Sub: Has now been deleted and will not be in the LWC Mod any further. I find that there is simply no need for it, and it's whole use is now completely taken by the Nuclear Submarine that comes with Civ3.

-NOTE: Oh, how cruel the hands of fate! I soo wished to make a Naval Army (Armada, perhaps?), but guess what? There isn't an AI Naval Strategy for Army, as there is for Land! So if I added it, and it didn't crash the game (as unlikely as THAT is), only the player could use it! *weeps*

-Factory, Manufacturing Plant, Coal Plant, Nuclear Plant: Changed.

-Oil Plant: New improvement, alot like Coal Plant, Nuclear Plant. More expensive to maintain, but produces less pollution and requires Oil instead of Coal, as well as making 1 less person unhappy (compared to Coal Plant).

-Automated Factory: New improvement, takes the place of what Manufacturing Plant use to be.

-National Bank: New Small Wonder. Yeah, another Forbidden Palace, but this time for the later Middle Ages. Inspired by the Bank of England.

-Mass Transit System: Back down to production 1 pollution, because it seems 1 = 25% increase. Bother...

-City Dump: No longer requires a Sewer System be in the city.


01/18/01:

-Settlers, Pioneers: Now take 3 pop points to build. This is purely for testing purposes, but in theory it seems like a reasonably good idea...we'll see.

-Civilizations: I have incorporated some city/leader names from the "Changes to some annoying name errors, plus Canada civ" mod by Wyz_sub10. The Iriquous first 20 or so citys are now new, with the old ones following right behind (with a few removed). The Zulu's capital is now properly Ondini, and "Zimbabwe" has been removed, along with my changing around of leaders and adding "Bongoza", who led Zulu enemys (the Boers) into an ambush at the Battle of Opathe. Germany now has...Hitler. If Stalin can be counted as a leader of Russia, Hitler can be counted as a leader of Germany - and if you look over the leader lists, you'll probably notice worse butchers than either of them, so just delete his name if you have a problem with it.

There are also plenty of other little changes in city and leader names, but not worth listing every little change.

For those who didn't know, I already had included Sevorak's city/leader name mod since at least ERP1, which is why you'll note that there are far more city and leader names for all civilizations.

-Errors: Fixed a few more civilopedia errors.

-Catapult, Trebuchet, Canon, Artillery, Radar Artillery: Now capturable again.

-Note: Three cheers for Gramphos, for creating a Unit Organizer from my request! I really, REALLY love having my units back in order now. You don't know how nice it is unless you play around and try to compare the units like they were.

Definately will ease my unit comparisons and customizations.


01/17/02:

-Errors: Fixed some civilopedia errors, and added correct requirements and effects of small wonders.

-Minuteman: New unit, now the unique unit for America instead of F-15.

-F-15: No longer available in the game, but it may be used for something later. For now it has no tech requirement and is not available to any civilization.

-Military Academy: Now available with Education instead of Military Tradition, and is down to costing 45 instead of 50. Academy, University...makes sense to me. The effect should be armys becoming available earlier now, so that should make things a bit more interesting on the whole. And remember, to build it you only need to have 7 barracks built in citys you control, so don't think you _have_ to use a Leader to build an Army. Hell, I STILL haven't gotten a leader since I've been playing the game, which is why I changed the way Military Academy became available.

Now you can actually build Heroic Epic at some point, so long as you got have a victorious army. Yay :)

-Jungle: Now provides 1 less shield to start, but can be mined providing +1 shield. So it will start by providing 1F/1P, with a road it will give 1C, and once mined it will give 2P instead of 1P. But if you're going to go to all that trouble you'd probably do best to Clear it out instead.

-Longevity: Now gives an Aqueduct to all citys, in addition to everything else it does. I could have added a "Longevity Effect" with the "allows city size 2" ability and have Longevity provided that, but then if you built it you'd want to go into each city and sell any Aqueducts you have. So this is the best way of doing it, even if it doesn't make the most sense in the world. The effect remains the same :)

I could also have had it allow city size 3 in all citys, but we'll just stick with this instead. Easier and more balanced, I think.
 
Meaningless screenshot, feel free to ignore this post:
 

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Very very cool looking so far :goodjob: Keep up the good work.
 
I've noticed one thing in the games I've played with the latest version of your mod that you might want to consider relating to the military academy requiring 7 barracks to be built. In games that I usually play, I rarely build barracks early on, but instead wait and build Sun Tzu's Art of War to give all my cities barracks automatically. The problem with this is that I've noticed that whenever you build a wonder that gives all cities a certain improvement, it seems that later improvements that require these buildings to be built before they can be built are not available. In this case, if all your barracks are built automatically due to Sun Tzu, you will never be able to build a military academy. I've noticed this with several other wonders that I've played with and it seems that it occurs with all of them. I created a wonder for testing purposes that automatically gave temples to all cities (a WAY too powerful wonder, by the way) and was never able to build cathedrals. You may want to consider this when requiring certain buildings to be built before other buildings/wonders can be built.

P.S. - Your MOD rocks!!!
 
furst: Thanks alot for telling me about that...*sigh* Yet another obstacle to making a mod that probably won't ever be "fixed".

Ah well, in ERP4 Military Academy will become available with Education and require 4 Universitys be built. Not a bad trade-off.




ANNOUNCEMENT:

Regarding ERP4, I am now in the testing and final polish phase to prepare for the release of it.

I believe I have fixed combat on land and sea at least 95%, which is probably 99% of what's actually possible to do :D

Further, ERP4 fixes every issue I know to fix (that I'm actually going to invest the time to fix, that is; I don't think I'll do anything to the tech tree except, at most, doing something with the modern era...but I doubt it) save 2: Governments and needing more Great Wonders in the Industrial and Modern eras (and maybe some more improvements too).

Cost is the only "iffy" thing, I believe.

Just one step closer to "completing" this mod, and I think I'm getting quite close with this one.


I hope to have it released by Thursday, which should allow me enough time to test and make sure everything is working satisfactorily.


Let the slobbering, BEGIN! :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Great mod! I've just started a game with it.

I was wondering... when can we expect a Release Candidate, with civilopedia text, that is? :D
 
I recently began my first game with this mod. Very interesting, I must say.

One thing. The unit animations for two galleys is screwed. Instead of turning side on to battle, they face forward to each other. Looks really silly.
 
A really awesome job, Plutarck. Terrific ideas, well done stuff.

My only "beef" is that many of your new stuff comes too late in the game. For example, the computer oversight and AI governing prototype come too late to really make a difference in corruption. I liked an idea I saw on final solution to corruption by distance (by Dreifels, I think) that creates the equivalent of additional small wonders like the forbidden palace. He had up to 5 regional governments. I just like the idea of creating 2 local/regional/state government improvements, one that becomes available with the Republic and one with Democracy. Thus, it makes those Techs more valuable even if you don't switch govs.

I think your setting for Shakespeare Theatre has the effect of giving 8 happiness to all cities on continent. That is not what you say in your text, so you might want to check that.

On the Pioneer unit, I see no need for a Settler to Pioneer upgrade. Settlers gets used; they don't typically hang around for an upgrade. I like requiring 3 population for the settler, and I also like increasing the cost of the settler. What I am testing now is making the Pioneer available at higher cost, but for only 2 population, and giving the pioneer the ability to build roads. I agree with the pioneer only being available for expansion civs after map-making.

Some other ideas: I am giving every foot and mounted soldier a population cost of 1, in an effort to slow down the proliferation of AI units. I also decreased the initial costs, but increased the per unit costs of having more than 4 units per city to 3 or more per unit, depending on the civ.

With the settler population value at 3, I increased the maximum town size to 8, and city size to 16. Settler population of 3 is really a hit to a size 6 town.

I really like Ahenobarb's low cost Shrine as a cheap early improvement that can get a city kick started on culture. He had a cost of 10, culture 1, that was available early on before the Temple even.

Finally, sewer system is a better and more logical improvement to base advancement to metropolis than the hospitals. Hospitals can then be decreased in cost, but require a certain number of them before the Cure for Cancer or Longevity Wonders can be built.

Just some thoughts...great work!!
 
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