Mod Concepts by a real developer : Civ4 Real World

[Civ4_RealWorld]

I will not reveal who I am or who any current contributors are and their affiliation with any game development studios / publishers but this mod will have production and development contributions by actual individual game developers on their own time. One or more of us have been in the trenches and fully understand game development. This is not to say that this project is in development by an actual development studio, this is a completely free lance hobby project being proposed by people that possess actual game development experience.

We have been looking at the potential of the Civilization 4 engine. After realizing the customizability of the engine and coming to the realization that Firaxis had to go out of their way to exclude things in the game which would offend others, I have decided to gather feedback on my proposed additions in the first version of the Real World Mod.

Here are some concepts :

1. Significant changes to oil resource. Many more oil resources will be available on the world once oil becomes viewable. New structure type to go with it, the "oil well" which when built generates a source of significant cash flow. Some areas will be more oil prone based off terrain which will be geared towards influencing major wars for oil and / or heavy oil trade.

2. Epidemic / Plague events. Either spawned by exploring a specific tile (one or two per map) or a random event. This will infect a city in the civilization and all units inside (workers, military units). City will lose one population a turn until it reaches a city size of 3 and all units inside will become epidemic / plague bearers. Units will drop to a power of 1.0 and these units will infect all other units and cities (both friendly and enemy) if they go within one tile of them. The only way to eradicate an epidemic from spreading is to eliminate the infected units.

3. Fascism and Nazism. Nazism allows the construction of the Führerbunker wonder which enables the builder to access the Holocaust civic. The Holocaust severs all ties with all current allies and in turn declares war on them. The Holocaust then increases military production at a rate of 2x the standard rate for all units. All captured cities are reduced to a population of 1.

4. Suicide Bombers. These units use up a population point but are invisible to all but enemy spies, explorers and special ops. If detonated in an enemy city or on a unit stack, they cause a check similiar to a nuclear bomb on all units inside the city or unit stack. If they fail, they die.

5. Flamethrower unit. This cheap late game unit causes severe collateral damage but suffers from a very weak strength and defense penalties.

6. Major artillery changes. Bombard damages single units and / or buildings in a city or stack while frontline attacking does the same thing as it did before.

7. Long range artillery. Very expensive and fragile but it is capable of bombarding over 8 tiles. (To be determined if this is possible due to the lack of tile select currently.)

8. Unit damage from ship bombard. Finally ships will be useful and there will be a point to making a strong naval fleet.

9. Special Ops units. These units will act as Spies except they have a very high success rate at destroying enemy buildings. They can wreak havoc on enemy cities until the enemy has the technology to build special ops of their own and / or spies.

10. Biological Weaponry. It will be possible to invent two different biological weapons / units. One will be the suitcase biobomber. This unit is invisible to all but explorers, spies and special ops. If it penetrates an enemy city, it can initiate a pandemic which also kills off the affected city population to a size of 3. The other weapon is the BioICBM which performs the same thing but without the need to sneak a unit in.

11. Electron ICBM. This missile disrupts enemy research and production for two full turns in each city affected.

12. V2 Rockets / Cruise Missiles. These units will act as a mini-nuke with damage in one specific tile and less of a chance of killing units / buildings.

13. Nuke changes. Current ICBM becomes "Nuclear Missile". True ICBM will be much more expensive and affects a 6x6 radius with much more damaging effects.

14. Junk Food "Religions" and "Missionaries". These will act almost as religious missionaries but they will spread unhealthyness in cities while providing income to the person that invented the junk food "religion". McCivalds and Burger Syd are two possible examples.

15. Bonuses for each religion type. Religions will not be the same anymore as they will each give their founders and followers specific bonuses. There will also be a limit to one religion per side until the Free Religion civic is chosen.


Any and all feedback would be appreciated. If this mod receives a warm welcome, then we will begin hunting for volunteer Artists, Animators, Programmers and Sound Engineers. This mod is not meant to offend anyone but it will no doubt do so with some of the sensitive items being proposed.

 

[oldStatesman]

An addition to Civics or the Tech tree that you may want to consider:

Mega-Corporatism. Big bonus in gold production, and smaller increase in shield production but also increases unhealthiness (reflection of the lowering of Environmental protection standards to increase output, i.e. waste reprocessing, wanton deforestation; increased air pollution, etc.) Worker happiness is also lowered substantially (reflection of repeal of child labor laws, minimum wage, loss of paid retirement and health care); but you have the chance to build a "Great CEO" that will allow the Multinational Cartel Project [ON EDIT: or 'Syd-Mart' Project lol ] Not sure what this would do...I'm sure someone could think of something...lol. Maybe could be tied into junk food religions....

 

[Red Door]

Abbamouse is already doing a religious advantage/disadvantage mod:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137281

 

[imallinfools]

Sounds spectacular. I LOVE pretty much each idea. Not crazy about the holocaust one, but the rest sound terrific.

 

[The Great Apple]

One or more of us have been in the trenches and fully understand game development.
4. Suicide Bombers. These units use up a population point but are invisible to all but enemy spies, explorers and special ops. If detonated in an enemy city or on a unit stack, they cause a check similiar to a nuclear bomb on all units inside the city or unit stack. If they fail, they die.

This doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Far far far to dangerous. How on earth would a group of suicide bombers destry a unit of tanks... or maines... or anything for that matter? This just doesn't make sence...

And as for your intro and exit...

One or more of us have been in the trenches and fully understand game development.

One or more? Why not just say. It's either one... or more. Saying such a thing won't blow your cover!

Any and all feedback would be appreciated. If this mod receives a warm welcome, then we will begin hunting for volunteer Artists, Animators, Programmers and Sound Engineers. This mod is not meant to offend anyone but it will no doubt do so with some of the sensitive items being proposed.

Eh? From reading that fancy intro I was under the impression that you had a team already there! So what is your "team" capable of doing? You seem to need everything.

 

[Ravinhood]

Yeah sorta like a suitcase nuclear bomb. That'd be kewl to sneak in a city with that and let it off or on a stack of units. KABOOM all gone. And no way of knowing who done it. I'd like to see later rampaging barbarians become terrorists too. Oh and being able to give the barbarians one of your inner cities so they can have a base to deploy these neat units and no one can get to them unless they delcare war on you and if you have good diplomatic relations it could cause a World War. yeah man that'd be awesome. And being able to have diplomatic relations with the terrorist barbarians so they will leave your cites alone and go after everyone else.

 

[mash]

Sounds great! , we need more realism in these games which unfortunatly seem to be losing complexity with each new installment and becoming increasingly aimed at 12 year olds rather than adults. I won't be surprised if in a few years, Civ 5 has mickey mouse and goofey as civ leaders.
Furthermore the current political correctness craze is messing up everything simply because society is increasingly infantile and not able to cope with the hard facts of life. Religions for example should definitly have different effects rather than be similar to one another. There is no way that adopting Islam is the same as adopting Budhism. Both should lead to different advantages and disadvantages. For example an Islamic civilization would not be able to be democratic (since in the real world there are no real Islamic democracies, it's a contradiction) Democracy entails freedom of thought and religion, both of which are prohibited in Islamic society. On the other hand an Islamic civ could gaine a cultural boost since today it is one of the fastest growing religions. Unfortunatly at the moment I seem unable to share in the hype about Civ IV. All the reviewers are giving high marks while i get bored 15 minutes after I start a game.Hopefully a patch and a mod will change all this.

 

[jdurg]

I think for the terrorist unit, the following things would be needed:

Civic/Technology: Terrorism - Allows for the production of terrorist cells. Increased gold production. (As those terrorists would actually give money to the countries housing them). Allows for the creation of the 'terrorist leader' who can build terrorist cells in all countries he has access to. (Much like a world wonder, the terrorist leader would require a lot of production time in order to keep things in check).

Training Camps (Building): A Land Improvement that a 'Terrorist Leader' can build if he is in a country that has the Civic of 'Terrorism' in use. The Training Camps can be built on any land within your borders (including mountains) and the borders of any country that has the 'Terrorism' Civic in use (If this is allowed through diplomacy). Terrorist training camps can hide 'Terrorist Leaders' from view and produce the terrorist unit. Kind of like a small city, it produces terrorists and only terrorists. Production is taken from nearby cities. The terrorist unit gets associated with the group it originated from, and it also gets a defensive bonus when in a training camp. (So if you have a Terrorist Leader develop the group 'Diet Pepsi', all camps he creates will have the name 'Diet Pepsi'). If the population of your camp fills, the 'Terrorist Leader' can move out and create another camp. Terrorist camps cannot be seen by Civs which don't have the Terrorism civic in use and who do not have a camp from that 'group' in their country. So if CivA has the group 'Diet Pepsi' and CivB uses the terrorism civic, CivB can only see the 'Diet Pepsi' camps if they've had one built in their borders. Civs that don't use the Terrorism Civic can only see the camps if they have had a military unit or spy pass by the camp before, or if a terrorist unit is unsuccessful and has originated from that camp.

Terrorist: A unit that is not associated with any specific civilization, but they are associated with a 'group'. Terrorist units can destroy any one building in the city they attack, including wonders. With one promotion, they can also destroy 25% of the units in that city. As the number of promotions go up, you can also have the terrorist set off a nuclear device which would destroy all buildings and all units in the city. When a terrorist attack is successful, the terrorist disappears and only the cell name is given. If the attack is not successful, the terrorist also 'disappears' but the cell name and location of origin is given up. Any country which houses a cell of that terrorist group then loses MANY reputation points with the country that was attacked and its allies. Knowing the location of origin may also lead to a declaration of war on the country housing the terrorist. (If a wonder is destroyed, the war is declared on the country that the terrorist came from). If you house terrorists from a group that has been used and it's discovered that you house one of their training camps, then war may be declared on you as well.

I think this would be a neat way to add some extra style of fighting to the game, while at the same time having risks. Here's an example. Let's say your the Germans and you decide to research terrorism. You're successful in doing so and you switch to the terrorism civic along with your neighbors, the Zulus. The Zulus found terrorism before you did and have already generated a Terrorist Leader. They've made a few camps in their territory titled 'BigMac'. Each of the camps is filled with terrorist units, so their Terrorist Leader makes his way into your borders, because you've got the Terrorism civic going and you've allowed the Zulus to put training camps in your borders, and he plops down a camp in your territory. (You don't get control where they plop down, except it cannot be on a section of land being worked by a city). So the leader plops down a new 'BigMac' terrorist camp. This starts producing money for you and terrorists, and eventually one is made and sent to attack the French. One terrorist suceeds and destroys the barracks in a French City, and now the French know that it was from the 'BigMac' terror cell and are looking to wipe them out. They just don't know what country is housing the terrorist cell. The Zulus also send out another terrorist from the camp who tried to blow up the Pyramids in a French City, but they fail. Now the French know that the terrorist came from the 'BigMac' cell housed in your country! They immediately declare war on you, and your reputation drops in all countries which are allies with the French and/or don't use the 'Terrorism' civic.

This leaves you with a few options. You can now drop the 'Terrorism' civic and lose all the income it was generating from the terrorist camps and possibly anger your ally the Zulus (As the camp he put there will now simply dissapear as well as any terrorists he had in there, plus the fact that the 'BigMac' cell originated in Zululand will now be known to the French). Or you can keep the 'Terrorism' Civic and keep your terrorist ties but face attack by the French and his/her allies. That makes the choice on whether or not to use terrorism a REALLY difficult one. Sure it can give you a LOT of money and some millitary might, but you can risk putting yourself in a huge disadvantage if a war happens.

 

[Citidream]

3. Fascism and Nazism. Nazism allows the construction of the Führerbunker wonder which enables the builder to access the Holocaust civic. The Holocaust severs all ties with all current allies and in turn declares war on them. The Holocaust then increases military production at a rate of 2x the standard rate for all units. All captured cities are reduced to a population of 1.

I think you should reconsider adding anything with Holocaust or Nazi in it.

 

[Double Barrel]

Yeah, the Holocaust and Nazi references are a little too real for my tastes.

 

[VippiN]

Yeah, the Holocaust and Nazi references are a little too real for my tastes.

Note: "Real World"

 

[mash]

Yeah, the Holocaust and Nazi references are a little too real for my tastes.

No prob, you'll just have to wait for the Disney mod where tanks shoot strawberries... Also another thing, many Americans complain about the viciousness of the Nazis while forgeting that their own ancestors where responsible for ethnically cleansing American Indians by the millions after settling the new world. Every civilization on this planet has blood on its hands and a record of genocide. The Haulocaust is merely the latest episode.

 

[AsnoT]

Fascism and Nazism. Nazism allows the construction of the Führerbunker wonder which enables the builder to access the Holocaust civic. The Holocaust severs all ties with all current allies and in turn declares war on them. The Holocaust then increases military production at a rate of 2x the standard rate for all units. All captured cities are reduced to a population of 1.

this is historically inaccurate.

the word holocaust refers to the killing of ~6 millions jews, gays, gypsies, etc., not forced labour programs. labour in KZs was designed to kill, not produce goods. in the later years of the war, (mostly) eastern european forced labour was used, in weapons production among others - but those were NOT jewish.

the first part of the berlin bunker was built in 1936, but the Führer part of it only in 1943, hitler's rooms only being finished shortly before he moved into them in 1945, so another mis-nomer.

the nazis were NOT without allies, in fact the expansionist racism of the japanese made them a perfect partner for the reich. and in case anyone forgot, the italians were part of the axis, too, although they managed to end up as "winners".

if you're going to do a nazi mod, get your history right. what you propose here is a version that even the historically asinine hollywood would be ashamed of proposing.

 

[Juriel]

Hahah. Nothing about this is realistic...this is just some boy's 'new weapons/toys, now' moment. An actually realism-concerned thing would focus on a bit different things than 'make new unit'. But that would require scripting, so never mind THAT.

 

[Mercade]

Very interesting proposal. I am certainly looking forward to several elements of the proposed modifications and I hope that when using it, people can pick which elements they want to have.

Also, I believe this thread should be moved to the creation & customisation forum because (a) it belongs there and (b) it would improve the longevity of this thread that is not quite guaranteed in a spammy general thread.

 

[Sancus]

Um, "real development experience" doesn't make you one tiny bit more qualified than the next modder.

Especially if your "team" is going to need "volunteer Artists, Animators, Programmers and Sound Engineers." and doesn't have a single one of those areas covered. Just what good is your experience if it doesn't cover any of those areas?

 

[yendorII]

Fascism and Nazism. Nazism allows the construction of the Führerbunker wonder which enables the builder to access the Holocaust civic. The Holocaust severs all ties with all current allies and in turn declares war on them. The Holocaust then increases military production at a rate of 2x the standard rate for all units. All captured cities are reduced to a population of 1.


This will not work. In our politicaly correct world this would be front page news all across the country not a good idea.

Significant changes to oil resource

Epidemic / Plague events

Flamethrower unit

Major artillery changes

Unit damage from ship bombard

Special Ops units

V2 Rockets / Cruise Missiles

Bonuses for each religion type

Now these are some really great ideas. I would love to see these implemented


Junk Food "Religions" and "Missionaries

Not a fan of this, not for any real reason but I just dont really like it much.

 

[Ex-Cop]

Some really interesting idead. Dont like the junk food idea though. Just cant see the point.
Otherwise Im looking forrward to the rest. Especially the Spec ops, and the artillery changes.

 

[Civ4_RealWorld]

An addition to Civics or the Tech tree that you may want to consider:

Mega-Corporatism. Big bonus in gold production, and smaller increase in shield production ....

Definitely something we could look into. Sounds promising as a late game civic.

This doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Far far far to dangerous. How on earth would a group of suicide bombers destry a unit of tanks... or maines... or anything for that matter? This just doesn't make sence...

Turn on the news any day of the week. Most of our troop and vehicle deaths come from suicide bombers and IEDs not gunshots.

Eh? From reading that fancy intro I was under the impression that you had a team already there! So what is your "team" capable of doing? You seem to need everything.

I will go into detail on this further down. If you understand development at all, you'd understand that the key figures in the design and production of games and mods are the designers and the producers.

I think for the terrorist unit, the following things would be needed:..

I like the concept of the terror camps. We'll play around with that idea and see if it's plausable / possible if we go ahead with the development of this mod.

No prob, you'll just have to wait for the Disney mod where tanks shoot strawberries... Also another thing, many Americans complain about the viciousness of the Nazis while forgeting that their own ancestors where responsible for ethnically cleansing American Indians by the millions after settling the new world. Every civilization on this planet has blood on its hands and a record of genocide. The Haulocaust is merely the latest episode.

Agreed. I'm an American and I'm tired of the taboo and ignorance of the past monstrous acts of humanity. One could easily argue that the inclusion of Ghengis Khan, Napoleon and Caesar are just as taboo as including a Hitler leaderhead or some of the founding fathers on their crusades through the Americas. This mod is not to reflect history in the most accurate sense but it is meant to open up some of the real world dangers of a technological world. Obviously we haven't seen anyone use a suitcase bioweapon or Electron Bomb but we are stretching our imaginations to some of the very real possibilities as well.

this is historically inaccurate.

the word holocaust refers to the killing of ~6 millions jews...

So how would you better propose the inclusion of the nazi war machine without calling it the Holocaust and giving severe penalties for city capture (size reduction to 1 always due to imprisonment and extermination of populations)? I'm not trying to reflect history in the truest sense but instead I am trying to include the very real Fascism and Nazism government types. I'm really not looking for a debate of history as much as I am looking to make it into a gameplay element. So any suggestions on how you would approach bonuses / penalties which still reflecting on the power of the nazi movement would be appreciated.

Hahah. Nothing about this is realistic...this is just some boy's 'new weapons/toys, now' moment. An actually realism-concerned thing would focus on a bit different things than 'make new unit'. But that would require scripting, so never mind THAT.

As we gauge the customizability of the mod and feel out the skill level of our scripters, more features and concepts will be added to our list of things to do. This post is simply a list of some of the pre-concept doc concepts. You can view this more as our public proposal. Normally a game developer would toss the idea out to the publisher to see if they get a bite. This is not being developed by a game development studio however and because it is a non-profit project, we are looking to the public (you) to give a thumbs up or down.

Um, "real development experience" doesn't make you one tiny bit more qualified than the next modder.

Especially if your "team" is going to need "volunteer Artists, Animators, Programmers and Sound Engineers." and doesn't have a single one of those areas covered. Just what good is your experience if it doesn't cover any of those areas?

The experience of the contributers of this project lie in the Design and Production realm of game development.

Designers write the design documents and come up with virtually every concept that makes it in the game from start to finish. As they go along in the product cycle, they make recommendations on tweaks and changes to everything that the artists, animators, VFX, UI and sound teams put their hands on. Designers are truly the primary creative force in any game out there.

Producers are the planners and co-designers of sorts depending on the studio and interact directly with every contributor to a project. Producers also tend to interact with the Progamming / Dev teams more so than the designers. Producers maintain the task schedules for all members on the project, provide weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. builds to the publisher to reflect on development progress, research every possible facet of the games topics, provide feedback and final say calls on all concepts written by the designers, write up limitless management, planning and task documents, hold all team meetings, hire / terminate and work on the frontline by responding to interviews, interacting with the community and overall just building as much of a buzz as possible for their project.

If I had to tell you what a game would be like these days with out Designers and Producers, I'd have to sum it up as this. It'd be a game you wouldn't want to buy. The Artists, Animators, Programmers, VFX, UI, Sound and Test guys are there to do their specific job in game development. The Animators do not always understand the entire project as it is coming together. They may be focusing on the "BioBomb Activation" animation but have no clue what is going on with the Programmers that are working on the code for the Junk Food "religions". At the same time, neither person may realize that a whole new batch of concepts have been put together by the Designers until the Producers hold a team meeting and make everyone aware of the new concepts and the estimated timeline to get those concepts in the game if they are even possible.

I could go on for ages about game development but I'll cut this short. You seem to see things from a freelance mod perspective which is great for smaller mods that change one or two things. I am looking to put together a mod that will add so many different concepts that the gameplay will almost be as feature packed as a high quality retail expansion pack. If there is enough interest and the manpower is available to make this happen then we will push forward. If not, then maybe someone can use some of our concepts in mods of their own in the future.

Fascism and Nazism. This will not work. In our politicaly correct world this would be front page news all across the country not a good idea.

News coverage is not much of a concern here as we are not looking to profit off this project in any way or do anything in bad taste such as the JFK game where you actually shot JFK. This project is not endorsed directly by any publisher or development studio so the only potential for flak will lie on the mod itself. We are simply exercising our freedom to do the things that Firaxis could not due to PR concerns.

We are not looking to directly reflect the extermination of any race or religion in this mod. We are looking instead to reflect on the existence of Fascism, Nazism and the Nazi war machine and make it into a valuable game type. Hitler did not have to seek to exterminate anyone, he could have used his war machine purely for land invasions with the same goal in mind - to conquer the world.

Some really interesting idead. Dont like the junk food idea though. Just cant see the point.

The Junk Food idea is meant to act purely as a negative religion of sorts. It will spread the same way but the only side profitting off the spread of it is the founder of the junk food. Imagine wars starting because your junk food is spreading unhealthiness in other nations while you profit off of it. This is not to say that your cities do not suffer as well as they do. The difference is, you profit off of it. The idea could always be scratched anyhow as could any of the others. We still need to gauge how many people we can get on this project.

 

[Civ4_RealWorld]

I'd also like to say thank you for all of the feedback and critism good and bad. We can take the heat and we appreciate the compliments.