[MOD] Origins - Colonization 1 for Colonization 2

Reveilled

Warlord
Joined
Nov 6, 2005
Messages
283
Origins

Version 0.9

So What is it?

It's a mod that makes Colonization 2 feel a bit more like Colonization 1. All the old terrains and resources make their return, movement speeds are adjusted, and the game moves at a much slower pace.

What does that mean, exactly?

If you never played Colonization 1, there were some quite significant differences in the terrain and pacing. Plains terrain produced mostly food, while Prairie produced cotton, Marshes and Swamps were better for providing ore to your colony than sugar, and Sugar was produced on food-rich savannahs. In addition, yields were generally higher, and some extra resources existed, chief among them in importance being Prime Timber, which provided huge amounts of lumber to a colony.

The game was paced in a much more relaxed fashion, as production costs were about the same as Colonization 2, but in a 608 turn game. In Colonization 1 you almost always finished the game with plenty of time to spare, something many people have not found with the new game.

Ships and Scouts also moved quite a bit faster, with scouts (and dragoons) capable of moving 4 squares a turn.

I have done my best to replicate all of these aspects of the old game in this mod.

Why is it version 0.9? Is it playable?
There are two minor bugs which I want to fix before releasing Version 1.0, but neither make the game unplayable.
The first is that the Prime Timber resource does not clear the forest around where it is placed, so it may take a keen eye to spot, especially in Conifer forests.
The second is that changes in the XML that controls the cost of building buildings appear to have no effect on in game costs. Once this is fixed, the building costs in the mod will be the same as those of the Original Colonization.

Anything Else?

This is primarily a terrain mod, and it is built upon the amazing work done by Cold Fever in his Blue Marble mod. As such, it is made with Blue Marble users in mind, so I strongly recommend you install Blue Marble to enjoy this mod fully.
Download Here

The Prime Timber resource model is the work of Rockinrodger, who originally designed it for World of Civilization and was gracious enough to allow me to use it here. Please visit the WoC team's site and have a look at their marvelous work:
http://woc.dreamhosters.com/

The mod is fully compatible with the unofficial patch put out by Dale and Snoopy as of version 1.03, and you can use the two together by copying the contents of their patch into the Origins mod folder.

There are two folders in the download, one which includes the speed changes, and which will include the building changes when they are complete. The terrain only folder contains only the game length changes and the changes to terrain. You can keep both in your mods folder, or use only one, as you prefer.

Regarding gamespeed, the Marathon version is 3 times the length of the original colonization, and so double the length of a standard Marathon game. I'd recommend you start at the Classic gamespeed, but if you really want to play for over 1800 turns, knock yourself out.

I hope you enjoy the mod. :)

Download Here
 

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Really wonderful!
I'm really excited to test your mod.

Thank you very much for this! You are the ones with Dale and Snoopy who will make me play Col2 again :D
 
Hopefully, but I don't consider that a priority, given that a custom hous mod already exists.

I want to make sure what I've got is bugfixed before I add new features. :)
 
Hopefully, but I don't consider that a priority, given that a custom hous mod already exists.

I want to make sure what I've got is bugfixed before I add new features. :)

yeah i tried adding it today but theres a lot of files that need merging :)
 
Two things:

1)Is it not possible to play a regular custom game with a mod installed? After loading this mod the "Play now" and "custom game" buttons are both greyed out. Basically can only play the Origins' Americans scenarios. I assume this is because it is not possible to make the game use your new terrains/ressources when scripting a new random map?

Any plan to release more maps, if that is the case?

2)Getting the following error when loading the mod (it restarts Colonization and goes through shows the error in the middle of the file check)

XML Error

Tag: GAMESPEED_NORMAL in Info class was incorrect
Current XML file is :xml\Gameinfo/CIV4ForceControlInfos.xml

It seems to load the mod fine anyway, but I thought I would let you know.
 
Ah, it looks like I forgot to include the file which controls which gamespeed is selected by default when you start a map. It shouldn't have any effect on the game, but if it stops the whole forcecontrolinfos xml file from loading, I don't know for certain.

I'll get a fix up with that file included later tonight, and I hope that will resolve your issue.
 
It seems I edited my post as you posted yours.

You're right it all works fine (and the marathon speed is selected by default, and I guess you wanted classic instead).

I'd still really like to know if the one scenario is the only one playable with your mod at this time or if there is a way to get a random map with different settings (such as Huge instead of Large etc...).

Thanks!
 
It seems I edited my post as you posted yours.

You're right it all works fine (and the marathon speed is selected by default, and I guess you wanted classic instead).

I'd still really like to know if the one scenario is the only one playable with your mod at this time or if there is a way to get a random map with different settings (such as Huge instead of Large etc...).

Thanks!

At the moment only the classic map is available. I'd like to make Custom Games possible, but before I can do that I need to get a mapscript that will generate the new terrains, and before I can do that I need to learn Python.

After bugfixing, this is probably my highest priority. I want to play on random maps as much everyone else, but I reckon it'll probably take me longer to do than it did to make the rest of the mod.
 
Thanks for the clarification. It is a great mod as is already so thanks for that too :)

It might make sense to add a note about this in the readme or the download description on this site - I reckon this question will come up more often than anything else.

Also - there are a few map scripts sprouting up already, if you were willing to partner up with one of those guys.
 
Sorry for spamming your thread, but I just noticed another bug. When starting the game via "custom scenario" the game will crash if you select "Marathon". It works fine on the "classic" setting.

This is with the full mod (not the terrain only) loaded. Marathon games seem to start fine if I do this via the "Play scenario" route.

I guess this might be related to the missing file you mentioned above.
 
This isn't really related to your mod (which I haven't tried out yet), but I did notice something in your screenshot: your HUD background is semi-transparent.. How did you do that?
 
This isn't really related to your mod (which I haven't tried out yet), but I did notice something in your screenshot: your HUD background is semi-transparent.. How did you do that?

Blue Marble. If you do try out the mod, make sure you get it.

Hell, get it anyway, it's awesome.;)
 
Actually, I am using Blue Marble, but I didn't decide to install the menu changes; just the terrain and the leaderheads..

I'll see if I can install the menu graphics then! :D Thanks for the help!
 
Version 0.9.1
- Added GlobalDefines.xml to the mod, to fix an XML load error.

That should fix the bug you found brisos. If it doesn't, let me know ASAP and I'll do the other fix I was going to try.
 
Hey!

I am trying to create a map with your resources without actually using the built-in world builder. I am doing this so I can play on a map I do not know the shape of. Python scripting is a bit too much of a headache for me so I am going for an excel script that modifies existing WBsave files. I hope you are ok with me using your mod for this since it is for personal use only.

I ran into some design issues. I want my map to be as close to Col1 maps as possible and I was hoping your memory of the game was fresher than mine:

1)Do you have a clear idea of what bonuses (tobacco, cotton etc...) should be available to what terrain? For example I believe cotton bonuses should not be available on anything but plains, right? I do not remember how Col1 did it exactly. I am not sure about tobacco, bananas, minerals etc...

2)Should resources such as tobacco be available on a grassland that already has a forest feature? I seem to remember you could, in Col1, clear a forest and reveal and underlying bonus resource, but I could be wrong.

3)When you made your map(s) did you have a clear idea of the balance between all the terrains/features/bonuses? Should plains/grass/savannah/prairie be appearing in the same amount? Or are Savannah and Prairie supposed to be more rare?

4)I believe there were some rules about how all the 4 terrains were spread. The Savannahs and Grasslands were together whereas PRairies and Plains were in their own area. Prairies and Plains were also close to deserts. In other words you never found plains in the middle of a bunch of Savannahs - is that correct?
 
I played my first complete game of Col2 (french, Explorer level) with your mod on your origins map and it was just great fun :)
The only problems were a crash (i found that it comes from the Snoopy/Dale mod 1.04, i rolled back on 1.03 and it worked fine), the bad behaviour of AI opponents, a common problem in vanilla Col2, and all the remaining missing point from Col1.
But the great graphics and animation, the much more interesting combat system makes the overall interest nearly equal to Col1, thanks to your additional mod and bug fixes from Snoopy/Dale of course.

AI opponents are too weaks, and they create too much congress bell. So I was forced to go revolution early in 1660s because the english colony was already at 80% of revolutionary feeling. I finally won the game, even if the King's REF outnumbered my army by 1:4. English went revolutionnary also but were completely crushed by their King.

I love most of the Col1 aspects you bring back in Col2. The different terrain types, the building cost and naval unit moves. However, Col2 bring so much new changes and remove interesting parts of the original game.
The ones i noticed:

Indians relation is less interesting then in Col1 I think. They were often asking you for something. THe missionary system had more effects than just bringing a new source of population.

The help of an enemy King during Revolution was really a great dramatic moment in Col1, too bad they removed it.

The horse production is useless in Col2. Horses are very cheap in Europe, and price never increase. Whereas it is much more complex to get horses in America than in Col1. You have to build 2 buildings (stable than ranch), and put specialists in it to produce a correct amount of horses, while you had only one building without worker need in Col1.

The fact you can't remove a colony.

Col1 aspect should come back with changes:
Fountain of Youth was very fun (especially for the music), but too unbalanced. Maybe a much reduced one with only one to three various people coming from Europe.

Col1 aspect I don't miss:
The custom house was too much unbalanced, i would like however that the current storage extension could sell even the boycotted products. It should simulate in some way that we can sell any goods in a "black market" at 50% of europe price without tax, to any Europe countries, not only our King's empire.
The combat system was horrible, and forced to use the outlaw "reload and play" method.
The market prices in Europe were lowering too fast, and too low.

I Hope I will have some times to help you and other modders bring back the other lost aspects of Col1.
Anyway, Col2 has already become really fun, many thanks!
 
There is a custom house mod coming along. You can find a thread for it in the mods sections.

For the horse production thing I think the main drag is the use of food. It takes a huge amount and a few dozen horses is just not worth losing an extra colon.

The AI is absolutely ridiculous. In my first game by 1690 one of the indian tribes attacked the english. They had had no war before and got decimated..

For a lot of the problems you list (with which I agree), there are mods out there balancing it. There is an REF mod that reduces the increase of the king's fleet. It makes producing bells less of a disadvantage. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=292708&page=2 - But I don't know if it is compatible with Reveilled's mod.
 
Well I finally managed to get a working script in Excel's VBA. I still can't figure out the answers to my questions above, so I am not sure the terrains are being placed as they should. But aside from %age of appearance, I think the script is sound.

If you are ever interested I would love having someone else's opinion on the modified maps. I have a couple so far and cannot tell if they are any good.
 
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