[MOD] The Authentic Colonization (TAC)

[mastrude]

Drakarska, you can't set up trading with the natives because they quickly run out of money. Maybe you could trade food; I don't know.
I think you must mean bribing them with presents. I can try doing more of that.

 

[Drakarska]

They don't need to have any money. If you look at their trade goods, you'll notice a cycle of when they get small amounts available for trade. Rotate your trade wagon among the various tribes within your vicinity, and alternate trading with them based on the time frame of when they get their small supply of goods.
Yes, gift them with shiny beads available from Europe, and this will help your diplo. Also, if you can trade with the same tribe, but with their farthest teepee, that will help you out as well.
Just out of curiosity, which nation are you playing as, and with what leader?

 

[mastrude]

Always de Champlaine. Better relations.

 

[morchuflex]

Hello everyone.

First thing first: I want to express the deepest thanks to anyone who contributed to this incredible mod. I have been playing TAC for years, and am still enjoying it tremendously. You guys transformed a botched game into a masterpiece.

Now, if anyone in-the-know is still lurking around, I have a few simple questions:

1. Is there a way to disable the irritating offer to declare war that pops up when you direct a unit to a tile occupied by a foreign unit? It's annoying, and doesn't even offer the possibility to answer "No, and don't ask again".
2. In Civ4, you could enter your capital city screen by hitting F10. In Civ4COL, it opens up the achievement screen (who ever looks this up?). I remapped the key in .xml, but it doesn't work. Any help?
3. The default map script (A new world) sucks. So, I use FaireWeather, which is much better, but still produces a lot of very unfriendly areas. Is there a better random map script available for TAC?
4. Lastly, but most importantly, is there a way to disable the reinforcements that spawn from thin air in native settlements when you declare war on them?

Thanks a lot to anyone who can help.

 

[raystuttgart]

@morchuflex:

TAC development has ended many years ago.
Nobody is going to implement changes to it - unless of course somebody creates a new modmod.

I will try to answer your questions briefly though.

1. No, not possible unless you start programming and changing DLL logic. (Basically creating your own modmod.)
2. No, not possible unless you start programming and changing DLL logic. (Basically creating your own modmod.)
3. No, there is no better map script available for TAC. (RaR and WTP have better ones but they are not compatible to TAC - somebody would need to backport them by programming.)
4. The "reinforcements" of Natives are not spawned out of nowhere. They just send their normal population out of their cities - which is basically also their main Combat Unit.

Summary:

TAC development has simply ended too long ago.
(It simply has no active team members anymore.)

To change these things, somebody needs to create a new modmod for TAC.
(Currently that is highly unlikely though unless you do it yourself.)

Sorry for the bad news.

 

[morchuflex]

Thanks a lot for the quick answers, even if the news is bad (I suspected so, after sifting through pretty much every xml file and finding nothing). Unfortunately, I'm not good enough to tamper with DLL files, so I'll have to live with these limitations.

Implicitly, you make it sound like I should switch to RaR or WtP... But when I tried RaR a couple years ago, I was a bit overwhelmed by the huge amount of new stuff. Don't get me wrong, I always wished there were some more resources in TAC (coffee comes to mind), but perhaps not a dozen more. In comparison, TAC feels smooth and easier to handle.

Thank you again, anyway: after so many years, it's really impressive to see guys like you still caring enough to come by and give answers.

 

[raystuttgart]

Implicitly, you make it sound like I should switch to RaR or WtP...
... I was a bit overwhelmed by the huge amount of new stuff.
... TAC feels smooth and easier to handle.

I was not trying to convince you to switch.

I was a TAC team member myself and coded several of its features, so it is good to hear that players still play it.
I also fully understand that some players prefer "smooth and easy" TAC over "huge and complex" RaR / WtP.

Choose and play whatever mod fits your personal taste.

Thank you again, anyway: after so many years, it's really impressive to see guys like you still caring enough to come by and give answers.

No problem.
I was simply around and accidently read your post.

 

[morchuflex]

Ray, if you're still around, I have a few more questions...
The answer is probably "no to all", but I'd be silly not to ask...

1. After you found a certain number of missions, your attempts at founding more missions start to fail at an increasing rate. Is there a way to change this in xml? I've found a line in R&R to set a minimum success rate, but just copying it into TAC's own GlobalDefines did nothing.

2. Trade with natives does contribute to your king raising taxes. Is there a way to correct it, so that the king only raises tax level depending on your European trade?

3. Sometimes, ships take a sub-optimal route when coming back from Europe, and show up on a tile that is not the closest to my colony. No matter what I do, once they've started, they keep using that bad route to the very end. Any fix?

4. Is there a way to show how natives REALLY feel towards you, including hidden variables?

5. This one and the following are just requests for information. If I found a mission, removing another European power's mission, does that reset the conversion rate for this village?

6. Similarly, does the time increase to train colonists ("Live among the natives") take into account "trainees" from other powers?

Thanks a lot to you, or anyone else, if you took the time to read this.

 

[raystuttgart]

Hi morchuflex,

Sorry again, I can only tell you the following:
TAC development has ended.

Balancing can be changed by XML but that is pretty much all you can do by XML only.
Feature behaviour changes usually need programming.

Most of the points you mentioned are fixed / corrected / improved in RaR / WTP.
And no, I am not trying to convince you to switch.

I just tell you where you could find code examples to backport them if you want to become a modder yourself.
Nobody is going to backport RaR / WTP improvements to TAC unless you start programming and backporting it by yourself.

1. Not possible to change without programming. Corrected in RaR / WTP. (Missioning Rebuild)
2. Not possible to change without programming. Corrected in RaR / WTP. (King Attitude and Tax System Rebuild)
3. Hm, should already work quite well in TAC. In RaR / WTP it usually works quite well.
4. Not possible to change without programming. Corrected in RaR / WTP. (Game Option Hidden Variables)
5. Yes, it should do so also in TAC. In RaR / WTP it definitely does.
6. In TAC it does. In RaR the feature works differently. (No Time Increase, Game Option "Only 1 Trainee at a time in a Native Village")

So again, you are asking about changes to an incredibly old mod.
Its development has simply ended many years ago.

Most of these improvements you could backport using existing code from RaR / WTP.
But it needs programming and most likely you need to do it yourself.

By the way:
I am willing to give short answers.
But I am not willing to do any modding for TAC anymore.

 

[morchuflex]

Thanks again for taking the time to answer me.
And don't worry, I'm fully aware that TAC's development has been discontinued for a long time, so I'm not asking you to modify it for my convenience.
Unfortunately, I'll have to live with the mod's limitations, because it's not like I could become a programmer myself. I'm not very computer-savvy and fiddling with xml is all I can do.
Still, TAC remains a great mod as it is!

Cheers!

 

[ExplorerJones]

Hello !
i also would like to thank the people who make these "somuchmorefunthanvinilla" Mods!! great job!

Have always played the classic colonization game for hours. and have looked forwared to the remake . but it was a bit dissapointing as the classic game was so much fun.
i did find the Mod "revolution and religion" some years ago and quiet loved it . Now i wanted to try the TAC mod. But i can't seem to get the game running. I did seem to get the R&R right some years ago.
I have the vinila game on steam 1.0.1 final release. and have downloaded the mod from this forum. Made it install in the sugested directory : C:user/documents/games/TAC......When clicking the desktop picture it doesn't find the needed files. and in start menu it redirects me to windows explorer , and then i can't seem to find a working game file???
Running the game in steam doesn't show any "mods" in "advanced" options.
tried to install the TAC files in the mod file of colonization but it is not possible.

i am probably doing something wrong

Tschüss

 

[raystuttgart]

@ExplorerJones
Please post the complete path to the "/Assets" folder within the mod.
Sometimes people accidently mess up the installation folder.

Edit:
I already read it.
You need to unpack the mod to the "/mods" folder of Civ4Col (the base game).

This will NOT work!
C:user/documents/games/TAC
(TAC is not a game by itself. It is a mod of Civ4Col.)

tried to install the TAC files in the mod file of colonization but it is not possible.

Try to create a folder "/mods" in the installation directory of Civ4Col and unpack the mod there.

 

[raystuttgart]

@ExplorerJones
If you still have problems installing the mod simply read this post:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-install-we-the-people.657833/

It explains installation of WTP but TAC should work the same.

 

[ExplorerJones]

i have it up and running now.
i had created a new folder "mods" next to the "civ IV colonization game" folder
thanks for the swift intervention!

very curious how the game will be!

Thanks!!

 

[Brigstockboy]

Is TAC still available for download?

 

[Nightinggale]

The link in the first post still works, so yeah. Copy for lazy people.

Just for the record, Religion and Revolution broke out of TAC and added more features to the game. When RaR ended, We The People started with RaR as a starting point. This means the development for TAC today is in We The People. It has so many new features that it is a new mod though and it's perfectly valid to seek out TAC for a more simple gameplay.

 

[Brigstockboy]

Thank you! I'm actually in a hospital bed and using my phone so I couldn't get the link working. After copying and pasting the link address in my browser, I was able to obtain a copy. I'll look at downloading We the People too but fear my small mind might be overwhelmed so wanted to start with TAC.

 

[Drachter]

Hey! I just wanted to post a thank you to all those who created TAC and subsequent mods

I tried rotating the flagdecal assets for the Dutch since I can only see it as the French tricolor flag and failed. Somehow now all the flags are white even though I only edited 2 files and kept copies of the originals. I can probably easily fix it by reinstalling the original teamcolor folder but....

Question: Does anybody have a program they suggest to edit the .dds files so I can have rotated Dutch flag or possibly different flag images like the Frisian flag for example?

 

[Drakarska]

Maybe in the Tools forums. Or you can msg the We the People team, they probably have all sorts of toys

 

[raystuttgart]

Question: Does anybody have a program they suggest to edit the .dds files so I can have rotated Dutch flag or possibly different flag images like the Frisian flag for example?

For DDS I normally use GIMP and DXTBmp.
(Both of them are free.)

Both would easily allow you to rotate or mirror the image.
Same for exchanging the image by another image from e.g. a JPEG.

GIMP because it has all the nice effects and convenience stuff once you know how to use it. ---> Main Working Tool
DXTBmp because it has some good functionalities to nicely edit alpha channel (fine tuning). --> Fine Tuning Tool

However:
Both tools have their learning curve. Do not expect to understand everything after a few minutes.
It took me personally quite some time to really understand how to do all the stuff I needed / wanted for Civ4Col modding.