Mod X - creation and discussion thread

[Gojira54]

What about silk and spice caravans?

Yep, both will have improvements as well as early monopolies (Silk and Spice Roads) available to them - structured as already described.

Ranching? Farming?

Posts #1 and #20 gives some details on this, but I'll flesh it out a bit more for you. Most agricultural plant or animal resources will allow you to build an agricultural improvement if they fall within your cities radius. Some of these may be specific to a particular trait or culture - especially the agricultural trait. There will be tiers of agricultural improvements as the tech tree progresses - each requiring the previous to already be built. Farms, Plantations, Stables, Ranches, Fermentation improvements, and more will be included. Many new techs in this area will be included as well.

How in depth do you plan to go with the trade world?

You'll see more in this area than ever before. The introduction of monopolies alone adds a whole new element to the game. There will be trade-based units that will be generated by various improvements. These units serve no purpose other than to add gold, shields, culture, population or even science to the city of your choice. They have no defence or attack, and can be captured by enemies. This makes Piracy a much more important tactic, since at least half of these units will be aquatic. It also makes harbors and airports that much more important. I am redoing all of the diplomacy as well.

 

[StJimmy]

sounds like fun. and now im gonna be drooling for a year until it comes out...

(drools excesively)

 

[Gojira54]

LOL.

Well keep checking in. If you have a suggestion, throw it out. I do have much of this planned out, but not all of it, and I am always open to suggestions. At some point I will need playtesters as well. Anyone who gives me a suggestion I use will get credit as Assistant Designer, and even if I don't use it they will get Design Consultant.

 

[StJimmy]

anything i can do to help that requires almost no skills in anything? I could, write pedia entries, but probably not put them in, i could cut ''n' paste, if somebody told me how, i could arange the tech tree, but not put in the background or coordinates...

i feel useless. well, on the bright side, ill never be used as a tool...

playtest i can do.

 

[StJimmy]

definately. Even if I have to stop sleeping just to make time, I will playtest...

 

[StJimmy]

I must say that this will probably be what ive been trying to make since the first time i beat a civ random map. I even looked into tech tree mechanics like an upgrade tree, which is basicaly

Axemen training+Bronze Working=bronze axemen tech&unit(3/1/1). requires bronze
Axemen training+Iron Working=iron axemen t&u(4/1/1). requires iron. upgrades to ironmail axemen.
Copper Axemen+Mail=coppermail axemen(2/2/1) requires copper. upgrades to bronzemail axemen
Origanal stats of Bone Axemen are 2/1/1

It goes futher in depth with the addition of grooved axes, plat armor, and elite training... And takes up lots of room, but each box isnt all that big. Maybe each civ could have a dominant unit that they upgrade in each era. There would be a whole flavor tree, and it could help show how that culture acts, e.g. a trading culture might build those faster trade unit, give them defense, or even stealth(although this doesnt seem practical, maybe all terrain as roads)

 

[Gojira54]

I already planned on having an Iron alternate early unit tree based on Copper (-1 to attack or defense), but I haven't fleshed that out too much yet. I love the idea of modular unit upgrades ala SMAC. There may be some wood-based alternates as well (wooden shields and weapons). I think Militaristic civs should have more options here. I want to bulk that up as much as possible, but as you said the issue becomes space as well as overwhelming the player. Perhaps in the Medieval Era, some units can have the option of PlateMail (+1 defense or HP), or ChainMail (+1 movement or attack). If these options were available to military civs only that might be their bonus for that era. Making both units available with the same tech gives us that flavor without cluttering the tech tree. Hopefully this approach at least gets close to what you arel ooking for, without forcing me to remove other techs for space.

The tech trees will not be fully flavored, but their will be a flavored branch or 2 in each era. Basically I'll just put each of the flavored techs in the same spots on the tree, overlaying each other, each only visible to the civs starting with the proper prereq tech.

While I plan on greatly increasing the techs, I don't want to hit the tech overload that came with RAR. I also want playing each civ to be a unique experience without being a completely new game. Arranging the unique trees as I described should allow for even more techs than RAR, without that overload since many of these techs will not be researchable by the playing Civ.

 

[StJimmy]

Good good good...

P.S. The Atlanta-Houston game is in the 18th inning...

 

[StJimmy]

Also, do you plan on giving ranged units (archers, riflemen, ect) bombard?

 

[Gojira54]

Bombard will be expanded beyond its current capabilities to include some ranged units. The lesser units will still not be able to bombard surrounding squares, but tanks, catapults, rocket launchers and more will. Fire will cause collateral damage and sometimes clear forest, and explosives and large objects (such as those launched by a catapult) will leave craters. Archers and riflemen will still only have defensive bombard, since each terrain tile is supposed to represent a significant amount of distance.

To go back to your modular upgrade idea - Radar will allow many existing units to be retrofitted with radar capabilities....

 

[StJimmy]

Interesting... You certainly have expanded this mod to more than anything expected from this game...

I just had an idea about what to name this mod, but it is your mod, so you should make the name.

Yet another idea, do you plan on making chariots, and a few other "vehicles" have the transport abillity? Another thing i'd like to know is, well, actually, if you could elaborate on these trade units you plan on making. Or, if you feel you want somethings to be a surprise...

oh, well maybe an upgrade on the archers (longbows, notched arrows, bamboo shaft) could have an efect on range, giving the capability to cover the vast distance. (or not)

 

[StJimmy]

Do you have the culture, religion, government, style of play, and civ traits figured out for all civs?

If not, i would be happy to help you with the making (not the graphics, just the concept) of buildings, units, small wonders, techs, etc.

Note: i did make an acient era tech tree, but its not worth using, the structure is all wrong.

IDEA ALERT!!! Back to modular upgrading, what about Each trait also alowing for some upgrade to their unit of that era. E.G.:

industrious civs build units faster, commercial have less upkeep, rather than the subtle changes the designers made.

Perhaps there are four of these type upgrades per trait, one of each type in each era. militaristic civs could get the elite training, which adds one hp to each unit, in the middle ages. Or, if you felt you could really pull this off, in the last era, militaristic/scientific (thats they have both traits, build a mech or nuke or something factory, which produces the unit last era that gets upgraded, every 10-20 turns.

Expansionist agricultural civs could upgrade settlers in the middle ages, and upgrade workers in the industrial ages.

Keep thinking along this sort of path (combat settlers, workers that cost only 1 population...)

 

[Gojira54]

X-Panded, X-Tra, X-Hilarating?
I hadn't thought too much on expanding the carrier ability outside of ships and choppers, but it is worth exploring. The unit would have to have the capabilities for carrying multiple people. Perhaps a War Elephant? I'll have to ponder this one....

As far as archer upgrades go, they already need Birds to upgrade to LongBowman, Tar to upgrade to Fire Archers, not to mention a plethora of flavor units. I will probably include a Sniper unit that will have Bombard capabilities with a high attack. I will do some research to see if anything like you suggest has ever existed, and if so will work it in.

The trade units I am still designing, but essentially it will work like this: Stone Quarries require a local Block Stone resource. They will produce a Stone Supply every n turns. These should travel to the city of choice (or stay in the one they are in) and be disbanded for shields. Food will be similar, but can join a city, increasing its pop by 1. Culture will be done via units flagged with sacrifice, science via units flagged with Science Age. I have not fully tested these yet, and that is why they were unannounced. Still playing with the mechanics.

 

[Gojira54]

Do you have the culture, religion, government, style of play, and civ traits figured out for all civs? If not, i would be happy to help you with the making (not the graphics, just the concept) of buildings, units, small wonders, techs, etc.

For the most part I do, but there are several grey areas that I have ideas not fully fleshed out.

Religion is one of them. I posted earlier in this thread the religions I am considering, but that list needs to be cleaned up a bit I think. I want specific religions to be spawned from generic techs like Polytheism, Philosophy, Monotheism, etc. Agnostic/atheist might be a choice here, I haven't decided yet. Most religions should be researchable only to specific cultures, but tradable so others can learn them. Each should allow a unique fanatic unit, improvement, SW, and GW. The SW should require 5 improvements to be built, the GW requires the SW. Religious Civs should get their biggest bonus in this area as well- haven't figured out how that will work yet.

I will add a few governments- pretty much the standards you have seen elsewhere. Democracy will be split into Representative Democracy, True Democracy and Socialist Democracy. New Govs will be Libertarianism, Constitional Monarchy, Theocracy, and Fundamentalism.

For now that is all I got, but trust me I will have more....

 

[StJimmy]

The name i thought of was, with civ IV coming out and all,

THE LAST GREAT MOD, or, THE FINAL MOD, or, to be really creative, MOD-X.

seriously...

 

[Virote_Considon]

Hmm... How about Religious civs start out with a tech that lets them build lots of no-maintanence Religious Improvements, and a few more Religious SW's than other civs?

 

[StJimmy]

an interesting idea, i think, would be only let Greece research Democracy (or maybe they start with democracy?), nobody else, and have the greek have to trade...
perhaps this could be implemented the same way with cultures? if there is a general area where a government started...

 

[Virote_Considon]

an interesting idea, i think, would be only let Greece research Democracy (or maybe they start with democracy?), nobody else, and have the greek have to trade...
perhaps this could be implemented the same way with cultures? if there is a general area where a government started...

Maybe instead of having the tech to trade their favoured government type, how about they start with a tech that is un-tradeable, and allows them to
change their government to something such as "City States".

 

[Takhisis]

About buildings: you could perhaps have two dummy granaries, one allowing you to build the other, and then a third one allowing your population to grow. All three granaries have the same pedia definition: "A city with three or more granaries may grow above the size of 6"
Nice, ain´t it?

 

[Gojira54]

@St Jimmy - While I am flattered, I wouldn't assume my mod to be the last or even great - just different, and what I have worked hard on developing for 3 years now. To take your governmental predisposition idea and tweak it a bit, I do like the idea of some governments showing up on the flavor tech trees for particular traits or cultures. They wouldn't be available from the start, but lets say with Philosophy and Mediterranean Culture a civ can research Democracy. The only potential flaw here is I am not sure that the tech will be tradable to other cultures are not mediterranean. I have not tested what would happen if a tradable tech has a non-tradable prerequisite. My guess is that it would not be tradable either. If this is indeed the case, than I cannot do it, but if it is not the case than I will. I might still make Fascism available only to militaristic civs, however.

@Virote_Considon - I think I will do something similar to your suggestion about religious buildings. I think some religions will allow special improvements, others units, others unique resources, and others may allow add-on improvements to the SWs that all civs can build. I am considering that certain traits will start off with unique variations of despotism. Each will be a poor government with a slight change from basic Despotism to reflect the trait. Since all civs start with 2 traits, that would give you 2 choices of starting governments. You will still want to upgrade ASAP. I don't think this will work as well if it were based on culture group.

@Takhisis - Interesting idea. I do like it, but I think each 'granary' improvement should be slightly different, with different and small bonuses. The third can be what allows expansion. Not saying I'll do it for sure, but I will experiment with it. I do think that aqueducts or sewers would be better suited for allowing the expansion than a granary, but maybe the granary can be a prereq for it?

@Everyone - it is getting down to the wire for my pending betrothement. As such my time will be dwindling down to null through next Tuesday. At that point I will be in Hawaii for a week, and I am not bringing my laptop. Keep the discussion going, build some ideas off of each other. I will pop in here and there the next few days to throw in my two bits, and promise to address every idea given when I get back.