Modders Guide to Beyond the Sword

[jtxhorns]

i was wondering if anyone knew a way to change the amount of years per turn. i am playing on a mod which i love very much but i just wish i could find a way to change the years per turn for each new sequence. such as making it 10 ypt starting out, then maybe going to 5 ypt at about 1000 BC or something, and so on. any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

i was wondering if anyone knew a way to change the amount of years per turn.

This is defined in CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml.

 

[PsiCorps]

I've got all the info on Modding for BTS from the start of this thread but what i can't find is how to Mod a Mod, i'm particularly interested in modding Final Frontier. Can anyone help me please?

 

[jtxhorns]

well nevermind, i figured out how to do it the same day that i posted that. i am learning how to work with the xml and have modified some things myself.

 

[Supr49er]

well nevermind, i figured out how to do it the same day that i posted that. i am learning how to work with the xml and have modified some things myself.

Reminds me of my old tech support job. While I was researching the problem, the user would call back to tell me nevermind, they had figured it out.

 

[Dabur]

WoW

thanks a lot this really help

have a nice xml day

 

[Fierabras]

I'm amazed that this joke is still in the guide:

MAX_NATIONAL_WONDERS_PER_CITY_FOR_OCC- Controls how much clothing the leaders have, don’t look at Pacal naked!

 

[Tenophis Raelis]

Hi everyone, hi Kael!
I´m playing Ffh since "light"-phase and only touched normal Civ 4 again at the release of bts, - just to comeback to Ffh after a short while...

From time to time i´d like to play good'll Civ if there wearent a few things:

What really stresses me in the original game is, that in the very moment you discovered a tech and finished building one or two state-of-the-art units there have almost become obsolet. I konw that there is the "Marathon"-option but that would not be what i wanted! I would like two have the option to set unit production and stuff to "Quick"-gamemode, and research rate to "Marathon"...

A nother wish i bare since civ III is a huge map, that, if you enable the "natural"-tarrain mode (or whatever it is called when peaks only appear in the direct vicinity of 1-4 hill tiles (depending on the mapsize) an other more realistic landscape were created) creates mountain ranges so big that they real funktin as natural barriers. It would be great to build a fort at exately that point in the peaks where the only hill tile remains! In the original Game you just build a city in a strategic place...

I´m not firm in programming or the like (as a desinger i just use my Photoshop and play games but i hardly could work with DOS) though i tried to mod old Civ III in that way. The results were horrible! Not because the map was so frick´n huge -that was great- but the fact the my old PC has to calculate around ten minutes to mange all the other 28 Ai-civ in the game, of wich i barely had met the half and who would have had 8-14 city too at that poit of the game...

Anyway i have a new PC now and tried to alter the mapsizes in Civ 4 but couldent find out where to do that. i fear it is Python or otherr creepy stuff i dont undertsand
Please could someone help me with a little hint?

i´m sry if my writing sux english is not my first laguage

 

[Kael]

I'm amazed that this joke is still in the guide:

Im amazed people are reading through it closely enough to notice it.

Hi everyone, hi Kael!
I´m playing Ffh since "light"-phase and only touched normal Civ 4 again at the release of bts, - just to comeback to Ffh after a short while...

From time to time i´d like to play good'll Civ if there wearent a few things:

What really stresses me in the original game is, that in the very moment you discovered a tech and finished building one or two state-of-the-art units there have almost become obsolet. I konw that there is the "Marathon"-option but that would not be what i wanted! I would like two have the option to set unit production and stuff to "Quick"-gamemode, and research rate to "Marathon"...

A nother wish i bare since civ III is a huge map, that, if you enable the "natural"-tarrain mode (or whatever it is called when peaks only appear in the direct vicinity of 1-4 hill tiles (depending on the mapsize) an other more realistic landscape were created) creates mountain ranges so big that they real funktin as natural barriers. It would be great to build a fort at exately that point in the peaks where the only hill tile remains! In the original Game you just build a city in a strategic place...

I´m not firm in programming or the like (as a desinger i just use my Photoshop and play games but i hardly could work with DOS) though i tried to mod old Civ III in that way. The results were horrible! Not because the map was so frick´n huge -that was great- but the fact the my old PC has to calculate around ten minutes to mange all the other 28 Ai-civ in the game, of wich i barely had met the half and who would have had 8-14 city too at that poit of the game...

Anyway i have a new PC now and tried to alter the mapsizes in Civ 4 but couldent find out where to do that. i fear it is Python or otherr creepy stuff i dont undertsand
Please could someone help me with a little hint?

i´m sry if my writing sux english is not my first laguage

I would bet that you find a lot of people would agree with you on that. You actually dont need to mod anything except to change some values in the CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml file. Thats the file that controls game speeds and you can edit it with notepad to change the attribute information around.

You probably want to increase the iResearchPercent (its 300 on Marathon, meaning techs take 300% more beakers to research) on the Quick speed setting (where it defaults to 67).

 

[Tenophis Raelis]

Hi Kael!
I just repeat some other guys when i say that you have my admiration & respect for being always helpfull, all the time, in avery concerning forum. But i want to say it for/by my self
Havent had the time to try it out yet, but thx for the reply, any help concerning the Mapsizes though?

Btw, since when the Inflation rate were implemented, and how can i tweak/disable it? I have to fix the Problem that occours when i play a huge map with a "******ed" research rate: Expansion is nearly impossible till you have "Festivals"&Co researched... or at lest how can i alter the "Distance from Cap."-maintenance?

 

[Kael]

Hi Kael!
I just repeat some other guys when i say that you have my admiration & respect for being always helpfull, all the time, in avery concerning forum. But i want to say it for/by my self
Havent had the time to try it out yet, but thx for the reply, any help concerning the Mapsizes though?

Btw, since when the Inflation rate were implemented, and how can i tweak/disable it? I have to fix the Problem that occours when i play a huge map with a "******ed" research rate: Expansion is nearly impossible till you have "Festivals"&Co researched... or at lest how can i alter the "Distance from Cap."-maintenance?

A mapscript will take some python coding. But I think you will find what you are loking for with the BtSCreation mapscript: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=271324

 

[Parasky]

Wow, this is an incredible piece of work you have made here. I am very impressed.

Yet, I have found myself in a conundrum. Everywhere, have I looked, for a mod that would allow me to customize an AI in the same way I can customize my civilization (you know, name, short name, adjective). If you haven't guessed already, there is none (that can be found anyways) so I just came here to learn how to do it myself. If that doesn't work, maybe I'll do it the hard (and more rewarding) way and just make my own custom civilization. Any tips on how to do both?

Please and thank you!

 

[jeyanand]

many mods for civ 4 warlords and bts not working, the game loads the mod but erroe message to shut down prograam pops up any help

 

[richo]

Hi,

I have been looking around this site for some time trying to solve some issues that I have with my version of BTS.

It appears that my version of BTS that I installed does not have any supporting text files for any of the BTS expansion, hence, I continually get TXT_STATEMENT kind of displays for any BTS related gameplay issues. For instance, I get TXT display for all new BTS civilisations, including the country name, leader name, specific buildings for those new BTS civilisations. I also get TXT display for corporation concepts, executive names as well as all spy related missions, costs, success rates, spy screen, etc. I have the same problem for UN related voting and the space race viewing screen (it doesn't display chance of success, turns left to victory after launch, etc). In addition, ALL of the "Event" concepts also suffer the same fate as well as the "hints" from number 45 at the start up. Also, the city names for all of the new BTS civilisations are missing the support text XML file so they also all display as TXT_CITYNAME etc.

I followed some examples on modding from this site and manually added some city names and important relevant text files in the original Civ4 text objects file so I was able to play the game. However, it is difficult and annoying trying to decipher the relevant foreign trade screens and spy screens when it is all garbled and also not able to determine what each spy mission does and what the costs is, etc.

After fiddling around with some text object files and getting some basic understanding of this I came to the conclusion that I must simply be missing whole text XML files from my installation as there is so much data missing. For example, I know that the latest HINTS for BTS are not able to be found in any of the text XML files anyway in my Civ 4 directory and subdirectory, and this is also the same for EVENTS and the other occurences of having the TXT_STATEMENT being displaed.

I looked all through the directories and sub directories and am assuming that I am simply missing all of the relevant BTS expansion text XML files. I note that there is no directory for text files under the assets file in the BTS sub directory of the Civ 4 directory that has been installed. I noticed that all of the other mods and expansions (such as warlords) all seem to have their own seperate "text" subdirectory containing relevant XML files, but my installation does not have this for BTS.

Of course, I have reinstalled a number of times and there never seems to be supporting text XML files for BTS so it could be a problem with my original disk or installation problem.

My question that I need help with is:

Is there any way to get copies of the ORIGINAL BTS text XML support files so that I can copy them into my civ 4 or BTS directory. That is, I want to get hold of the BTS XML text files and all of the relevant text files to solve these problems.

Does anyone know how I could get hold of these? Are they posted somewhere or can someone provide them?

PS- I have also tried to download patch 3.17 but have not been able to successfully install it and tried many different methods, so I gave up on that!

Regards.




Richo

 

[·Imhotep·]

Is there a PDF or Word version of this guide ?

 

[zulu9812]

7.0 Promotions can change the look of models

I am going to apologize beforehand for the lack of detail in this section. I’m not a graphics guy and I haven’t used this feature myself. But I have toyed with some of the units that use it. Basically it is possible to have a model changed based on the promotions it has.

For example, you could make a bomber model that, if it has the correct promotion, shows a bomb strapped to its bottom. Then if the promotion is removed, say by a bombing action, the model would be changed so the bomb is no longer visible. The same could be done in showing swords and axes in units hands, armor they are wearing, units surrounded in clouds of putrid gas, radiation, etc.

I will stress that this isn’t as simple as making a promotion, pointing it to model art and having everything work. The model has to be made with the “attachment” built into it. By default it isn’t displayed, but with the promotion it shows up. So it will be significant modeling work to use this function, but I have no doubt the amazing artists here at CivFanatcis will have a lot of fun with this feature.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever done further research on this?

 

[CivRulez07]

i love this! it looks like it's definitely in-depth! by any chance could this be compiled into a PDF? i'd do it myself, but i already put together 2 PDF's of other people's modding guides - this one is definitely the longest and most in-depth, for sure!

 

[Opera]

What does CommerceChangeDoubleTimes actually do?

 

[AncientSion]

What would be the best xml editor to use that doesnt break the files ?

 

[xienwolf]

Notepad++