Modders Guide to Beyond the Sword

[kristopherb]

To much infomation in to littles posts this should be stickied in the creation and customization forum.

 

[Kael]

To much infomation in to littles posts this should be stickied in the creation and customization forum.

Yeah, I will probably move this thread into the guides forum once BtS releases.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

Yes that City Art Style mod is very nice, just so no one gets confused the Art Style that a Civ uses for its Cities is completely separate from that which is used for its Units. And the Promotion/Animation system used in this particular scenario by Firaxis is also completely separate from my code, neither I nor Kael yet understand how it works either.

On the possibility of doing Promotion based artDef changes using an extension of my system, as Kael says it can be done in the SDK by changing the return of a new function on Units getArt() that currently works by checking the Civ of the owner and substituting in the ArtDefs you've specified on the new XML file. To do a Promotion based system we just need a new file structure and rule system to govern it all.

Only one ArtDef can ever be returned so its not possible to 'blend' two ArtDefs together on the fly. As one one can be returned the hard part is trying to resolve situations ware your unit has multiple Promotions that want to return a different ArtDef, how do we resolve that? The simplest thing might be to simply list the Promotion/ArtDef combos in some kind of priority order go down said list until the first match is found and return that.

Their are lots of other structures one might come up with but someone would always find themselves in odd situations ware they find some limitation of the system prevents them from doing what they want. I'd need to go through some consultation and designing with the people who would use it to get an idea what capabilities are most important to them and what isn't. Thats a thread for another time though.

 

[woodelf]

Good work guys.

 

[kristopherb]

Yeah, I will probably move this thread into the guides forum once BtS releases.

whyt not make it on wikipedia?

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

Wikipedia itself won't let people use it for such nitch purposes, the Modiki that was created ages ago has died and the sites gone (must update sig) theirs no other obvious place for it to go.

 

[cybrxkhan]

yay... now we don't have to go through tons of text to figure out what the heck all these things mean!!! thanks!

 

[Virulent]

I'm no modder but their seems to be a lot of nice stuff in here. The stuff about there being less Python calls should be made into it's own thread as it would put to rest the fears of people with low-spec systems that all of the late game enhancements in BtS would slow down the game even more.

BTW Kael: I've recently downloaded and played the original FfH (I've actually never played any Civ IV mods outside of the official Firaxis scenarios). Really good stuff, looking forward to AoI.

 

[Breunor]

Should this thread be 'stickied'? I have a feeling people will want to see this quite a lot once the game is in our hands!

Great work Kael!

Breunor

 

[deanej]

I'm currently making a Star Trek total conversion mod; what would be the best way to convert it to BTS? I have already done the civilizations, leaders, techs, and buildings (everything but the civs got very tedious) and I don't want to start again from scratch. How would I do this, as I can't expect help from anyone as there has been very little community interest so far.

EDIT: I also changed the religions/missionaries, as well as the eras, as well as removing the tech requirement for anything that hasn't been changed yet.

 

[Kael]

I'm currently making a Star Trek total conversion mod; what would be the best way to convert it to BTS? I have already done the civilizations, leaders, techs, and buildings (everything but the civs got very tedious) and I don't want to start again from scratch. How would I do this, as I can't expect help from anyone as there has been very little community interest so far.

There are sections in the document offering general advice. Hopefully its helpful. There is no reason to start over, but conversion is a big job. This article should help.

Think about uses for the new features and attributes. Im sure you will be interested to check out the new stuff in the Final Frontier scneario.

Lastly, about community interest. You have to build the mod before you will develop the interest. It would be easier if it was the other way around, but so many mods are started and never brought far enough to be playable that the community doesn't get excited until they have something playable in their hands. Build the game you want to play, community interest comes later.

 

[TheBladeRoden]

But I was randomly wondering if there is a way to give the same unit a different name depending on the civ similar to how it's done with the art define?

Oh dear, it's a self-quote!

 

[Kael]

Nothing native. You would need to create your own SDK or python routine to do that. You have to decide where you want to draw the line between alternate art and what really is a seperate unit.

Personally I would worry that having alternate names may be confusing for casual players. They would see the name for a unit that they can't find in the pedia (since its not the "real" name of the unit).

 

[GeoModder]

Just now discovered this thread. Looks like there's a section or two I need to study indept to see how it affects my pet project (the ethnic citystyles, and in extension ethnic units).

 

[GeneralMatt]

Very cool. Can't wait to get my hands on the thing (I may never go to bed again, need to stock up on sleep now..)

 

[deanej]

The hard part for me will be the buildings. I doubt the new attributes will all be right next to each other; they will probably be scattered throughout the file at unpredictable locations. All of the buildings used buildings from the epic game as a base, and one time I accidentally copied a building from vanilla instead of warlords. It took over a dozen times of reloading the mod to get it fixed, as the game only tells you about one missing attribute each time.

 

[Edungeon]

BtS is fast. One of the things Firaxis did to speed up the game was implement a PythonCallbackDefines.xml file. That file has entries for many CPU intensive python functions such as the following:

This is the best part

 

[Snoopaloop]

I know it seems odd considering how much information we just released, but I am still under NDA. I got approval from Firaxis to release these technical specs to give modders some help getting started (and serve as a reference once BtS releases). But I can't answer questions about what gameplay stuff is in BtS, you will have to check out screenshots and press releases for that.

Thanks for you help anyways Kael.

Unfortunately from many of the screenshots I have observed, it does not seem as if the European/Middle East/and Mesoamerican City Art Styles have changed.

I'm still hoping they were fixed though...

 

[ww2commander]

Kael, can you confirm if Civ4SeasonsInfo actually allows seasons during the games. A yes/no will be enough to keep me going.

One of my scenario stumbling points is seasons, so hopefully BtS answers my prayers

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Well, Dale implemented a "Bitter Winter" for Russia in his WWII mod, so I'd say either way it's doable.