Modders workshop: Future Era!

[Razorwing]

I'm hoping this will turn out to be a thread where everyone pitches in with their ideas on how to create a new era after Modern - the Future! First, I'd like to throw out the question to everyone: How to go about making the game understand that a new era should begun?

First step I think is to use Grampho's multitool to add a new Era. Then at the very bottom of the pediaicons.txt one can read these lines:

#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_2
art\erasplash\indust.pcx
art\erasplash\modern.pcx
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_3
art\erasplash\modern.pcx
art\erasplash\modern.pcx

There is a long line of hash symbols above this section, which might be explained by the lack of civilopedia entries for the markers. Instead I hypothesize that the markers refer to the Eras as they are listed in the Editor -- and by adding a new era through the multi-tool, this becomes #ERA_SPLASH_ERA_4. So, one would change the pediaicons.txt to read:

#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_2
art\erasplash\indust.pcx
art\erasplash\modern.pcx
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_3
art\erasplash\modern.pcx
art\erasplash\future.pcx
#ERA_SPLASH_ERA_4
art\erasplash\future.pcx
art\erasplash\future.pcx

So, the next logical question -- if we add a file to "Art\Advisors" called 'science_future.pcx' would the game recognize that this is the tech tree background for the newly-added era? Does the game work by using 'science_[era-name].pcx' as background? I would hope so!

In the editor, there are boxes on the Era tab referencing civilopedia entries for the Eras. I can't find any entries for eras in the civilopedia, though.

Can these questions be solved? If so, we can instruct the players of our mods to get hold of Gramphos' tool and modify their save game file to change the end year to something more suiting to your mod (i.e. calculate approximately how long time you'd like to allot for the techs you've added). It's not a pretty solution, but it is a solution.

You can check out or download era splashes from this site I made:
http://www.angelfire.com/amiga/civ3b/index.html
Thanks to the guys who created them.

 

[slothman]

Appearently you can't directly add a new era and have the game work properly. You could turn the 4 current eras into 3 - an ancient,midevil,modern - and form a future as the new fourth.

 

[Leonel]

I'd really like a future era and perhaps a far far FAR future era. I'd like to think that my nation could survive so long as to deal with the problem of moving techtonic plates... Plus cool futuristic units would be neat and eventually have just balls of pure energy that would work as the staple unit and have the goal of transendence into being a being of pure energy and stuff.

 

[Sixchan]

Well, we could put the Alpha Centauri units to save us designing new ones, and they're animated as well.

 

[santo67]

Shifting techtonic plates? A little ambitious, there, buddy. You're talking millions upon millions of years. I don't know that mankind (in its current form) would last for that long, let alone your nation.

:mutant: :alien:

 

[mizaq]

Even the God Emperor Leto II only reigned for thousands of years, not millions.

Don't forget that leaders and advisors have new graphics for each age. I was gonna look into testing some stuff, like lengthening files, etc. but then I realized that they most likely hardcoded that information like they did for citizen graphics.

 

[mizaq]

double post

 

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by slothman
Appearently you can't directly add a new era and have the game work properly. You could turn the 4 current eras into 3 - an ancient,midevil,modern - and form a future as the new fourth.

It's not pretty but I'll investigate the possibilities. Maybe if I find the graphics used for the tech screen I can shrink the tech boxes, thus making room for others from the next era. The real trouble is that techs are meant to start from scratch in every new age, how to go about connecting them in a way that isn't totally unrealistic... ARRGH!

Part of me knows they'll fix this in a later patch as part of the addition of real scenario-making tools.

 

[sgrig]

In some of his posts (I think in reply to editor suggestions thread), Dan Maghana was saying that much of the stuff which has to do with eras is hard-coded, and that messing about with eras is not a good idea. You can however rename eras.

 

[slothman]

I might be a good idea to compress the 4 current eras into 3. Then sanitation and therfore hospitals will be available sooner. I hate having a zillion cities stuck and size 14 (I changed it because of this) for half the game. Some of the new units could be ones from Call to Power, such as a war walker or the alien units from civ2 like the imobile forcefield to defend cities.

 

[Razorwing]

I shrunk the borders of the techboxes for the Modern era to see what happens. But I think the positioning of text and icons is hardcoded.