Modding Q&A

[Oni Ryuu]

I knew about the 'nature civ' idea but didn’t want to go that route for a number of reasons. Mostly, I just wanted some interesting animations with a slight possibility that it could kill a citizen or a unit at some point in the game.

I didn’t know that I could use unit animations though. I’ll have a look for something suitable for all terrain types.

I don’t want it to have any impact on the game, just provide some mild amusement and a tiny bit of concern.

 

[Blue Monkey]

I know it has been done in the past - a rat m-unit turned into plague animation for one. Plague is a flic so shouldn't be too difficult. Not sure of the exact process since I haven't done it.

EDIT: Couldn't find the rats animation with a quick search, but i'm positive it exists. Plotinus' Death Angel is an alternative plague anim made from scratch. Bluemofia adapted Firaxis' original to just a skull. Pounder went the other way & did vultures only. Vuldacon turned the plague animation into the Bat Signal. & Vuldacon did both unit & plague versions. So there's definitely expertise on how to do it.

for units there's tom2050's thunderstorm & tornado. Rhodie's nature units set includes both a monsoon & typhoon.There's also an older tornado by GEChallenger. But i've got a soft spot for Vuldacon's variation with the cow.

Tornadoes might be good for affecting only cities. But if you want something more or less random geographically as well as temporally ... by making volcanoes invisible (just make the whole pcx magenta) and changing the eruption animation, you could have sudden storms just about anywhere.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I didn’t expect you to look for the stuff, thank you. I’m going to go with tom2050's thunderstorm.
I’m not interested in the standard plagues for TLC. I do want continuous fallout for when I redo my post-WWIII scenario, but that’ll be sometime around the summer or autumn.

by making volcanoes invisible (just make the whole pcx magenta) and changing the eruption animation, you could have sudden storms just about anywhere.

That’s brilliant and a very tempting idea but I’m going to keep the volcanoes for now.
If I could do it for sea tiles I wouldn’t hesitate. It would need to be a 1:100,000 chance event or you’d never risk going to sea.
It makes me think of the kamikaze and other historically important storms. Operation overlord would have been far more costly on an idyllic summer’s day.
Volcanoes give you a short warning so you’ll be able to avoid the storm most of the time.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

It came and went in a turn with no damage caused. Success!
Sadly, it appears beneath the units. It needs to be flatter and mostly transparent to look right. The transparency should make it look more realistic in this setting. A dark shadow and strong lightning will do all of the work. I’ve added the .wav file to the plague.ini without any problem. I don’t have working speakers but It should have rejected the .wav addition if it wouldn’t work.
It’s certainly doable though.

It looks like I’m going to have to make another .flc request.

 

[Vuldacon]

Oni Ryuu... You can make a Palette using Only the Shadows and or the Smoke Shades on the Unit Palette. Then apply that palette to the Unit Storyboard using Nearest Color Matching and that would make it more Transparent.
Note that there is a need to experiment to omit some of the Shadows and Smoke Shades so they are not used as some of them may not look as wanted.

 

[Civinator]

Nearly 12 years ago I made a conversion of volcano graphics to a thunderstorm in the mountains: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/impassable-volcanoes-question.156792/#post-3763030

 

[Civinator]

If I could do it for sea tiles I wouldn’t hesitate. It would need to be a 1:100,000 chance event or you’d never risk going to sea. It makes me think of the kamikaze and other historically important storms. Operation overlord would have been far more costly on an idyllic summer’s day.

You could set coastal-, sea- and ocean terrain to cause disease- but there are no special graphics for that feature.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Vuldacon
I’m going to have to put off learning how to make and edit units until I’ve worked out every bug in my mod. I know I’ll get obsessed making stuff and no one will be left to play the thing by the time I’m done.
Civinator
Thanks but no quite what I need.
I like the volcanoes even though they could use an update. I’m going to keep them.
As for diseased waters; the storm animation is more important than the effect. I might still use a storm cruise missile unit for barbarian ships.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Sadly, it appears beneath the units.

That is hard-coded, unfortunately in this case.

Nearly 12 years ago I made a conversion of volcano graphics to a thunderstorm in the mountains: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/impassable-volcanoes-question.156792/#post-3763030

Thanks for posting the link. Searching blind didn't find it.

I might still use a storm cruise missile unit for barbarian ships.

Rhodie's unit set also includes a maelstrom & an iceberg. So you could have a variety of shipping hazards

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Good to know.

That is hard-coded, unfortunately in this case.

I’m certain that making the clouds mostly see-through will have the desired effect.
That’ll have to wait though.

 

[Meteor Man]

Maybe one of you guys can help me figure out what is causing this craziness

I tried adding an army to my mod and as far as I can tell it's identical to the epic game army and yet I can't select it because it has 0 movement points.

 

[Takhisis]

Is it that you cannot select it or just that you cannot make it move?

 

[Meteor Man]

Is it that you cannot select it or just that you cannot make it move?

I cannot even select it, as it supposedly has 0 movement points.

 

[Civinator]

At present I have no explanation for this problem. Your current biq doesn´t hold an army, so I cannot have a look into the settings that triggered this problem. Wich editor did you use for adding that army?

 

[Meteor Man]

At present I have no explanation for this problem. Your current biq doesn´t hold an army, so I cannot have a look into the settings that triggered this problem. Wich editor did you use for adding that army?

Just the regular-old editor. I attached the .biq in case you want to look at it. This baffles me.

 

[Civinator]

Meteor Man, thank you for posting the biq - and I think now I can help :

When looking in the editor, your army has 1 MV point, so here seems all to be o.k. The problem seems to be, that you can only load units in other units, that don´t can load other units into them. As nearly all the spaceships in your great scenario have a transport capacity, you cannot load those ships into an army. I made a short test with your biq creating an army in debug mod on a planet that also holds a ship. The ship cannot be loaded into the army. Now I created a DS 9 Laser, that has no own transport ability on that planet. The laser can be loaded in the army, but the army cannot be moved, as the laser is immobile. Now I set the laser to mobil with one MV point. The laser can be loaded into the army and the army can be moved.

In short: You can only load units without transport capacity into your army and your army can only move, if the unit in it is mobile.

Edit: You could create a Jedi fighter as an army, holding a powerful Jedi inside it. Now the Jedi can fight, after flying through the galaxy with his fighter. The same with a Sith Lord and so on.

 

[Takhisis]

^Of course, remember that you can't unload the Jedi from the fighter/army (unless you upgrade the latter unit, IIRC).

 

[Meteor Man]

Meteor Man, thank you for posting the biq - and I think now I can help :

When looking in the editor, your army has 1 MV point, so here seems all to be o.k. The problem seems to be, that you can only load units in other units, that don´t can load other units into them. As nearly all the spaceships in your great scenario have a transport capacity, you cannot load those ships into an army. I made a short test with your biq creating an army in debug mod on a planet that also holds a ship. The ship cannot be loaded into the army. Now I created a DS 9 Laser, that has no own transport ability on that planet. The laser can be loaded in the army, but the army cannot be moved, as the laser is immobile. Now I set the laser to mobil with one MV point. The laser can be loaded into the army and the army can be moved.

In short: You can only load units without transport capacity into your army and your army can only move, if the unit in it is mobile.

Edit: You could create a Jedi fighter as an army, holding a powerful Jedi inside it. Now the Jedi can fight, after flying through the galaxy with his fighter. The same with a Sith Lord and so on.

Oh my gosh, of course! That seems to be the problem. Thanks once again, Civinator for figuring that out for me.

However, does no one find it strange that I can't move the army on its own? I thought you could do that for the vanilla army.

Interesting idea about the Jedi fighter, certainly.

 

[Takhisis]

However, does no one find it strange that I can't move the army on its own? I thought you could do that for the vanilla army.

Is the Army unit marked as a sea unit or as a land unit? Armies only work properly when a) handled by a human player and b) marked as land units.

 

[Meteor Man]

Is the Army unit marked as a sea unit or as a land unit? Armies only work properly when a) handled by a human player and b) marked as land units.

It is, indeed, a land unit.