[modmodmod] The Sword of Islam Reborn

[SanJose]

Workers can enter in "new" desert and build road, that impossible in SoI
No barb invasions and no mercs in new west provinces

Zengids UB useless bcs you must war non-stop for 3/3UHV. Also Zengids start always unexpected between high developed Rakka+Mosul and empty core.

Bahmaids cities still suffer
Somnath culture border always dominant on fish spot or 3-4 Gujart war galleys destroy both workboat. Initial stack too weak for immediately war against hindu states.

 

[Bubby]

This looks epic so far but one thing I find weird (in the original mod and here) is how small the Abbasids are at the start compared to their real life territory. It might be hard for gameplay/balance purposes but it would make sense to add two or three persian cities, Jerusalem, maybe the hijaz and Alexandria to their starting cities. The abbasid caliphate was much bigger than just Damascus and Iraq in 750.

 

[hnrysml]

I think the idea behind the SoI 750 start is that the initial conquests have already occurred and rather than give the player control of nearly all the map at the very start the Abbasids have the most significant of areas that were under direct rule to worry about, I imagine the distant independent cities are under Abbasid suzerainty until the actual civs spawn for example Western Khorasan until the Samanid spawn. I think the creator of SoI deliberately didn't include the time periods of the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates, perhaps because simulating their expansion in such a time frame would be hard to reconcile with the rest of the flow of the game?

 

[SanJose]

For first century of Islam need total rework all or go for separated modmod.
"the distant independent cities are under Abbasid suzerainty" = remove 4 grey minor civs and adding big list of small dynasties (instead of barbs waves sometimes) = a lot of code work

Now we have:

• comfortable and work UU UB UHV Buyids
• strange west part of map, couple of bugs from prev attempt

Demand a lot of historic situations/opportunity like in Paradox's games from solo development project pointless, just trying save original approach to creating and balance of SoI.

 

[Triquetra]

Hi, is there any plan to make Zoroastrianism or Buddhism a legitimate religion you can convert to with holy cities and perhaps wonders? The holy city for Zoroastrianism could be in Yazd (religious shrine being Chak-Chak/Pir-e Sabz), while the Buddhist one could be in the Indian provinces of Malwa or Gird (shrine being Sanchi Stupa).

 

[GregFred187]

Hi!
Sorry, but I think it will last longer than expected to fix the bugs and balance the 4 civs. I still go to school (very time-intense school), and so I won't have much time, except holidays.
Could please a more experienced modder have a look at the bug with the relics (more than once of the same appear), I haven't found anything? This is one of the two the major bugs I noticed. (portugal UB and UHV1 is the other)

Do you have any playtesting feedback for me? I have noticed the Buyids are too easy and the Bahmanids need bigger spawn army, but what about Zengids and the others according to these three?

Hi, is there any plan to make Zoroastrianism or Buddhism a legitimate religion you can convert to with holy cities and perhaps wonders?

No, I won't make this. In the time period of SoI, they weren't widespread. Their time was much earlier.

At next, I will have a look at the expansion to the east, add barbs, mercs and rework landscape. And I will look for these desertworkers (only found them because SanJose mentioned them).

 

[GregFred187]

Is Portugal not able to have any UB at all!!???

I have just tried something out, and the bug with Portugese UB seems much more strange. (not buildable, but fully shown in pedia, and with WB built also working correctly)
I added it to byzanz as well, just for testing, and there were absolutely no problems.

 

[GregFred187]

Found it!

Bug: Workers and Settlers should not be able to walk through deserts, but in the west expansion they are able to.

The thing is, near rivers, on flood plains, they have to be able to walk through desert (think of makuria and fatimids). It seems embryodead solved this by adding two terrain types, both with same look and name, but one is passable and one not. (TERRAIN_DESERT and TERRAIN_WASTELAND). AtlantaMarty mixed them up in SoIX.

I attached the corrected Map file. Just copy it in your CIV4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\SoIR\PrivateMaps folder.

 

[Triquetra]

No, I won't make this. In the time period of SoI, they weren't widespread. Their time was much earlier.

I understand. Though, do you know anything about what code prevents you from converting to minor religions? I've been trying to mod SoI myself and can't get around it. Also, how do you import new assets into the mod?

 

[GregFred187]

Though, do you know anything about what code prevents you from converting to minor religions?

Sorry, I searched little bit for it, but couldn't find anything.

I reworked the map of greece and cyprus (to improve shape little bit). I also added palmforest, like in RFCEurope, any idea if I should remove it again or maybe place it on other parts of the map?

Spoiler :

Spoiler Old map :

What do you think about it?

 

[GregFred187]

Just finished my Zengid-Game.

It was a very interesting game, where you have to conquer pretty fast at the beginning and after you captured the requirements for UHV1&2, you have to build a stable empire in order to survive the mongols around 1250AD. (normally I play the other way)

I found a bug in Zengid UHV3, it didn't trigger, but I solved it. I attached the corrected file Victory.txt, copy it content into your assets/python/Victory.py file.

Also attached my replay.

 

[Derdan]

Does anyone else get this error when booting up the mod?

 

[GregFred187]

Sorry for late reply, @Derdan. I think you already restarted everything.

If I was you, I would delete the mod and download it again.


While you're at it, you can download the new version right away!

 

[GregFred187]

Yes, I was very busy last month, but I found some time to work on.


The Sword of Islam: Reborn Version 0.2 released


download link: https://sourceforge.net/projects/the-sword-of-islam-reborn/

It contains small bug fixes and balancing, barbs and mercenaries in the new provinces, but the biggest change is, that I was able to fix all Portugal bugs.

Portugal is now fully playable.

Sorry, I didn't have any time to search for the relic-bug, but that will be the next big point for me.

All Changes:

- Changed Buyid starting Gold from 1500 to 500
- Fixed workers and settlers through desert bug
- Added Peasant Barbars to new Greece map
- Added Mercenaries to the new provinces
- Changed Bahmanid UHV3 to any cities, not only Hindus, because code don't work
(and nearly any city there has hinduism, so won't cause any difference)
- Increased Bahmanid starting units by 4 + Handicap Dakhanis
- Noria now does not need rivers any more (so it is a useful building)
- Fixed Portugal UB-Bug
- Fixed Portugal UHV1

Known Bugs:

- in German translation doesn't work ü, ö, ä, so Bogenschütze is Bogenschutze (Archer)
- the message for the human player of the Zengid UP doesn't work (shows ??? instead of amount of gold), but if you watch your Gold, you can see the UP itself works)
- there are more than one each relic on the map
- silk road has in different menus different icons


Next development stage will focus on balancing (I only had time to play Buyids and Zengids myself, next will be Bahmanids and Portugal), maybe a Serbian Barbarian spawn (like Bulgarians) and the relic bug. Therefor I found out, that the map even starts with that much relics, so the bug is not that they become more during game. That will be v0.3 and I expect to release it around Christmas.


What do you think about it? Game experience would be very helpful to balance the civs better.

 

[GregFred187]

Merry Christmas everyone!


And little announcement: SoIR v0.3 will be released in the course of the week!

 

[Southern]

Very cool to see one of the best mods being worked on still into 2024. Thank you!!

 

[Southern]

Sorry for late reply, @Derdan. I think you already restarted everything.

If I was you, I would delete the mod and download it again.


While you're at it, you can download the new version right away!

I have the same 'GFC' issue as Derdan, including after a redownload. Perhaps some critical file is omitted from the upload? What do you mean by a restart, do I need to restart my computer?

 

[Southern]

Also I didn't bother installing it over a pre-existing Sword of Islam installation, would that be necessary?

 

[GregFred187]

Hello @Southern , @Derdan

Also I didn't bother installing it over a pre-existing Sword of Islam installation, would that be necessary?

I just tested it. When I move SoI (the standard mod) out of the mods folder, I get the same error. I am confused, because SoIR should be a complete standalone mod.

So it seems, you have to have SoI first, before using SoIR.

I am going to search for it, so that the next version is really standalone.

 

[GregFred187]

I reworked the map a little bit. In course of the Greece-Improvement I added the palmforest, and now I spread it over the most coastal provinces.

Spoiler NEW MAP :

Africa and Yemen:

Persian Gulf:

Luristan:

Gujarat:

Goa:

Spoiler GREECE :

Like in the rest of Byzantium, a Roman Road and some villages are added to greece.

Balkans is also more interesting now, I think.

Balkans-reference-map from RFCEurope (SoIR map edge around the red line)

Is it to much palmforest or should I add more in other provinces? (I am not really that experienced in Middle East vegetation)
What do you think about it?