My custom civ - Project Discussion

[PPQ_Purple]

Hey, PPQ, is that that civ you were talking about, like, 4 years ago? I think I vaguely remember something scarecrow-related?

Yep. It's all in this thread really. They were a species of mindless wicker golems, basically worker golems for the farmer on a budget that attained sentience through the events surrounding the fall of Bhall. And now they struggle to build a new society and place for them self in this hostile world.

 

[A Moon]

Yep. It's all in this thread really. They were a species of mindless wicker golems, basically worker golems for the farmer on a budget that attained sentience through the events surrounding the fall of Bhall. And now they struggle to build a new society and place for them self in this hostile world.

Ah, memories...

 

[PPQ_Purple]

It's not dead. I had the project nearly completed before RL took over. Now I just have to pick the pieces up. I have a lot of the art still hanging around. And have just completed the entire skeleton yesterday.

Spoiler And here is a preview to prove it. :

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Is there any way I could make an autoacquire promotion that is acquired when the unit enters a tile with a particular improvement?

 

[black_imperator]

you can add a onmove python function to the improvement you want.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Thanks. I'll do that.

 

[Viatos]

Is there any way I could make an autoacquire promotion that is acquired when the unit enters a tile with a particular improvement?

But be careful, since that's the kind of thing that apparently what causes sluga to instantly crash the game when they enter Haunted Lands.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Oh. In that case I'll scrap it. Thanks for the warning.

Speaking of that. I have a most unusual situation. I have a model that works. I can build the unit in game and it has a model and everything. But when I look the unit up in the pedia it does not show up. The entire right side of the screen where the model should be is just blank. Any ideas?

Spoiler :

Further testing reveals the unit is also absent from the game interface. As in, there is no icon for it in the build menu (the button is still there) or the side bar when selected (button works). But the unit does have full graphics on the screen otherwise.

Here are the files, if anyone can figure it out.

PPQ_CIV4UnitInfos.xml

Spoiler :

<UnitInfo> <!-- PPQ Axeman -->
<Class>UNITCLASS_AXEMAN</Class>
<Type>UNIT_PPQ_AXEMAN</Type>
<Combat>UNITCOMBAT_MELEE</Combat>
<DefaultUnitAI>UNITAI_ATTACK</DefaultUnitAI>
<Description>TXT_KEY_UNIT_PPQ_AXEMAN</Description>
<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_UNIT_PPQ_AXEMAN_PEDIA</Civilopedia>
<Strategy>TXT_KEY_UNIT_PPQ_AXEMAN_STRATEGY</Strategy>
<Advisor>ADVISOR_MILITARY</Advisor>
<bMilitaryHappiness>1</bMilitaryHappiness>
<bMilitarySupport>1</bMilitarySupport>
<bMilitaryProduction>1</bMilitaryProduction>
<bPillage>1</bPillage>
<UnitClassUpgrades>
<UnitClassUpgradeType>UNITCLASS_CHAMPION</UnitClassUpgradeType>
</UnitClassUpgrades>
<UnitAIs>
<UnitAI>
<UnitAIType>UNITAI_ATTACK</UnitAIType>
<bUnitAI>1</bUnitAI>
</UnitAI>
<UnitAI>
<UnitAIType>UNITAI_ATTACK_CITY</UnitAIType>
<bUnitAI>1</bUnitAI>
</UnitAI>
<UnitAI>
<UnitAIType>UNITAI_COUNTER</UnitAIType>
<bUnitAI>1</bUnitAI>
</UnitAI>
<UnitAI>
<UnitAIType>UNITAI_CITY_COUNTER</UnitAIType>
<bUnitAI>1</bUnitAI>
</UnitAI>
</UnitAIs>
<PrereqTech>TECH_BRONZE_WORKING</PrereqTech>
<iCost>60</iCost>
<iMoves>1</iMoves>
<iCombat>4</iCombat>
<iCityAttack>10</iCityAttack>
<UnitClassAttackMods>
<UnitClassAttackMod>
<UnitClassType>UNITCLASS_WARRIOR</UnitClassType>
<iUnitClassMod>25</iUnitClassMod>
</UnitClassAttackMod>
</UnitClassAttackMods>
<BonusProductionModifiers>
<BonusProductionModifier>
<BonusType>BONUS_WHEAT</BonusType>
<iProductonModifier>10</iProductonModifier>
</BonusProductionModifier>
<BonusProductionModifier>
<BonusType>BONUS_CORN</BonusType>
<iProductonModifier>10</iProductonModifier>
</BonusProductionModifier>
</BonusProductionModifiers>
<iConscription>2</iConscription>
<iCultureGarrison>4</iCultureGarrison>
<iAsset>4</iAsset>
<UnitMeshGroups>
<iGroupSize>3</iGroupSize>
<iMeleeWaveSize>3</iMeleeWaveSize>
<iRangedWaveSize>0</iRangedWaveSize>
<UnitMeshGroup>
<iRequired>1</iRequired>
<EarlyArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_PPQ_AXEMAN</EarlyArtDefineTag>
</UnitMeshGroup>
<UnitMeshGroup>
<iRequired>1</iRequired>
<EarlyArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_PPQ_AXEMAN</EarlyArtDefineTag>
</UnitMeshGroup>
<UnitMeshGroup>
<iRequired>1</iRequired>
<EarlyArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_PPQ_AXEMAN</EarlyArtDefineTag>
</UnitMeshGroup>
</UnitMeshGroups>
<iTier>2</iTier>
<PrereqBuildingClass>BUILDINGCLASS_BARRACKS</PrereqBuildingClass>
</UnitInfo>

PPQ_CIV4ArtDefines_Unit.xml

Spoiler :

<UnitArtInfo>
<Type>ART_DEF_UNIT_PPQ_AXEMAN</Type>
<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Units/Spearman.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/Unit_Resource_Atlas.dds,4,6</Button>
<fScale>0.44</fScale>
<fInterfaceScale>1.0</fInterfaceScale>
<bActAsLand>0</bActAsLand>
<bActAsAir>0</bActAsAir>
<NIF>Modules/NormalModules/PPQ/Art/Units/Axeman/spearman.nif</NIF>
<KFM>Modules/NormalModules/PPQ/Art/Units/Axeman/Spearman_Chinese.kfm</KFM>
<SHADERNIF>Modules/NormalModules/PPQ/Art/Units/Axeman/spearman_fx.nif</SHADERNIF>
<ShadowDef>
<ShadowNIF>Art/Units/01_UnitShadows/UnitShadow.nif</ShadowNIF>
<ShadowAttachNode>BIP Pelvis</ShadowAttachNode>
<fShadowScale>1.0</fShadowScale>
</ShadowDef>
<fBattleDistance>0.35</fBattleDistance>
<fRangedDeathTime>0.31</fRangedDeathTime>
<bActAsRanged>0</bActAsRanged>
<TrainSound>AS2D_UNIT_BUILD_UNIT</TrainSound>
<AudioRunSounds>
<AudioRunTypeLoop/>
<AudioRunTypeEnd/>
</AudioRunSounds>
</UnitArtInfo>

Original unit is the Chinese Spearman from VD. I merely did a reskin of the textures. So I do not think there is a problem with those. Could it be because I renamed spearman_chinese.nif to spearman.nif? It shouldn't be but I newer know.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Fixed it. Turns out it was the actual model animation! Had to fiddle with things from VD to make it work. WTF.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Does anyone have any idea why a unit might appear much darker in game than it does in nifscope? I animated a unit to use a rather bright texture but in game the entire thing is darkened so that gray becomes black.

 

[A Moon]

Yep. It's all in this thread really. They were a species of mindless wicker golems, basically worker golems for the farmer on a budget that attained sentience through the events surrounding the fall of Bhall. And now they struggle to build a new society and place for them self in this hostile world.

As a follow up: I only actually just noticed what thread this is? I had been assuming this was the modding q's or somemthing the whole time.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Nope. It's my modding q though.

 

[Lplate]

It would be nice to see the civ developed and issued. Good luck with your project.

You may want to consider splitting art assets into a separate module. This is something I'm looking at to see if it will allow multiple python mods to work together. If more than one python module is in the NormalModules folder and uses similarly named python files, then they interfere with each other. The references to art assets (buttons, portraits, units, etc) need to feature the modules folder location (e.g. .../NormalModules/...). Splitting the art into a separate module should allow it to be referenced in NormalModules while your python works from the load order vital folders. That's my theory anyway for getting several python modules to work together while retaining unique graphics.

Will Animal Handling be blocked to this civ? If they were cheap farm workers , wouldn't they have been used on farms with animals, as well as purely arable farms? Animal improvements could give them zero food but still provide hammers (they benefit from leather, even if they don't eat beef) as well as being a tradable commodity. You could still encourage the conversion of pastoral resources to arable resources by linking maximum city size to number of different grain resources or giving a bonus to unit production for each grain resource held or preventing/limiting training of any settlers based on whether there are more cities than grain resources ...

I'll have a proper read of your thread and see what else comes to mind.

Do you have a target date for issuing anything?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

It would be nice to see the civ developed and issued. Good luck with your project.

Thanks for the good wishes. I'll try not to disapoint.

You may want to consider splitting art assets into a separate module. This is something I'm looking at to see if it will allow multiple python mods to work together. If more than one python module is in the NormalModules folder and uses similarly named python files, then they interfere with each other.

Define "similarly named". As in, all my files have the prefix PPQ so CvEventManager.py would for example be named PPQ_CvEventManager.py. Is that different enough.

This said, I do not actually have a lot of python at all. So far, the only thing in python is the health bonus from creation mana. All the promotions, spells etc. piggyback off existing code in the base module. I am going to great lengths to make this code light you see.

The references to art assets (buttons, portraits, units, etc) need to feature the modules folder location (e.g. .../NormalModules/...). Splitting the art into a separate module should allow it to be referenced in NormalModules while your python works from the load order vital folders. That's my theory anyway for getting several python modules to work together while retaining unique graphics.

Out of curiosity, why would I not want to reference the art with an absolute path like that? It's not like I'll ever need to load it from any location other than /NormalModules/PPQ/.

This said, I don't actually have any python that references art.


Overall, I am interesting in hearing more of your reasoning along these lines because I get the feeling I do not quite understand your intent. You seem to, for lack of a better term know something I do not.

Will Animal Handling be blocked to this civ? If they were cheap farm workers , wouldn't they have been used on farms with animals, as well as purely arable farms?

Well, basically they will have been used on farms. But herding well fed cattle for a wealthy landowner is quite different than actually taming that cattle from a wild state and keeping them alive through winter. Furthermore, one side effect of them being cheap was that being mindless golems they were expendable. Every spring you'd take your leftover hay and make your self a bunch of laborers for the summer. And come winter you feed them to the cows.

Yea, humans can be heartless.

Animal improvements could give them zero food but still provide hammers (they benefit from leather, even if they don't eat beef) as well as being a tradable commodity.

I am definitively not going to enable access to the resource for trade and health benefits. Simply because basically they can't tame them properly. However I am going to have ways of making the resource useful for them.

1. Animal resources that are not for food like fur and ivory will keep all their bonuses as normal. The food bonus being handwaved as the effect of having a community built around harvesting fur.

2. Cow, sheep and other food only resources are going to be useless. But there is going to be a LVL2 spell that they can use to polymorph these into crops. I am not quite sure about the details of that one yet. Workers and improvements are near the bottom of my to do list.

You could still encourage the conversion of pastoral resources to arable resources by linking maximum city size to number of different grain resources or giving a bonus to unit production for each grain resource held or preventing/limiting training of any settlers based on whether there are more cities than grain resources ...

Those are all interesting ideas. Especially the settler thing. As for the rest my melee line comes with production bonuses associated with grains. And I am thinking of a forge UB that gives production bonuses when grains are present. Also, a craftsman workshop UB that gives health with grains.

Overall ideas are welcome.

Do you have a target date for issuing anything?

None so far. All I can tell you is that it will probably be done by the end of the year but not in the next two months. I have a lot of the art done from before. However due to the different tech tree and balance in AoE I basically had to rethink the whole unit and building lines.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

A question for the module guys. Just what is and what isn't modular? I seem to recall that back in the day technologies and music as well as city sets had to be installed into the base mod as opposed to being modular. Does that still hold true?

Also, what is your policy on using music in modules? Do I have to keep track of copyright data or can I just use music from other video games and the like without worry? I don't usually handle these things you see.

 

[black_imperator]

technologies should be modular, the rest i'm not sure.

as for the content rules, check the main rules for mods, which should be somewhere on civfanatics, and follow them^^.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

That's the thing. I can't find any threads relating to the use of outside material. The only rules I can find relate to using material uploaded by other people onto this forum.

Also, what does "not alive" mean for units? What effects are there? I know that it means you can't use body magic on them and that force works differently. But what else?

 

[black_imperator]

personally, i tend to go and ask the author for permission.

Not alive units probably also have specific reactions to some life and death spells, don't have any specifics in mind yet.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

personally, i tend to go and ask the author for permission.

Well the author in my case would be whom ever made a video game that by now would be at least 15 years old. I sort of kind of tend to play retro.

Not alive units probably also have specific reactions to some life and death spells, don't have any specifics in mind yet.

Basically I am asking because my race are straw golems originally. So lore vise it would make sense for them to have the not alive trait. Although not strait up mechanical stuff like the other golems because ultimately they are different due to becoming alive. Well alive and not alive. They don't eat, breed or stuff. But they do have a soul and do need to replace parts to keep working (straw ain't durable).

... I think you can see how complicated this is.

 

[black_imperator]

demons and angels are considered not alive, so i'm pretty sure your scarecrows will be fine with it too ^^