Need some advice for mod

zappara · Feb 4, 2007

I've been working on little mod on my own for myself for some time now because I wasn't happy with the stuff that basic Civ4+Warlords gave. I wanted more complex game - something that is similar to DYP and RAR mods in Civ3 which I enjoyed a lot. So keeping those mods as my guideline and aiming for realism and true to the history I came up with this:

Sum up so far:
90 new techs
49 new buildings
19 new wonders
32 new unit classes
+ Ethinacally diverse units (121)

I started with researching history and re-making tech tree (it's not 100% done yet) and when I got it mostly done I started adding buildings, units etc. I included Greenmod, sevopedia, ethnically diverse units, parts from religion and civic mods and some units from Modern Warfare, Sevomod and Total Realism to give some flavor to different civilizations.. but I think I've reached the point how far I can go myself. I don't have skills for python or C++ so anything that will need changes to those is beyond my reach. I do want to add some things so it would be great if someone explains if those are possible and if are, how difficult it would be. I'd like to hear also advices how to improve the tech tree.. I'm not happy with governments and art related techs - also near future techs need some more thinking. I'd appreciate all kinds of advices what to add.

Buildings and units that I've added

Spoiler :

So to the questions:

1. I want to add more religions (protestantism and zoroastrianism added so far) based on real world but I didn't see anywhere in XML files the options to make religions affect resources. For example how Jewish people can be made not to use pig as food resource and hindu people use cow as their holy animal?

2. If I make resource trees (oil->synthetic fibers,cotton->textiles->clothes+synthetic fibers->kevlar armor) does AI know how to build those resource lines and use them to build better units?

3. How can I make helicopters fly over coast?

4. How do I add more Civic sections (health care and cultural values) on civic screen? I've taken long time ago some cultural leadership courses and from those learnt some differencies between cultures and would like to add those values to different civilizations to make more conflicts and give more flavor to them.

5. What changes do you think I should make to that tech tree?

6. What near future techs you think we will discover during this century? What units/buildings could be associated with the techs?

7. Would it be possible to make some building produce one type units after N turns? Like palace could produce palace guards...

8. What were the religions called that Rome had before Christianity? I know they worshipped Jupiter etc. but don't know name for that religion. What did Mayas, Incas worship?

9. What government techs should be added? What effects each government should have?

10. What art techs should there be?

11. I'd like to add things like Hellenism (to work as art style/culture in a way as religions work). How that could be done? These would be part of Cultural values section in Civic options.

At the moment I don't have internet connection so I can rarely read posts here so don't mind if I don't answer for days (got limited amount of time to write my posts so got to keep it short). Also at the moment I have no intention to release this mod, since like I said at the start, I've combined so much stuff (graphics) from different mods that it would take long time to find out who had originally done each piece and then go ask their permission to use their stuff in my mod... if I have some day time to dig through resources and ask permissions, then I might re-think about releasing this to public.

I'll come back later with more questions..

Teg_Navanis · Feb 5, 2007

zappara said:
2. If I make resource trees (oil->synthetic fibers,cotton->textiles->clothes+synthetic fibers->kevlar armor) does AI know how to build those resource lines and use them to build better units?

I think TheLopez' Building Converter Mod is what you are looking for. I don't know how good the AI is at handling it though, you'd have to ask TheLopez himself.

zappara said:
3. How can I make helicopters fly over coast?

Try Roger Bacon's Flying Mod.

zappara said:
4. How do I add more Civic sections (health care and cultural values) on civic screen? I've taken long time ago some cultural leadership courses and from those learnt some differencies between cultures and would like to add those values to different civilizations to make more conflicts and give more flavor to them.

I've never tried it myself, but from what I've seen in other mods, it's fairly easy to do. You might want to look at how it is done in this mod.

zappara said:
7. Would it be possible to make some building produce one type units after N turns? Like palace could produce palace guards...

Possible in python. Loop through all your cities and use the hasBuilding function to find all buildings of a specific type. If one is found, you can execute any code (such as the initUnit function to create a unit). Programming a delay is a bit trickier, you'd have to store custom data via setScriptData. If you're interested in learning how it works, check the CvEventmanager of FfH2. There you can see what you can do with python.

zappara said:
8. What were the religions called that Rome had before Christianity? I know they worshipped Jupiter etc. but don't know name for that religion. What did Mayas, Incas worship?

Wikipedia is your friend:

Religion in ancient Rome

Maya Religion

Inca Religion

If you want to go with a fancier name than "Roman Religion", how about "Roman Animism" or "Greco-Roman Polytheism"?

NeverMind · Feb 6, 2007

zappara, your tech tree looks fantastic. :goodjob:

Just make the mod playable, so we could test it.

Impaler[WrG] · Feb 6, 2007

I too think thats a fine looking Tech tree, the only things I can see that need much improvement is that gap in the Renaissance and more Icon diversity, the Gnart mod has a number of nice buttons you could use.

zappara · Feb 7, 2007

Teg_Navanis said:
I think TheLopez' Building Converter Mod is what you are looking for. I don't know how good the AI is at handling it though, you'd have to ask TheLopez himself.

Great, just what I was looking for. Seems that vanilla Civ4 is able to use those production trees without consuming the resource which in some cases is what I need, like refining oil in several cities to make oil products and then selling oil products to other civs or using them to make my own units. Haven't tested yet if AI knows how to use them.

Try Roger Bacon's Flying Mod.

Thanks, I will check it.

I've never tried it myself, but from what I've seen in other mods, it's fairly easy to do. You might want to look at how it is done in this mod.

Well, for someone who hasn't any idea how to work with python, it's pretty difficult task. Although I got my civic screen scrollable by spending 10 hours with Visa mod's python files and trying to figure out what changes I needed. But unfortunately that didn't give me 100% working civic screen, it shows all civics and buttons but doesn't show info for any civics which doesn't matter at this time much to me since I know my civics. Added Education, healthcare and cultural values categories

By looking visa mod's files I figured that I need SDK changes to make civic screen 100% working. I will look into this other mod you mentioned to see if it gives me another solution.

Possible in python. Loop through all your cities and use the hasBuilding function to find all buildings of a specific type. If one is found, you can execute any code (such as the initUnit function to create a unit). Programming a delay is a bit trickier, you'd have to store custom data via setScriptData. If you're interested in learning how it works, check the CvEventmanager of FfH2. There you can see what you can do with python.

Ok, that's something I can't do myself so got to discard that idea for now.

Wikipedia is your friend:

Religion in ancient Rome

Maya Religion

Inca Religion

If you want to go with a fancier name than "Roman Religion", how about "Roman Animism" or "Greco-Roman Polytheism"?

Thanks, those help a lot. I totally forgot to check Wikipedia :lol:

NeverMind said:
zappara, your tech tree looks fantastic.

Just make the mod playable, so we could test it.

Heh, I'm playing it already, just tweaking it a little bit now and then as I see how my changes affect the overal gameplay.

Impaler[WrG];5074312 said:
I too think thats a fine looking Tech tree, the only things I can see that need much improvement is that gap in the Renaissance and more Icon diversity, the Gnart mod has a number of nice buttons you could use.

Any ideas what techs could be added to renaissance era? I could split gunpowder to several slightly different weapon techs but don't see it really necessary. All else I can think from history for this era is inquisition, naval technologies and expansion of trade + some heavy wars with cavalry (Napoleon and fellows). Renaissance was good for art though.. but can't think of any techs for it except Oil Painting. Also historically plague slowed civilizations drastically from medieval times to beginning of industrial age.

I'll update buttons last, it's more important for me to get to play my mod even if not all new techs and units have their unique looking buttons.

Btw, is there guide how to edit icon TGA files? I tried to add new bonuses to those files but it just made the game crash without error.. so I figured that there's some special rules how to edit them...?

Would it be possible to make more realistic modern day buildings ie. make them all require power as resource? Like movie theatre wouldn't "produce" culture without power. Currently power seems to affect only food, hammers and gold. I would like it if it would affect also research and culture.

snipperrabbit!! · Feb 7, 2007

You wil be interested in some buttons I've made ?
For civics, Aussie Lurker has 8 categories in his mod, so it could help you.

zappara · Feb 10, 2007

snipperrabbit!! said:
You wil be interested in some buttons I've made ?
For civics, Aussie Lurker has 8 categories in his mod, so it could help you.

I checked screenshots from your buttons and they look fantastic. There's many that I could use

Teg_Navanis, flying mod wasn't compatible with Warlords.

Teg_Navanis · Feb 10, 2007

If you want to use several SDK mods together (for example the Building Converter Mod and the Flying Mod), you'd have to manually combine the source code modifications of each mod and then compile a new DLL file anyway. Making it compatible with Warlords would cause no extra effort.

zappara · Feb 13, 2007

Yeah, knew that I would have to combine source code modifications if I wanted all those functions to my mod. I just lack the needed tools and my programming skills are on very basic level so I guess I would have to find someone to make the new DLL. I figured that I could use DLL from some other mod if it has all the needed functions already compiled into it. Mainly I want MAD nuke and helicopter flying functions and some other minor new tags to xml files plus fully working civic screen. But for now I'm satisfied with the expanded tech tree, civics, buildings, promotions etc. and I still got lot tweaking to do with those. I started adding more techs to renaissance era since Impaler[WrG] mentioned the gap there.

zappara · Feb 23, 2007

Thanks to button suggestions, I have now added new button images to most new techs and units. Found some buttons made for Civ3 mods (pcx format) and converted them to Civ4. Results can be seen here:

More modifications have been done since that screenshot was taken.

Currently I'm rewamping ships by dividing naval units to wooden, steam etc. ship groups because I'm also re-doing promotions and didn't want ancient ships to have some modern day promotions. I'm adding lots of different ship types for renaissance era (Sid Meier's Pirates game is sort of guideline here) and for modern era once I find art files for them. I just want to see huge naval wars in my Civ game

I'm going to divide also armors to wheeled and tracked units to make more speed difference and because of promotions. This also allows me to make some combat target/attack/defense modifications. I'm planning to include promotions to air units as well.

Also Civic screen looks now like this:

Still got the problem of getting civic screen display info on bottom panels. Another problem is that the first choice of new civic categories isn't enabled/chosen automatically at the start of game - instead those have Despotism as selected civic and I haven't found any reason why it's happening (doesn't show in the picture). Does anyone know solution to this problem?

ClassicThunder · Feb 23, 2007

zappara said:
Still got the problem of getting civic screen display info on bottom panels. Another problem is that the first choice of new civic categories isn't enabled/chosen automatically at the start of game - instead those have Despotism as selected civic and I haven't found any reason why it's happening (doesn't show in the picture). Does anyone know solution to this problem?

Think I can help you here. In CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml set the initial civics for all of the civs.

Example:

Code:

<InitialCivics>
	<CivicType>CIVIC_PATRIARCHY</CivicType>
	<CivicType>CIVIC_SELF_PERSEVERANCE</CivicType>
	<CivicType>CIVIC_FAMILY_TRADITIONS</CivicType>
	<CivicType>CIVIC_MIGHT_MAKES_RIGHT</CivicType>
	<CivicType>CIVIC_GLUTTONY</CivicType>
	<CivicType>CIVIC_PAGANISM</CivicType>
</InitialCivics>

You can have as many <CivicType> tags as you have categories. This should to it if it doesn't tell me and I'll look into it some more.

zappara · Feb 24, 2007

ClassicThunder said:
Think I can help you here. In CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml set the initial civics for all of the civs.

That solved that problem, thanks

Need some advice for mod

zappara

Mod Designer

Teg_Navanis

King

NeverMind

Proud to be Russian

Impaler[WrG]

Civ4:Col UI programmer

zappara

Mod Designer

snipperrabbit!!

Deity

zappara

Mod Designer

Teg_Navanis

King

zappara

Mod Designer

zappara

Mod Designer

ClassicThunder

Prince

zappara

Mod Designer

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