MatteLeDog
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Mediterranean/Latin American cities:
New Ambitious Mod/Scenario in progress: 20th Century Challenge
- Thread starter MatteLeDog
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Mirc
Not mIRC!!!
Eastern Europe, a civ?
That era names are too simple. You just added early or late to the existing names!
That era names are too simple. You just added early or late to the existing names!
MatteLeDog
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AlCosta15:
Yes the list of civs are only preliminary, and might be subject to change, the ones listed are the ones I'm considering at the moment, any suggestion are welcome, the problem is that the mod spans such a long time in history and if you compare the number of independent states in 1870 with that number after 1965, ther is a huge difference. The reason I chose to start the mod in 1870 and not later is that Africa wasn't conquered by the imperial powers yet at that moment, after 1882, all of the African continent is shared like cake among the imperial powers. Also the British Empire in this scenario (1870) for balance purposes will not be as powerful as it truly was in those days. I'm considering a locked alliance between Britain, Canada and Australia. I could always make two scenarios starting in 1870, one that tries to represent the situation as it actually was and one that takes the greater part of time-span into consideration (the one I'm working on now), how does that sound?
Mirc:
The reason "Eastern Europe" is a civ is that it is played on a World Map where the Eastern part of Europe isn't that large in comparison with the rest of the map. I know it is not historically correct to bunch together nations into a generic group like that but I don't see an alternative in this case, if it was on a map of Europe I wouldn't do that but in 1870 there wasn't many independent states in Eastern Europe. Oh and the era names are not decided yet, those are just temporary, you have any ideas?
Yes the list of civs are only preliminary, and might be subject to change, the ones listed are the ones I'm considering at the moment, any suggestion are welcome, the problem is that the mod spans such a long time in history and if you compare the number of independent states in 1870 with that number after 1965, ther is a huge difference. The reason I chose to start the mod in 1870 and not later is that Africa wasn't conquered by the imperial powers yet at that moment, after 1882, all of the African continent is shared like cake among the imperial powers. Also the British Empire in this scenario (1870) for balance purposes will not be as powerful as it truly was in those days. I'm considering a locked alliance between Britain, Canada and Australia. I could always make two scenarios starting in 1870, one that tries to represent the situation as it actually was and one that takes the greater part of time-span into consideration (the one I'm working on now), how does that sound?
Mirc:
The reason "Eastern Europe" is a civ is that it is played on a World Map where the Eastern part of Europe isn't that large in comparison with the rest of the map. I know it is not historically correct to bunch together nations into a generic group like that but I don't see an alternative in this case, if it was on a map of Europe I wouldn't do that but in 1870 there wasn't many independent states in Eastern Europe. Oh and the era names are not decided yet, those are just temporary, you have any ideas?
Rambuchan
The Funky President
@ MatteLeDog: This all looks very good. You seem to have been hard at work and receiving much inspiration. Nice! I have just one question:
What will make this different from other scenarios out there?
What will make this different from other scenarios out there?
MatteLeDog
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Rambuchan: Thanks! Well I haven't played all the other scenarios out there, but I suspect that what will make this different from most of the other scenarios will be the scope of it, 140 years, lots and lots of UUs, a pure focus on the industrial and modern age played on a world map.
Right now I'm modifying the map and waiting for some units to be posted on EVO, the old CDG site was hacked so the old civ3 forum is temporarily unavailable.
AlCosta: Yeah I thought about using the maximum number of civs, but won't that make the loading times very long? Í was thinking that I should avoid having the maximum number of cities and civilizations in the basic scenario, so that loading times wouldn't be too long.
Right now I'm modifying the map and waiting for some units to be posted on EVO, the old CDG site was hacked so the old civ3 forum is temporarily unavailable.
AlCosta: Yeah I thought about using the maximum number of civs, but won't that make the loading times very long? Í was thinking that I should avoid having the maximum number of cities and civilizations in the basic scenario, so that loading times wouldn't be too long.
Rambuchan
The Funky President
@ Matt: Well I just mention that because there are a quite a few mods of a similar time frame and nature. Have a look in Completed Scenarios and you'll see a few. It's always a good thing to focus on what makes yours different from others. I haven't played a great deal of those similar scenarios so I wouldn't be the best to ask. But I opened your thread up hoping to find a good reason to choose it out of the other 20th century contributions. So far the UUs is what's pulling this player who's a bit luke warm about such scenarios, but keep pulling the tricks and asking for the help! 
Regarding loading time: FWIW I've loaded up a few 'quick loading' scenarios that have harped on about how great the fact they were quick to DL was. Well they didn't play too good compared to some of the longer loading offerings. Point is gameplay first IMHO.
Regarding loading time: FWIW I've loaded up a few 'quick loading' scenarios that have harped on about how great the fact they were quick to DL was. Well they didn't play too good compared to some of the longer loading offerings. Point is gameplay first IMHO.
MatteLeDog
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AlCosta: Flagging the trade over sea/ocean, that sounds interesting, can you elaborate on that? I am not sure what you are reffering to. I thought about civs and I am considering including some African civs and avoiding a generic third world/underdeveloped civ, perhaps the Fulani Kingdom, Ethiopia, Zulu kingdom, Islamic dinasties and maybe a few more, suggestions are welcome.
Rambuchan:
Yes gameplay comes first that is true, I'm hoping it will be different from other such scenarios and mods, but I don't think Iv'e seen that many others that cover the whole timeperiod this one is covering, and I think the tech tree and improvments/wonder tree are quite good so far (will be improved further), and I'm certainly not making this for profit so I don't think I will try any far out marketing schemes to convince everyone that it is the scenario/mod of all times, but I will certainly try to make it that
Btw since you seem quite experienced in this scenario making business, what in your opinion affects loading times the most? is it number of civs, size of cities or size of map?
Rambuchan:
Yes gameplay comes first that is true, I'm hoping it will be different from other such scenarios and mods, but I don't think Iv'e seen that many others that cover the whole timeperiod this one is covering, and I think the tech tree and improvments/wonder tree are quite good so far (will be improved further), and I'm certainly not making this for profit so I don't think I will try any far out marketing schemes to convince everyone that it is the scenario/mod of all times, but I will certainly try to make it that
Btw since you seem quite experienced in this scenario making business, what in your opinion affects loading times the most? is it number of civs, size of cities or size of map?
El Justo
Deity
MatteLeDog,
i think Al is referring to the method i use in my scenarios where i remove the "Allows Sea Trade" (Harbor imp) and the "Allows Air Trade" (Airport Imp) flags in the editor. by doing this, you're able to chop turn times down by up to 700%. i've used this for my TCW scenario where turn times would get a little hellish at times.
however, there are certain caveats that need attention if you chose this method. specifically, any unconnected/island locations that do not have access to required resources, etc.
i'd be happy to give a more thorough rundown on this if you're serious about your mod.
i think Al is referring to the method i use in my scenarios where i remove the "Allows Sea Trade" (Harbor imp) and the "Allows Air Trade" (Airport Imp) flags in the editor. by doing this, you're able to chop turn times down by up to 700%. i've used this for my TCW scenario where turn times would get a little hellish at times.
however, there are certain caveats that need attention if you chose this method. specifically, any unconnected/island locations that do not have access to required resources, etc.
i'd be happy to give a more thorough rundown on this if you're serious about your mod.
MatteLeDog
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Thanks ElJusto, yes I'm definitly serious about this, right now the thing that slows progress is the unavailability of units for the unit tree, but this is a temporary problem, I have been wanting to do this scenario ever since the days of Civ2 but never got around to it, so flagging the air and sea trade off can make that much a difference for loading times? I think I've heard this mentioned before, that the game takes hell of a long time calculating trade routes and such. One problem with this though as you mentioned is its effect on gameplay, my scenario/mod will not be a purely warfare-oriented one, how did you alleviate the problem?
I have another question that you might have insight on, is there a way to prevent the AI from raizing cities? since my scenario/mod won't involve city construction, a lot of raizing could damage the gameplay seriously, I heard someone mention the idea of putting "dummy wonders" in every city, but I have not tried it.
I have another question that you might have insight on, is there a way to prevent the AI from raizing cities? since my scenario/mod won't involve city construction, a lot of raizing could damage the gameplay seriously, I heard someone mention the idea of putting "dummy wonders" in every city, but I have not tried it.
Yes, there is a way. Create a no-era tech for all civilizations. Create a new wonder for each tech, it should give in every city a free building. This building has to be a new one too: A wonder giving not one bonus.
That way, there is a Wonder in every cities and AI doesn't raze cities with wonder, even unuseful like that one.
El Justo
Deity
below is info i posted about disabling trade from an old post:
"eliminating trade routes altogether reduce load times by up to 700%. there is no ignoring that number.
there are a few trade-offs though:
- luxuries need to still come into your cities and shutting off all trade pretty much shuts the door for that. there's a few options here...one is to place luxury resources all throughout the 'mainland' of each civi thus ensuring that they reach their intended destination (your cities). i've used this method to a certain degree for TCW and it's worked pretty nice. i hate rioting for scenarios as i think it's BS.
- no or very few luxuries coming into your cities means uphappy peeps. have no fear b/c you can mod the improvements so that they grant happy faces to either the city in question or to every city in the empire. i prefer the latter simply b/c it's an 'across-the-board' implementation and probably the most effective. plus, it nips out the annoying aspect of rioting.
now, there is also another step that needs to be taken and that is to ensure that all of the required/strategic resources are placed in all locales that are either seperated from one's empire or are on an island. for example, britain needs, say the "UK" resource in order to build infantry units. "UK" is placed accordingly in mainland england. now, northern ireland should be able to builf them, too. no? well, a "UK" resource needs to go onto the Emerald Isle if British Inf units are to be built there b/c shutting off sea and air trade prevent the required strategic resource(s) from being shipped in.
one other sidenote on these methods:
shutting off sea and air trade also grants one more bonus that i only recently discovered and that is the restriction of building only certain units in certain locales. for example:
a civer shouldn't be able to build British Inf units in, say, S Africa. they should build S African units there. so...by adding in, for example, a "South Africa" resource, the modder can restrict what types of units are built in certain locations and more importantly, where they're built. i've used this method in my TCW scenario and it's great. the Arab Lg civ can build Egyptian Inf units in only egypt and they can only build Arab Inf units in the asian ME corridor. furthermore, SE Asia can build Filipino Inf only in the P.I., Taiwanese Inf only in Taiwan, and SE Inf only in the indochina region. the list goes on and on. iow, you can really diversify your units by shutting off trade."
and yeah...the game engine spends a good deal of time sorting through the trade routes so when they're disabled, it chops the so-called 'thinking time' of the game engine.
as for the razing problem...i believe there is no real cure for it. however, i know Rocoteh writes that adding some 'dummy wonders' to certain cities helps to alleviate AI razing. i believe that added culture pts to pre-placed cities also has a positive impact on this problem.
also...there are loads and loads of modern/20th century units out there. many aren't posted here though.
"eliminating trade routes altogether reduce load times by up to 700%. there is no ignoring that number.
there are a few trade-offs though:
- luxuries need to still come into your cities and shutting off all trade pretty much shuts the door for that. there's a few options here...one is to place luxury resources all throughout the 'mainland' of each civi thus ensuring that they reach their intended destination (your cities). i've used this method to a certain degree for TCW and it's worked pretty nice. i hate rioting for scenarios as i think it's BS.
- no or very few luxuries coming into your cities means uphappy peeps. have no fear b/c you can mod the improvements so that they grant happy faces to either the city in question or to every city in the empire. i prefer the latter simply b/c it's an 'across-the-board' implementation and probably the most effective. plus, it nips out the annoying aspect of rioting.
now, there is also another step that needs to be taken and that is to ensure that all of the required/strategic resources are placed in all locales that are either seperated from one's empire or are on an island. for example, britain needs, say the "UK" resource in order to build infantry units. "UK" is placed accordingly in mainland england. now, northern ireland should be able to builf them, too. no? well, a "UK" resource needs to go onto the Emerald Isle if British Inf units are to be built there b/c shutting off sea and air trade prevent the required strategic resource(s) from being shipped in.
one other sidenote on these methods:
shutting off sea and air trade also grants one more bonus that i only recently discovered and that is the restriction of building only certain units in certain locales. for example:
a civer shouldn't be able to build British Inf units in, say, S Africa. they should build S African units there. so...by adding in, for example, a "South Africa" resource, the modder can restrict what types of units are built in certain locations and more importantly, where they're built. i've used this method in my TCW scenario and it's great. the Arab Lg civ can build Egyptian Inf units in only egypt and they can only build Arab Inf units in the asian ME corridor. furthermore, SE Asia can build Filipino Inf only in the P.I., Taiwanese Inf only in Taiwan, and SE Inf only in the indochina region. the list goes on and on. iow, you can really diversify your units by shutting off trade."
and yeah...the game engine spends a good deal of time sorting through the trade routes so when they're disabled, it chops the so-called 'thinking time' of the game engine.
as for the razing problem...i believe there is no real cure for it. however, i know Rocoteh writes that adding some 'dummy wonders' to certain cities helps to alleviate AI razing. i believe that added culture pts to pre-placed cities also has a positive impact on this problem.
also...there are loads and loads of modern/20th century units out there. many aren't posted here though.
MatteLeDog
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Ok, thanks ElJusto and Supa for the info, I might try that dummy wonder idea, and your idea with geography-limited resources sounds quite interesting El Justo. I guess it all comes down to doing a lot of playtesting when you feel finished with it, and tweak it thereafter.
You mean at EVO? the old cdg site where they were posted was hacked though so they are temporarily unavailable, except those that are posted
in the EVO forums, also I feel that in the very near future a lot great 20th cent units will be released
El Justo said:
You mean at EVO? the old cdg site where they were posted was hacked though so they are temporarily unavailable, except those that are posted
in the EVO forums, also I feel that in the very near future a lot great 20th cent units will be released
El Justo
Deity
well, the 'country resources' go hand-in-hand w/ shutting trade off. but yeah, it takes some testing to ensure the desired results.MatteLeDog said:Ok, thanks ElJusto and Supa for the info, I might try that dummy wonder idea, and your idea with geography-limited resources sounds quite interesting El Justo. I guess it all comes down to doing a lot of playtesting when you feel finished with it, and tweak it thereafter.
You mean at EVO? the old cdg site where they were posted was hacked though so they are temporarily unavailable, except those that are posted
in the EVO forums, also I feel that in the very near future a lot great 20th cent units will be released
come to think of it, vingrjoe, ripptide, bebro and others have made many, many 20th century units, too. iow, there's certainly no shortage of them or it shouldn't prevent you from making your mod. iirc, there's 500+ units in TCW.
Rambuchan
The Funky President
MatteLeDog said:Rambuchan:
Yes gameplay comes first that is true, I'm hoping it will be different from other such scenarios and mods, but I don't think Iv'e seen that many others that cover the whole timeperiod this one is covering, and I think the tech tree and improvments/wonder tree are quite good so far (will be improved further), and I'm certainly not making this for profit so I don't think I will try any far out marketing schemes to convince everyone that it is the scenario/mod of all times, but I will certainly try to make it that
Btw since you seem quite experienced in this scenario making business, what in your opinion affects loading times the most? is it number of civs, size of cities or size of map?
You quite overestimated my modding experience. You are certainly in safe hands for advice now.MatteLeDog
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MatteLeDog
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