[Civ2] New Fantasy World Mod Creation

[Madcarak]

Hello everyone,

As @Blake00 advised me after exchanging emails with him, I will present my Mod, which is far from finished, but which is still progressing.

A short introduction: My name is Laurent (Madcarak) I am French and I live in Nice on the Côte d'Azur, I am 43 years old and I have played Civilization games since the 1st. I really got hooked on Civ2 where I could do sleepless nights on it. I touch on everything like graphics (part of my studies), video (filming + editing), music (guitar, percussion, flute, singing). I am a big fan of Fantasy and Science Fiction worlds. I recently got back into Civ2 and I am well on my way to creating my Fantasy Mod.

Name : In a Fantasy World
Game : Civilization 2 MGE
Universe : Fantasy
Language : French first then I will do an English translation (unless someone is motivated! ^^)
My Will : I would like this mod to completely replace the Vanilla version of the original game without changing any basic characteristics.

I have made quite a bit of progress and I particularly thank @Blake00 for all of his posts and advice by email.

WORK IN PROGRESS:
Intro images = 100%
Diplomacy images = 100%
TILES.DLL = 100%

GIF :
CITIES.GIF = 100%
ICONS.GIF = 100%
TERRAIN1.GIF = 100%
TERRAIN2.GIF = 100%
UNITS.GIF = 100%
CITY.GIF = 100%
PEOPLE.GIF = 0%

TEXT :
GAME.TXT = 100%
LABELS.TXT = 100%
RULES.TXT = 100%
MENU.TXT = 100%
COUNCIL0.TXT = 90%
ADVICE.TXT = 80%
PEDIA.TXT = 60%
DESCRIBE.TXT = 60%
CITY.TXT = 0%
COUNCIL1.TXT = 0%
COUNCIL2.TXT = 0%
TUTORIAL.TXT = 0%

VIDEOS :
HIGH COUNCIL : 33%
WONDERS : 18%

CIVILOPEDIA DESCRIPTION :
UNITS : 0%
WONDERS : 0%
BUILDING : 0%
KNOWLEDGE : 0%

CIVILOPEDIA IMAGES :
UNITS IMAGES : 100%
WONDERS IMAGES : 100%
IMPROVEMENTS IMAGES : 0%
TECHNOLOGIES : 0%

OTHER :
French font : 100%
Chart : 20%
English translation = 10%

I managed, once again thanks to @Blake00 , to modify the High Council videos, which took me a lot of time. Installed VirtualBox to run a 16-bits version of Windows XP in order to run the Ulead Video Studio 3.0 program and to be able to export the videos in the Indeo 4.5 Codec native to the Civ2 game.

I have recovered a lot of resources from various scenarios and mods, I thank all the graphic designers/artists from whom I borrowed (and often modified) their creations.

Here are some screenshots and a quick video.

Feel free to give me feedback.

Have a nice day and see you soon!

Madcarak

 

[Madcarak]

A quick presentation video

 

[Blake00]

Ahh good you've signed up to CivFanatics, welcome!

Looks like we're the same age heh. I visited France in 2011 but sadly only got to spent 2 days in Paris before leaving, would so love to see the rest of the country one day. I too have a passion for fantasy and scifi scenarios for Civ games and have a big thread searching and cataloging them which might interest you (more reading material to go with all the other links I've been sending you over email lol).

Forgot to say this over email but I'm glad to hear you'll eventually do a English version too as I'm not sure if there's many French Civ2 players left in this community sadly (although some may lurk here still). Bit of a shame really as when I did my big lost Civ2 websites archive cataloging search I saw that there used to be some really great French Civ2 sites and forum communities out there back in the day such as Eyn's World (he made some great scenarios) and the Civilopolis (which contained French Star Wars Rebellion and Fallout Civ2 scenarios I've never been able to find elsewhere sadly) to name a few.

Wow even though it's early days with your mod I'm already very impressed with the artwork. When I replaced the high council advisors for the Heroes of Might & Magic 2 mod I figured I'd probably be the first and last person crazy enough to ever attempt that haha, so it's very cool to see someone else was inspired by my work doing the same thing, and the fantasy artwork faces you've picked for them look great! Also very cool to see you changing all the other parts of the game like @Metro Polis and I did for our HoMM2 mod too! I can see you're using some of our mod's graphics as a starting template and are gradually replacing it with all your own new stuff. I kind of do that too these days in that for my C&C, Red Alert, Dune 2 and SMAC etc scenarios I'd often just grab the DLLs and image files from the HoMM2 mod as its easier to use my previous files as templates than it is to start over. However if any of our stuff remains in your final mod then yes please credit us in your readme for whatever you used. Most Civ2 mods usually use something from someone else's haha, but people are usually always fine with that as long as they're credited in the readme and release post.

The fact you've already mapped out and got working a full custom tech tree with linked buildings and units means you've already got the hardest part done in my opinion so well done. Always a relief when that messy part is done and you can just play with artwork for the rest of the development. As mentioned over email I'm still probably a couple of months away from finishing my big Civ2 HD tour video showcasing all the best total conversion mods I've found out there so you've still got a bit of time to think of a good name for this mod lol!

Oh and if you decide to do do a Test of Time conversion of your mod one day too like I am then be warned the high council is sadly missing from ToT so that won't work, however the ToT Patch Project has got the MGE throne room and city sky view working again in ToT though so they can carry across thankfully! Most of the modders here have switched to ToT modding as it has many advancements (full colour, animation, advanced events, LUA scripting etc) over MGE however there's a still a few us doing MGE mods due to enjoying it's simplicity.

Good luck and feel free to ask lots of questions here as myself and the other veterans are always happy to help new modders with their projects. Some of the gurus don't venture out of the scenario league area much these days so if there's a really tough question we can't answer here then there's a dedicated thread over there for questions too.
.

 

[Metro Polis]

Looks great, Madcarak. Kind of nice to see you using MGE. I always preferred that to TOT.

 

[Madcarak]

Hello everyone,

Yep I'm registered, that's it!! ^^

You should come back to France one of these days, if you come around you'll have a pied-à-terre if my wife agrees! lol

Yep, to tell you the truth I prefer to create everything in French, it's easier for me to compose in my mother tongue, for the English version, even if I'm not an English specialist I could always get help from Google Translate and ChatGPT, then the original game is in English so I would only have to modify a few terms.

It's true that the French-speaking community for Civ2 is becoming scarcer over time!

When I start making something I'm quite an extremist! But without your posts and advice to you and @Metro Polis I think I would have ended up giving up on changing the high council. Thanks again for your work.

As for the tech tree, I thought about it a lot, I'd give you something realistic and without distorting the mechanics of the original game.

I thought about a name, in French it's: In a Fantasy World. "In a Fantasy World" but I don't know yet..

I'll take the time when creating my Readme to cite as many of the different graphic designers as possible of course! I'm going to have a hard time finding them all because I've picked up units or icons from all over the place. Don't hesitate for anyone who comes across my post to tell me that you're the creator so that I can mention you.

In the meantime, I've finished all the units, here are the screenshots. I'll leave you and wish you all a good day!

PS: By the way @Metro Polis thanks for the whole part on the High Council with @Blake00

Madcarak

 

[Dadais]

Hello everyone,

Yep I'm registered, that's it!! ^^

You should come back to France one of these days, if you come around you'll have a pied-à-terre if my wife agrees! lol

Yep, to tell you the truth I prefer to create everything in French, it's easier for me to compose in my mother tongue, for the English version, even if I'm not an English specialist I could always get help from Google Translate and ChatGPT, then the original game is in English so I would only have to modify a few terms.

It's true that the French-speaking community for Civ2 is becoming scarcer over time!

When I start making something I'm quite an extremist! But without your posts and advice to you and @Metro Polis I think I would have ended up giving up on changing the high council. Thanks again for your work.

As for the tech tree, I thought about it a lot, I'd give you something realistic and without distorting the mechanics of the original game.

I thought about a name, in French it's: In a Fantasy World. "In a Fantasy World" but I don't know yet..

I'll take the time when creating my Readme to cite as many of the different graphic designers as possible of course! I'm going to have a hard time finding them all because I've picked up units or icons from all over the place. Don't hesitate for anyone who comes across my post to tell me that you're the creator so that I can mention you.

In the meantime, I've finished all the units, here are the screenshots. I'll leave you and wish you all a good day!

PS: By the way @Metro Polis thanks for the whole part on the High Council with @Blake00

Madcarak
View attachment 704663
View attachment 704664
View attachment 704665

Hoooo I believe I do recognize some !

Isn't tootall french too ? One of the best designer around.
I was discovered beeing one, revealed by my poor english.

 

[Madcarak]

Hi friends!

Yep, there are guys who are really good at graphics! @Dadais As for this famous Tootall, I don't know him but cool if he's French and he's still in the know!

After that I'm not doing too badly either. Hehe
I'm very proud of my mana shield, I managed to give something interesting.

So it's progressing quite a bit on my side.. ^^
Progress of the map GIFs: 90%
City redesign: 100%

I reworked a thousand little details left and right that I won't name here, no time and I don't remember.

I'll soon make the description of each resource as I did for the units, the wonders and the city improvements.

I'll put some screenshots for you.

A+

Madcarak

 

[Blake00]

Very nice! Definitely looking very fantasy!

 

[Madcarak]

Greetings,

Here are some comparative images after some modifications like the fortifications.

Comparison Vanilla and Fantasy version by Madcarak!

What do you think?
Isn't it too flashy or even rough?

Thanks for your feedback !

Madcarak

 

[Madcarak]

Hello again,

As promised, here is the description of the French/English resources as well as the modifications made by the colonists and Master Builders.

I'm super happy, it's really progressing quite well !! ^^

And a video :

Madcarak

 

[Madcarak]

Hello,

First test successful for the replacement of the first video of the wonders of the world, I named "The Necropolis of the Ancients"!

Madcarak

 

[Madcarak]

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I posted, I'm making in-depth progress on several aspects..

We discovered thanks to @Blake00 on the post of the super @duplj and his improvement of the Civ2.exe file the possibility of being able to change the images of the units, city improvements, wonders, etc. in the Pedia.

For my part it's done for the units, here are all the images attached and some in-game examples.

For the rest I'm trying to modify my font so that in French (even if you are almost all English speakers) it can accept accents and other symbols without doing weird things. @duplj is taking a look at this problem and I thank him in advance for the time he takes.

I'm making a lot of progress on the DESCRIBE.TXT with the descriptions of each knowledge.. there's work to be done.

Don't hesitate to tell me what you think.

Example in game :

Units :

 

[Blake00]

That looks awesome! Super cool that we can use custom images for units in the pedia now thanks to Duplj!

 

[Madcarak]

Well I'm tackling diplomacy and once again it's thanks to @Blake00 who in his many ultra detailed posts that I'm progressing so quickly.

So I got the palette that you used on the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 mod and after a few tries it works super well!

Here is an in-game example of one of the Leaders.

Soon I will make a global return on all the leaders, the playable races will be the Dwarves, the Noble Elves, the Wood Elves, the Dark Elves and the humans.

You can admire the King of the Northern Dwarves "Borin Marteaubrune" in the following screenshot :

Madcarak

 

[Madcarak]

Hey !

New modification :
- Enlargement of the flags to accommodate the maximum number of squares
- Shadow under the flags

Madcarak

 

[Madcarak]

Greetings to all!

Here are all the leaders of my Fantasy mod!

Have a nice day..

Madcarak

 

[Madcarak]

Short video to show the progress of the game (text in French)..

Enjoy watching!

 

[Madcarak]

Hello,

Currently working on the description of each knowledge in French, translated directly into English with the direct modification of the Describe.txt file and the Civ2 chart on Photoshop (changing the title, images and names of each city improvement, units and wonders of the world).

It takes me a crazy amount of time but it allows me to check my slight inconsistencies and rectify each part! I haven't even done a third of the knowledge, arrgh it's long!

Good night everyone..

Madcarak

 

[Madcarak]

Hello,

I took a break from describing knowledge and modifying the Civ2 chart, I have 37 left to do (it's long and mentally exhausting).

So I focused on the colors of the dialog boxes, I made a nice wood effect and the background color is the one that suits me best, taking into account that it will affect the diplomacy color! I'm quite satisfied with the result. I also modified the closing crosses of some screens like the city one.

On that note, have a good day everyone!

 

[Madcarak]

Yo,

Well that's it, the whole TILES.DLL file is modified, it's crazy how it changes the whole game when interacting with different peoples, "celebrating the king" or taking a city, etc. Even when viewing the different stats of the game it's cool!

RessourceHack is a great software, thanks to its creator! ^^

I made sure to darken the images as much as possible and saturate the colors so that the text remains as visible as possible.

Here are the different in-game renderings.

Madcarak