New Mod: "Bigger, Better Worlds"
- Thread starter DB_in_Omaha
- Start date
DB_in_Omaha
Warlord
OK, here are some comments/questions about yesterday's update and my current plans for BBW.
(For those of you who haven't caught on yet, by the way, these "my plans" posts are, as much as anything, my way of consolidating discussion for my own reference so I don't have to keep reading back through old posts to remind myself what's been suggested.)
First and foremost, let me note that I'm going to wait a bit before actually doing anything further, as some of the changes I made yesterday can have a fairly significant effect on early expansion and development, and I want those of you who are interested to have a chance to play a bit and see what you think of them!
(1) On the subject of said early expansion and development, it's possible that things are moving a bit too rapidly. (I'm not sure, so I need to play a bit more, and also hear what you all think.) I doubt that I'd consider putting the Despotism tile penalty back, but if I need to play with food production numbers a bit more, I can. It also occurred to me that two other changes I could make to help slow things down -- if and only if the consensus is that it seems necessary, of course, and that they're good ideas -- would be either to increase the chance of disease from flood plains before sanitation is researched, and/or to reduce the city transition sizes, so that towns *have* to stay a bit smaller.
(2) Obviously, I didn't switch the starting techs of Commercial and Scientific civilizations, as I previously said I was going to. The more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea.
(3) I also didn't add expiration techs to the various trait-specific small wonders. I figured we'd see how they play without expiration, first, and work from there. (I know it's a bit odd to have a wonder still churning out warriors or "ocean curraghs" in the modern era, but they're free units, and can be upgraded.) And while all of them now have prerequisite improvements, none of them actually require you to have founded a second city. And only six of them, rather than all eight, produce units. (The Agr/Ind Hittites can build SWs that both churn out workers!)
(4) "Ocean curraghs" need a better name!
(5) Any comments on the usefulness (or lack thereof) of various trait-specific wonders, and on the balance (or lack thereof) between them, would be appreciated.
(6) I doubt I'll give any additional trait-specific abilities to civs from the beginning of the game, except where additional tweaking of the existing SWs may be necessary, but I'm certainly open to the possibility of a second set of trait-specific wonders, each of which would be linked to a medieval or industrial tech, and require as a prerequisite the matching ancient trait-specific wonder. Any ideas regarding what those SWs and their effects could be, are welcome!
(7) I still like the idea of a Piracy wonder that produces Privateers. I should come up with something that lets me use a pic of Captain Jack Sparrow as the wonder splash, though!
(8) I need to figure out how to disallow settlers from goody huts. I'm pretty sure it can be done, since I'm sure I've read about it being done in other mods, but I couldn't figure out how to do it the other night.
(9) Someone suggested a while back that Area 51 should be buffed up a bit, but require a crashed UFO within the city's radius. I kinda like that.
(10) What do you folk think about railroad development now? Did the update last week slow it down enough, or should the base time for railroad building be increased even further?
(11) I'm thinking about adding a second UU to each civ -- put back the rider as a second Chinese UU, for example, and add longships for the Vikings and minutemen, perhaps, for the Americans. But if I'm going to do it, I'll need more ideas!
(12) Last year, I contemplated creating an all-female version of BBW. ("BBW Ladies' Might," I was calling it.) That's not gonna happen, but I still may replace one of the existing civs with an Amazon civ, just for the hell of it.
(13) By the way, any comments on the "Bigger, Better Earth" variant I threw in at the last minute last night?
(14) Ideas for better utilization of some of the less-important strategic resources would be much appreciated!
And now, as a special bonus, I'll list a few of the ideas I've had that I have so far (with great difficulty) managed *not* to implement:
(1) I thought about switching the Egyptian and English civ colors, so that England is yellow, and then replacing, for the English, the basic submarine unit with the "Yellow Submarine" unit someone created recently.
(2) I also really think that settlers and workers, just for the Chinese, should be replaced by Kinboat's panda settler and worker units.
(3) Finally, after seeing "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" last weekend -- an excellent movie, by the way! -- I really wanted to add a "Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory" wonder to the game. But though it's easy enough to have the wonder require cocoa, how could I represent Oompa Loompas?
-- Darryl
(For those of you who haven't caught on yet, by the way, these "my plans" posts are, as much as anything, my way of consolidating discussion for my own reference so I don't have to keep reading back through old posts to remind myself what's been suggested.)
First and foremost, let me note that I'm going to wait a bit before actually doing anything further, as some of the changes I made yesterday can have a fairly significant effect on early expansion and development, and I want those of you who are interested to have a chance to play a bit and see what you think of them!
(1) On the subject of said early expansion and development, it's possible that things are moving a bit too rapidly. (I'm not sure, so I need to play a bit more, and also hear what you all think.) I doubt that I'd consider putting the Despotism tile penalty back, but if I need to play with food production numbers a bit more, I can. It also occurred to me that two other changes I could make to help slow things down -- if and only if the consensus is that it seems necessary, of course, and that they're good ideas -- would be either to increase the chance of disease from flood plains before sanitation is researched, and/or to reduce the city transition sizes, so that towns *have* to stay a bit smaller.
(2) Obviously, I didn't switch the starting techs of Commercial and Scientific civilizations, as I previously said I was going to. The more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea.
(3) I also didn't add expiration techs to the various trait-specific small wonders. I figured we'd see how they play without expiration, first, and work from there. (I know it's a bit odd to have a wonder still churning out warriors or "ocean curraghs" in the modern era, but they're free units, and can be upgraded.) And while all of them now have prerequisite improvements, none of them actually require you to have founded a second city. And only six of them, rather than all eight, produce units. (The Agr/Ind Hittites can build SWs that both churn out workers!)
(4) "Ocean curraghs" need a better name!
(5) Any comments on the usefulness (or lack thereof) of various trait-specific wonders, and on the balance (or lack thereof) between them, would be appreciated.
(6) I doubt I'll give any additional trait-specific abilities to civs from the beginning of the game, except where additional tweaking of the existing SWs may be necessary, but I'm certainly open to the possibility of a second set of trait-specific wonders, each of which would be linked to a medieval or industrial tech, and require as a prerequisite the matching ancient trait-specific wonder. Any ideas regarding what those SWs and their effects could be, are welcome!
(7) I still like the idea of a Piracy wonder that produces Privateers.
I should come up with something that lets me use a pic of Captain Jack Sparrow as the wonder splash, though!(8) I need to figure out how to disallow settlers from goody huts. I'm pretty sure it can be done, since I'm sure I've read about it being done in other mods, but I couldn't figure out how to do it the other night.
(9) Someone suggested a while back that Area 51 should be buffed up a bit, but require a crashed UFO within the city's radius. I kinda like that.
(10) What do you folk think about railroad development now? Did the update last week slow it down enough, or should the base time for railroad building be increased even further?
(11) I'm thinking about adding a second UU to each civ -- put back the rider as a second Chinese UU, for example, and add longships for the Vikings and minutemen, perhaps, for the Americans. But if I'm going to do it, I'll need more ideas!
(12) Last year, I contemplated creating an all-female version of BBW. ("BBW Ladies' Might," I was calling it.) That's not gonna happen, but I still may replace one of the existing civs with an Amazon civ, just for the hell of it.
(13) By the way, any comments on the "Bigger, Better Earth" variant I threw in at the last minute last night?
(14) Ideas for better utilization of some of the less-important strategic resources would be much appreciated!
And now, as a special bonus, I'll list a few of the ideas I've had that I have so far (with great difficulty) managed *not* to implement:
(1) I thought about switching the Egyptian and English civ colors, so that England is yellow, and then replacing, for the English, the basic submarine unit with the "Yellow Submarine" unit someone created recently.
(2) I also really think that settlers and workers, just for the Chinese, should be replaced by Kinboat's panda settler and worker units.
(3) Finally, after seeing "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" last weekend -- an excellent movie, by the way! -- I really wanted to add a "Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory" wonder to the game. But though it's easy enough to have the wonder require cocoa, how could I represent Oompa Loompas?
-- Darryl
DB_in_Omaha
Warlord
City growth seems to be OK, but *empire* growth.... Good *gawd*, you've got to churn out workers now! Between roads taking a bit longer to build, anyway, and workers under despotism only working half as efficiently, actually developing the territory you control is now a major undertaking!
-- Darryl
-- Darryl
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
It plays almost like a totaly new mod. At least at the start. I have to build more workers earlier that is for sure.
The couple of games I have played so far have had very rapid increase in the number of cities after I get pottery and the wheel. A new settler with two warriors every 7 turns from one city alone. This seems a bit fast to me.
48 turns for an industrious worker to clear forest seems a bit slow, you can build all the buildings available in that time
. This I can live with, I just have to produce more workers. Automatic workers now seem to do different things, where they used to mine they now irrigate, hills for example. Not sure why.
So far I have never able to build the industrious small wonder - craftman's hall. Checking the biq I discovered I needed a smithy to build it. I had iron, it just was not in any city radius. I may need to alter the way I research tech to get iron working earlier so I can ensure I can build a smithy.
The couple of games I have played so far have had very rapid increase in the number of cities after I get pottery and the wheel. A new settler with two warriors every 7 turns from one city alone. This seems a bit fast to me.
48 turns for an industrious worker to clear forest seems a bit slow, you can build all the buildings available in that time
. This I can live with, I just have to produce more workers. Automatic workers now seem to do different things, where they used to mine they now irrigate, hills for example. Not sure why.So far I have never able to build the industrious small wonder - craftman's hall. Checking the biq I discovered I needed a smithy to build it. I had iron, it just was not in any city radius. I may need to alter the way I research tech to get iron working earlier so I can ensure I can build a smithy.
It may be just me, but i've found in the last version, and in this one, an error in the text file, with 3 links... one was the I don't know what trapestry, and two more (they are together), the game crushes when u go into the tech tree. I easily fix them, but being a newbie myself (at least in the modding stuff) I know it can be frustrating at times.
Other thing that I have noticed is that the ini file for the emmisary is also wrong. Again, it was easy to fix it, but well... you know.
Sorry about the spelling though, english is not my native tongue.
Other thing that I have noticed is that the ini file for the emmisary is also wrong. Again, it was easy to fix it, but well... you know.
Sorry about the spelling though, english is not my native tongue.
DB_in_Omaha
Warlord
EDA Green said:
Although your comments were quite vague, it sounds as though the problems you encountered all involved the game's attempts to access graphics from one or another of the premade Conquests. The proper way to "fix" that problem is to put the BBW scenario files where they belong. There's nothing that needs to be adjusted or fixed, if BBW is installed correctly.
-- Darryl
Like I said, it maybe just me (i'm a little dumb sometimes) but the folders that appear in the text file are something like \..\..\..\..\art\ etc..
and the files that are listed are not in the zip file, I extracted all the files to a folder, and then did a search for the pcx files, but i couldn't find them!
That's why I replaced the links with another ones.
and the files that are listed are not in the zip file, I extracted all the files to a folder, and then did a search for the pcx files, but i couldn't find them!
That's why I replaced the links with another ones.
This is the copy from the pediaicons.txt :
#ICON_BLDG_Magna_Carta
SINGLE
84
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\MagnaCartalarge.pcx
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\MagnaCartasmall.pcx
#ICON_BLDG_Bayeux_Tapestry
SINGLE
85
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\Bayeuxlarge.pcx
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\Bayeuxsmall.pcx
#ICON_BLDG_The_Inquisition
SINGLE
86
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\Inquistitionlarge.pcx
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\Inquistitionsmall.pcx
#ICON_BLDG_Bacchanalia
and i can't find the conquests-middle ages folder!!
#ICON_BLDG_Magna_Carta
SINGLE
84
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\MagnaCartalarge.pcx
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\MagnaCartasmall.pcx
#ICON_BLDG_Bayeux_Tapestry
SINGLE
85
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\Bayeuxlarge.pcx
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\Bayeuxsmall.pcx
#ICON_BLDG_The_Inquisition
SINGLE
86
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\Inquistitionlarge.pcx
..\..\conquests\middle ages\art\civilopedia\icons\buildings\Inquistitionsmall.pcx
#ICON_BLDG_Bacchanalia
and i can't find the conquests-middle ages folder!!
And here is the one from the ini file of the emissary:
[Animations]
BLANK=
DEFAULT=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_default.flc
WALK=
RUN=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_run.flc
ATTACK1=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_attack.flc
ATTACK2=
ATTACK3=
DEFEND=
DEATH=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_death.flc
DEAD=
FORTIFY=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_fortify.flc
FORTIFYHOLD=
FIDGET=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_fidget.flc
VICTORY=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_victory.flc
[Animations]
BLANK=
DEFAULT=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_default.flc
WALK=
RUN=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_run.flc
ATTACK1=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_attack.flc
ATTACK2=
ATTACK3=
DEFEND=
DEATH=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_death.flc
DEAD=
FORTIFY=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_fortify.flc
FORTIFYHOLD=
FIDGET=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_fidget.flc
VICTORY=..\..\..\..\..\Conquests\Middle Ages\Art\Units\Spy\spy_victory.flc
Gojira54
The folly of Man
Those links should work fine if everything is installed in the default directory.
Did they error out before you changed them?
Did they error out before you changed them?
I have found the files. It was (as i thought) my mistake. I'm very sorry for bothering you. Thanks for the feedback.
Btw, it's a great mod, and with the changes of the new version, the start it's faster (maybe a little too faster).
As always, forgive my spelling... and thanks for your hard work DB!
Btw, it's a great mod, and with the changes of the new version, the start it's faster (maybe a little too faster).
As always, forgive my spelling... and thanks for your hard work DB!
DB_in_Omaha
Warlord
Glad to hear you got things straightened out.
-- Darryl
-- Darryl
I have a question for you. I'm playing right now with Egypt, and I have built the wonder (I don't remember the name) that produces an emissary every ## turns. The AI is suffering greatly, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything about that. It's not building a unit to detect mine, or something like that.
Is there any way to change that, so the AI defends itself better?
Is there any way to change that, so the AI defends itself better?
Lonedreamer
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2004
- Messages
- 3
Hi
Im not a particularly experience civ 3 player and Im definitely a total novice when it comes to the world of 'modding'.
I liked the look of your mod and decided to give the game a crack, using it. I seem to be suffering however from an issue whereby my units are attacked by 'invisible' enemies and also sometimes I am prevented from entering tiles by invisible units?!
Does anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this?!
Christian
Im not a particularly experience civ 3 player and Im definitely a total novice when it comes to the world of 'modding'.
I liked the look of your mod and decided to give the game a crack, using it. I seem to be suffering however from an issue whereby my units are attacked by 'invisible' enemies and also sometimes I am prevented from entering tiles by invisible units?!
Does anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this?!
Christian
Lonedreamer
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2004
- Messages
- 3
Thanks for the suggestion, but I cant imagine that emissaries and spies can attack and destroy defensive units of mine like spearmen? Even if they are invisible! This is definitely some kind of graphical issue Im sure
Gojira54
The folly of Man
That is EXACTLY what the emissaries and spies do. Read the first posts and the readme for details. What you are experiencing is normal and not a graphical issue.
I have been playing this mod since its infancy, trust me. Build the invisible units yourself, and station 1 in each city, then you will see these units attacking you.
I have been playing this mod since its infancy, trust me. Build the invisible units yourself, and station 1 in each city, then you will see these units attacking you.
DB_in_Omaha
Warlord
UPDATE
Version 2005/08/11:
- Lowered max town size from 6 to 4, and max city size from 12 to 8.
- Reduced irrigation bonus for grassland and hills from 2 to 1.
- Lowered a few worker action base times. Building railroads now takes
24 turns instead of 36, clearing wetlands takes 24 turns instead of 32,
planting forests dropped from 24 turns to 18, and clearing forests
dropped from 24 turns to just 8.
- Switched the "start units" so that goody huts can now provide workers,
but not settlers. (This also means that the game will expect you to move
your starting worker before your starting settler, now, but I think we
can live with that.)
- Replaced "ocean curraghs" with "ocean galleys." (Yes, I still need a
better name.)
-- Darryl
Version 2005/08/11:
- Lowered max town size from 6 to 4, and max city size from 12 to 8.
- Reduced irrigation bonus for grassland and hills from 2 to 1.
- Lowered a few worker action base times. Building railroads now takes
24 turns instead of 36, clearing wetlands takes 24 turns instead of 32,
planting forests dropped from 24 turns to 18, and clearing forests
dropped from 24 turns to just 8.
- Switched the "start units" so that goody huts can now provide workers,
but not settlers. (This also means that the game will expect you to move
your starting worker before your starting settler, now, but I think we
can live with that.)
- Replaced "ocean curraghs" with "ocean galleys." (Yes, I still need a
better name.)
-- Darryl
DB_in_Omaha
Warlord
Today's update doesn't include anything too radical; just a few tweaks to the changes I made a week and a half ago.
I think at this point that BBW is in pretty good shape, and so, given (a) the lack of any real feedback over the past few weeks and (b) the fact that Civ IV is coming out in just two more months, anyway, I think (pending any significant bug reports) I'm going to call it "done."
Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining that there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest. I'm just noting the fact. After all, I'm the one who let things sit for over a year without any updates; I can hardly complain if most of those interested in BBW last year moved on in the meantime. I'll probably go back to updating my EQ2 mods until Civ IV comes out, and then, well, all bets are off.
-- Darryl
I think at this point that BBW is in pretty good shape, and so, given (a) the lack of any real feedback over the past few weeks and (b) the fact that Civ IV is coming out in just two more months, anyway, I think (pending any significant bug reports) I'm going to call it "done."
Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining that there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest. I'm just noting the fact. After all, I'm the one who let things sit for over a year without any updates; I can hardly complain if most of those interested in BBW last year moved on in the meantime. I'll probably go back to updating my EQ2 mods until Civ IV comes out, and then, well, all bets are off.
-- Darryl
thesizzler
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2005
- Messages
- 10
Civ 4 is coming in 2 months? awesome...awesome to the max
