davane
Warlord
I don't have any experience with actual modding, but I came up with the following idea for a mod.
It seems to me that there is very little actual difference between the civilizations in the game. The UU's and UB's just don't provide enough unique flavour, and the leader traits seem to have a marginal influence of the game itself. One option has been to try and provide more differentiation between the civilizations and leaders, but what about taking the opposite approach and removing the minimal differentiation into the game itself, so that each civilization starts off the same, but can evolve over the course of the game?
I envision this being handled as follows:
Remove all the leader traits, and instead incorporate them into a new civic option referred to as the civ's Policy/Doctrine. As civs learn technologies, they can enable the various traits. For example, the Protective trait could be enabled with Masonry, while the Expansive trait enabled with Pottery, and so on. Since only one trait is available, all the traits will need to be improved somewhat. The default Doctrine would be None, without any bonuses.
There are no UUs for civilizations, but instead all the existing UUs can be built. The different flavours of the UUs will provide alternative tactics to all civs. The generic units may need to be modified to take into account the UU's common availability, mostly by reducing their production cost to make them cheaper alternatives to the more powerful UUs.
Likewise, there are no UBs, but instead all civs can build all UBs as alternatives to the generic city buildings. The catch here is that only one of the selection of UBs/generic building can be built in a single city. For example, they could build a Monument, Obelisk, Stele, or Totem Pole in a given city, but not all four (Note, this would also impact upon whether or not to build Stonehenge, which still provides free Monuments in all cities, not allowing the other buildings to be built). The generic buildings will probably need to be modified to take into account the availability of the UBs, probably by reducing their production cost to make them a cheaper alternative.
One final optional concept would be the addition of a Grand Design civic, which basically gives each civ the option to tailor their abilities towards one of the victories in the game. These would also be enabled as the game progresses, with Time being a default Grand Design, which doesn't provide any bonuses. Essentially, the later the victory becomes enabled, the bigger the bonus to level the playing field a bit.
For example, early victory conditions like Conquest could be enabled once Bronze Working is researched and provide a slight production bonus when producing military units (allowing them to out produce rivals going for other victory conditions). Later on, when the Diplomatic victory is enabled by researching Mass Media, the civ might be awarded a massive production boost to build the United Nations (thus ensuring they are a candidate for votes) and provide a bonus to the attitudes of all AI civs (making them more likely to vote for the civ).
The idea of this mod is that there are more decisions for the player, and the theme of the civilization becomes defined by the player's choices in the game. Obvious choices will be toned down in favour of variety: Do you build the more defensive Horse Archer or the more mobile Keshik? Do you go with the stronger Praetorian or the quicker to build Swordsman? Do you build the Jaguar now, or wait to connect the city to Iron?
I'd like some feedback on the ideas for this mod, as well as some advice on how to get started with this idea. Like I said, I have no experience with modding in general (I primarily come from a tabletop background), let alone Civ 4 specifically.
It seems to me that there is very little actual difference between the civilizations in the game. The UU's and UB's just don't provide enough unique flavour, and the leader traits seem to have a marginal influence of the game itself. One option has been to try and provide more differentiation between the civilizations and leaders, but what about taking the opposite approach and removing the minimal differentiation into the game itself, so that each civilization starts off the same, but can evolve over the course of the game?
I envision this being handled as follows:
Remove all the leader traits, and instead incorporate them into a new civic option referred to as the civ's Policy/Doctrine. As civs learn technologies, they can enable the various traits. For example, the Protective trait could be enabled with Masonry, while the Expansive trait enabled with Pottery, and so on. Since only one trait is available, all the traits will need to be improved somewhat. The default Doctrine would be None, without any bonuses.
There are no UUs for civilizations, but instead all the existing UUs can be built. The different flavours of the UUs will provide alternative tactics to all civs. The generic units may need to be modified to take into account the UU's common availability, mostly by reducing their production cost to make them cheaper alternatives to the more powerful UUs.
Likewise, there are no UBs, but instead all civs can build all UBs as alternatives to the generic city buildings. The catch here is that only one of the selection of UBs/generic building can be built in a single city. For example, they could build a Monument, Obelisk, Stele, or Totem Pole in a given city, but not all four (Note, this would also impact upon whether or not to build Stonehenge, which still provides free Monuments in all cities, not allowing the other buildings to be built). The generic buildings will probably need to be modified to take into account the availability of the UBs, probably by reducing their production cost to make them a cheaper alternative.
One final optional concept would be the addition of a Grand Design civic, which basically gives each civ the option to tailor their abilities towards one of the victories in the game. These would also be enabled as the game progresses, with Time being a default Grand Design, which doesn't provide any bonuses. Essentially, the later the victory becomes enabled, the bigger the bonus to level the playing field a bit.
For example, early victory conditions like Conquest could be enabled once Bronze Working is researched and provide a slight production bonus when producing military units (allowing them to out produce rivals going for other victory conditions). Later on, when the Diplomatic victory is enabled by researching Mass Media, the civ might be awarded a massive production boost to build the United Nations (thus ensuring they are a candidate for votes) and provide a bonus to the attitudes of all AI civs (making them more likely to vote for the civ).
The idea of this mod is that there are more decisions for the player, and the theme of the civilization becomes defined by the player's choices in the game. Obvious choices will be toned down in favour of variety: Do you build the more defensive Horse Archer or the more mobile Keshik? Do you go with the stronger Praetorian or the quicker to build Swordsman? Do you build the Jaguar now, or wait to connect the city to Iron?
I'd like some feedback on the ideas for this mod, as well as some advice on how to get started with this idea. Like I said, I have no experience with modding in general (I primarily come from a tabletop background), let alone Civ 4 specifically.
