New Project: Lalande 21185 (Sci-Fi mod)

[DJ Bonebraker]

I know that I still have other projects that I'm working on and such, but I've intended from the beginning, that once I got the Final Fantasy mod (more or less) finished, I'd start on a mod based on the Lalande 21185 mod for Civilization II Test of Time.

Currently, I've been working on converting resources and terrain data from the game and this is what I have thus far:

Resources:

[Pre]
Name Food Shields Data ($) Terrain
Ice Worms 0 2 1 Tundra
Relic 0 0 3 Tundra
Thalarctos 1 1 0 Tundra
Pachyloumis 2 0 0 Tundra
Closbeast 1 1 0 Prairie
Vertida 2 0 0 Prairie
Artifacts 0 0 2 Salt Flats
Interzona 1 0 1 Salt Flats
Ruins 0 0 3 Foothills
Rare Earths 0 3 1 Foothills
Spark Bags 0 2 0 Burning Trees
Quench Fruit 2 0 0 Burning Trees
Adnausium 0 4 1 Mountains
Bauxite 0 5 0 Mountains
Razor Beast 2 1 0 Acid Shallows
Gracklings 1 1 1 Acid Shallows
Picus 2 0 0 Willies
Yellow Willies 0 0 2 Willies
Fia 3 1 0 Sea
Algae Mats 2 2 0 Sea
[/Pre]

Terrain:

Terrain	Food	   Shields	Trade	Irrigation	Mining	Road	Action
Graminiae	2	0	0	1	1	1	Plant Forest
Prairie	1	1	0	1	1	1	Plant Forest
Salt Flats	0	2	1	1	1	1	N/A
Tundra	1	0	1	1	0	1	Plant Forest
Foothills	1	1	0	0	2	1	N/A
Mountains	0	1	1	0	3	1	N/A
Burning Trees	1	1	1	0	1	1	Clear Forest
The Willies	0	1	2	0	0	1	N/A
Acid Shallows	1	0	1	0	0	1	N/A

The main thing I need to do (aside from creating suitable terrain for the Acid Shallows and Burning Trees and some final resource conversions) is to figure out the following:

Factions to indlude:

Humans:

The Feds (paranoid/xenophobic but good spies) Expansionistic and Militaristic (or maybe Militaristic and Industrious, since these guys will be representing just about every other government conspiracy theory trope)

Led by either Agent Dana Scully or Agent Fox Mulder...​

Cities: Area 51 (Capitol), NSA Complex, Hangar 18, Site 9, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, NORAD, The Pentagon, Little Pentagon, etc.​

Neo-Victorians (Steampunks): Scientific and Industrious... Basically these guys represent the Steampunk ethic, but just because they dress up like they came from the late 1800's, and their units look like they came straight out of one of H. G. Wells or Jules Verne's books does NOT mean that they will be pushovers: They embody the "Steampunk ethic" which means that not only does their stuff LOOK good, it is also more durable and well made than most other factions stuff is... The downside, of course, is that such emphasis on quality means that their stuff takes longer to build, too.

Leader: Queen Elizabeth or Kind Edward (Constitutional Monarchy)​

Cities: Londontown, Whitechapel, Boston, New York, Steamtown USA, other Victorian-esque locations​

Some Generic Colonist faction....


Other Humanoids:

Psilons (smart guys, your sterotypical grey aliens... Scientific and Religious)

Elerians (Blue-skinned space elves... Expansionistic and Religious)

Eldain Alliance: Elves and Dwarfs.... IN SPACE!!!! Yes, I'm going to be adding some "Warhammer 3K" flavor to this... Basically these guys are Religious and Industrious

Leader: Prince Tyrion III (Constitutional Monarchy)​

Cities: Alfheim, Hammerfall, Rivendell, Goldberg, Lothlorien, Moria, etc​

Da ORKS!!! (WAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!) Militaristic and Expansionist (DUH!)

Leader: Urfang Skullkrusher​

Cities: Gorkamorka, Gorbad, Urfang, etc (need to raid every orc city list for good orky names)​

....Of course, I MAY split the orks into two or more factions, based on Warhammer 40k Factions (Bad Moonz, Evil Sunz, Goffs, etc)....

Jarofan Federal Republic (One of my originals ): Scientific and Agricultural... The Jarofans sort of resemble a cross between ancient Sino-Japanese/Korean culture with a modern social-democratic political structure... very UN-warlike race. They come from the Epsilon Eridani system.

Leader: Governor Mitaki Tagalima​

Cities: Shin Shokutan, Dalian, Shin Kolima, Tagahala, Kilan, Laoshin, etc.​

Bugz:

Tachidi: Expansionist and Industrious.... Unlike most Insectiods, they don't have a Hive-type government.

Leader: Alpha Leader Bzzchrk Thzzzrik​

Cities: Who knows....​

Klackons: See Tachidi, but with a Hive Mind type government...

The (whatever the Alien race in the original Lalande 21158 mod was called): Scientific and Commercial.

Leader: Gonna have to dig up something from the Lalande 21158 scenario​

Cities: Ditto the above​

Saurians:

Sakkra: Militaristic and Agricultural (To represent the fast population growth the Sakkra have in Master of Orion)... VERY agressive... Will use Lizardmen units for most of the worker/infantry type stuff.....

Leader: TBD​

Cities: TBD​

Raas: Seafaring and Industrious, not so aggressive.

Leader: TBD​

Cities: TBD​

Borgs:

Meklar: Industrious and Militaristic

Leader: Overlord 0110110​

Cities: Meklon, Central Processing, Left Node, etc​

Cynoids: Commercial and Seafaring

Leader: Lord Cylar​

Cities: Cylon, Cyclotron, Nexus, The Matrix, Cybertron, Autobot City, etc​

Other Races:

TBD, depending on what kind of units I can scrape up....

Other/general concepts:

First of all, nobody will be able to build settlers... A generic "Colony Pod" will be auto-produced by the faction's capitol every 15 turns or so, with an additional "Colony Pod" generating SW available later on in the game.... Either that, or I could make Colony pods require 3-4 population points and make them buildable later on to slow down rapid expansion....

Also, I need to figure out a tech tree, but that will, in part, depend on what units and/or buildings I can find.....

Humans factions will share the basic "Colonist" worker unit and many other generic units and such... Same goes with the two "elven" factions, the Bugs and the Lizards....

Finally, I'm going to be concentrating on getting a WORKING MOD up and running FIRST and mess around with fancy graphics LAST... That was my biggest mistake with the Final Fantasy mod (i.e. waiting to add something in until I had graphics for it), and I won't be repeating that mistake.

Of course, SOMEONE had enough foresight to come up with a tentative LH library...

But more LH will need to be found/made... I MAY end up using Still images from MoO II for one or more faction, however......

Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

....BTW, anyone know how to set up tables in PHP-BB coding?

 

[wolf_brother]

Keep in mind that in scenarios such as this (and in the game in general) the expansionist trait is all-but worthless, especially past the first fifty turns of the game.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Ah, but I have something in mind for that:

You see, mid-grade and weak civ trait civs will be recieving special "trait" techs that allow them to build some kind of SW or other that relates to said trait... Expansionist civs will get a SW that grants a granary in every city OR one that will generate settlers (in addition to the capitol).... Or a SW that grants granaries in all cities on the same continent and a special worker that can cross impassable terrain (Willies and Acid Shallows) and build roads through said impassable terrain long before anyone else can....

Similarly Industrious civs will get a SW that grants some kind of special production-boosting building in cities on the same continent, Scientific civs will get a SW that doubles scientific research in the city it is built in, Commercial civs get a SW that acts like the collossus, etc.

FURTHERMORE, this is NOT a scenario... Like the original Lalande 21158 mod, it's full random map, so yeah....

Also, this is VERY MUCH a WIP... I'm still not sure what all races and factions I'll end up including, or what exactly the Culture Group splits will be... Currently it looks like possibly Human/Humanoid, Greenskins, Lizards, Bugs and Cyborgs....

Once I get the basic terrain done, then I'll worry a bit more about the factions.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Well, here's the Acid Shallows Terrain (replaces the normal swamp):

 

[tom2050]

The Acid Shallows looks awesome, and I bet it looks even better in game! I look forward to seeing where this mod goes... There are conversions you could probably use that I can do... check out this site and let me know if any may be of use. I will be doing every single one of these, but if you need any, I can put them on my list to do before I do just random ones.

Tom

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Thanks for the Offer!

Pretty much any kind of Bug will be greatly appreciated (the Insectoid civ's unit lineups are rather... SPARSE to put it mildly... All I have for them ATM is a worker, Advanced Infantry/Marine type unit and that's about it......)

I'll be working on the Burning Trees (forest replacement) next, as well as trying to convert the Refinery mine gfx.

Also, once I sit down and do a line-item comparison with the default Civ III Resources, I may end up adding more resources to the mod (20 seems kind of sparse), not to mention that some will be put on a "distributed" terrain list... I.e. instead of just appearing in the "Foothills", Ruins will also appear in Grasslands and Floodplains as well (i.e. where people would be likely to settle), Rare Earths will also appear in Mountains and Adnausium Ore will appear in Foothills as well as mountains, etc...

Here's a (very) tentative list on the potential resource breakdown:

Strategic (most of these are practically SCREAMING to be declared strategic):

Rare Earths, Bauxite (a.k.a. Aluminum), Adnausium Ore

Luxury (again, pretty much shoe-ins for this):

Relics/Artifacts (may just merge the two, since they are pretty much the same and Civ III allows more than just two types of resource per terrain type as well as multiple terrain types to have the same resource), Yellow Willies, and Picus

The rest, for now, are Bonus....

I'll probably add gold and/or silver and/or gems as additional luxury resources, along with a few other odds and ends resources just to fill the list out a bit...

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

I was a big big fan of Civ2: ToT. I look forward to seeing where this progresses.

 

[JSnider]

Nice outline so far .. and like the Acid Shallows Terrain also .. looking fwd to seeing where this goes.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Thanks! BTW, I may end up re-doing the Willies, since they're supposed to be purplish plants growing in a normal swamp, and I re-colored the base swamp to a purple color in the earlier version... Also, since apparently Civ II handles FORESTS in a similar manner to Civ III, the Burning forests should be a Snap...

Additionally, If Tom DOES convert some of the "Shade" and "Shadow" units from that site, I'd have enough units to tentatively add the Darlocks....

Also, I'll admit straight up that the Jarofan Federal Republic and the Eldain Alliance are actually two factions from a sci-fi story I've been kicking around for years (yes, it has elves and dwarves in space, and the Jarofans look mostly human, but have antennae projecting from their foreheads, purple eyes (mostly) and Coppery-colored hair (for the most part))...

Also, I'm wondering about the location, since Lalande 21185 IS only about 8 Light Years (give or take a few AUs) from Earth and about the same distance from Epsilon Eridani (Jarofan home system), that would mean that the Humans (or Jarofans) would be able to call up reinforcements fairly quickly with a powerful enough radio, since the one-way message travel time would only be about 7-8 years.....

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

I just thunked of something:

Here's my new ideas for some of the Human factions (David Weber fans will get the references):

Steampunk civ: The Kingdom of Manticore (Ruled by Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth III)... Government = Constitutional Monarchy

Military Great Leaders: Honor Harrington-Alexander, Hamish Harrignton-Alexander, Michele Henke, Alice Truman, Allister McKeon, Edward Saganami

Scientific Great Leaders: Allison Harrington, Alfred Harrington, Anton Zilwicki

Generic Colonist faction: Republic of Haven (Lead by Madame President Eloise Pritchart)
Government = Federal Republic

Military Great Leaders: Thomas Theisman, Lester Tourville, Javier Giscard, Victor Cachat, Amos Parnell, Esther McQueen.

Scientific Great Leaders: Shannon Foraker, Kevin Usher.

The best part is that designing the "air" units for Haven will be a snap.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Keep in mind that in scenarios such as this (and in the game in general) the expansionist trait is all-but worthless, especially past the first fifty turns of the game.

In TAM the Trojans are given an extra trait. That might be one way to balance the expansionists.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Yeah, that was kinda what I was thinking... I was also thinking about giving some kind of tech/unit for each civ based on their dominant trait(s)... I.e. Expansionist civs get the ability to build their second colony auto-producing SW earlier than everyone else or discount workers (half-cost) or possibly fast workers (150% - 200% work rate)......

 

[EmpressOfNona]

Okay, I know I haven't posted in a really long time... but I actually have been working on some stuff. I've actually been working more on fantasy graphics lately, but I do have some new(ish) scifi stuff as well that may be potentially useful.

I have some orbit terrain that's not completely finished and could still use some work, but still looks somewhat decent so far:

Spoiler :

View attachment 241264

I also made some advisor screens that I'm somewhat proud of (they are, of course, much bigger in real life. The ones in the second image are the science advisor screens; the rest are, from the top left: domestic, trade (data), military, culture, foreign, and umm... demographics):

Spoiler :

View attachment 241265

View attachment 241266

Also, I completely remade the domestic advisor that I originally made (See this thread if you don't know what I'm talking about):

Spoiler :

View attachment 241267

I also remade the cultural advisor, but I think she could still use some work. My military and science advisors also need work, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. I also have some other stuff I've been working on that's not finished yet. Anyway... yeah. BTW, those acid shallows look great.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Thanks for the support... Unfortunately, I'm not planning on incorporating the other planets into the mod (except as possibly alternate versions)... Too much work, LOL (Plus I hated the fact that I had to manage not one, but FOUR friggin' maps in the Civ II version... IMO, if they just limited it to one, maybe two, maps, it would have been perfect).

 

[EmpressOfNona]

Yeah, I suppose it wouldn't really be practical to include all four worlds since, besides all the work it would take, there just isn't really any way to do the multiple-worlds-in-one-scenario thing in Civ 3. I just thought I'd share some of the things I've been working on that related to this in some way (specifically things I could actually see possibly finishing in the foreseeable future ).

But anyway, this mod sounds awesome and I look forward to it!