Hi,
I recently got back into Civ 5, bought Brave New World, enjoyed the enhanced base game for a bit and then went looking for more. I really wanted to play this mod so I tried it out hoping it would work with just BNW (since it basically includes all the G&K features other than the civs). Of course I quickly noticed some obvious (missing textures) and less obvious (missing units) issues.
But after digging into the SQL a bit and figuring out how things work, it seems to me that all of can be solved to make it playable some way or another. The biggest issue is really easy: half the ranged cavalry line is missing because the newly created units are templated off UNIT_HUN_HORSE_ARCHER, which is a civ not in BNW. Just changing that to UNIT_MONGOLIAN_KESHIK (which is in BNW) makes it work perfectly fine. I think that change has no other ill effect (it's just the base template for the unit, cost and strength and all that gets overridden later anyway).
Some other units are using graphical assets that are missing, but replacing those with others makes them work: I made my Tercio look like a Landsknecht, Dromon like a Galley, the War Elephant like the Siamese version and the Zeppelin like a Triplane. It looks a little weird but it is playable, and I gave them different flags than the "standard" units with those models to tell them apart. (There's also an issue with the Celtic pantheons being available to all civs but those can just be deleted to solve that.)
Has anyone ever tried this before? Are there any weird known gotchas that I'm still going to run into? I have played a game halfway into Renaissance right now and for now it looks like I've shaken out all the remaining issues... nothing else seems weird or missing anymore and I'm having a blast playing it.
Also, is there any interest in me making these hacks available for others? I think almost everyone who got into Civ 5 late never bought G&K because all the changes are basically part of BNW already, so I would assume more people might be in my situation (paying $30 for a few extra civs in a 10 year old game is a somewhat tall order). I thought maybe I could upload a .patch file somewhere and link it from a comment on the Wiki install page so others could try it when they look at the mod's requirements? Or would you rather people don't play it at all instead of playing a weird looking and potentially subtly broken version? (If there is interest, I think it might even be possible to integrate this into the main mod... would just have to guard all the SQL additions with WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT some thing that only exists when G&K is loaded).)
edit: Attached my changes below for posterity just in case anyone is interested. Extract these two files into the Community Balance Overhaul mod directory (usually "My Documents/my games/Sid Meier's Civilization 5/MODS/(2) Community Balance Overhaul"). Then you need to edit "(2) Community Balance Overhaul (v ??).modinfo" (e.g. with Notepad) to add both <File> (import="0", don't need md5) and <UpdateDatabase> tags for both files. Make sure no_GnK_adjustments_pre.sql is the *first* and no_GnK_adjustments_post.sql is the *last* <UpdateDatabase> tag in the whole list.
I recently got back into Civ 5, bought Brave New World, enjoyed the enhanced base game for a bit and then went looking for more. I really wanted to play this mod so I tried it out hoping it would work with just BNW (since it basically includes all the G&K features other than the civs). Of course I quickly noticed some obvious (missing textures) and less obvious (missing units) issues.
But after digging into the SQL a bit and figuring out how things work, it seems to me that all of can be solved to make it playable some way or another. The biggest issue is really easy: half the ranged cavalry line is missing because the newly created units are templated off UNIT_HUN_HORSE_ARCHER, which is a civ not in BNW. Just changing that to UNIT_MONGOLIAN_KESHIK (which is in BNW) makes it work perfectly fine. I think that change has no other ill effect (it's just the base template for the unit, cost and strength and all that gets overridden later anyway).
Some other units are using graphical assets that are missing, but replacing those with others makes them work: I made my Tercio look like a Landsknecht, Dromon like a Galley, the War Elephant like the Siamese version and the Zeppelin like a Triplane. It looks a little weird but it is playable, and I gave them different flags than the "standard" units with those models to tell them apart. (There's also an issue with the Celtic pantheons being available to all civs but those can just be deleted to solve that.)
Has anyone ever tried this before? Are there any weird known gotchas that I'm still going to run into? I have played a game halfway into Renaissance right now and for now it looks like I've shaken out all the remaining issues... nothing else seems weird or missing anymore and I'm having a blast playing it.
Also, is there any interest in me making these hacks available for others? I think almost everyone who got into Civ 5 late never bought G&K because all the changes are basically part of BNW already, so I would assume more people might be in my situation (paying $30 for a few extra civs in a 10 year old game is a somewhat tall order). I thought maybe I could upload a .patch file somewhere and link it from a comment on the Wiki install page so others could try it when they look at the mod's requirements? Or would you rather people don't play it at all instead of playing a weird looking and potentially subtly broken version? (If there is interest, I think it might even be possible to integrate this into the main mod... would just have to guard all the SQL additions with WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT some thing that only exists when G&K is loaded).)
edit: Attached my changes below for posterity just in case anyone is interested. Extract these two files into the Community Balance Overhaul mod directory (usually "My Documents/my games/Sid Meier's Civilization 5/MODS/(2) Community Balance Overhaul"). Then you need to edit "(2) Community Balance Overhaul (v ??).modinfo" (e.g. with Notepad) to add both <File> (import="0", don't need md5) and <UpdateDatabase> tags for both files. Make sure no_GnK_adjustments_pre.sql is the *first* and no_GnK_adjustments_post.sql is the *last* <UpdateDatabase> tag in the whole list.
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