Rallying call for all interested: Colonisation of the Moon mod!

[JBG]

I'm beginning to make a mod about the colonisation of the Moon.

This thread, therefore, is a rallying cry for anyone interested in helping out with graphics, hardcore python programming, &c, &c.

I'll outline what I'm doing so you know:

1: The Civs:

1: NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
*Led by America
*Cyan colour
*Emphasis on wealth and production

2: ESA, the European Space Agency.
*Led by Russia, France, Italy, Germany, &c
*Dark blue colour
*Emphasis on science and production

3: ASEC, the Asian Space Exploration Consortium.
*Led by China, Japan, &c
*Yellow colour
*Emphasis on science and population

4: ISA, the International Space Agency.
*Led by Brazil, Indonesia, &c, but supported by the United Nations
*White colour
*Emphasis on culture and population

5: CSA, the Commonwealth Space Agency.
*Led by India, Canada, Australia, UK, &c
*Pale green colour
*Emphasis on science and wealth

2: The Terrain
Obviously, Lunar terrain is rather different: A realistic map similar to the lakes style of random map. 'Water' could be soft dust or similar, with skimmer units designed to float on it.

3: The Units
Spacesuited men, lunar rover vehicles, skimmer ships and spaceship 'air' units are the order of the day, methinks. As with the terrain, I can provide graphics, although it would be nice to have some animations...

4: Programming
I have a good grasp of XML but absolutely none on Python. Obviously a mod is a lot of work, and while I am prepared to go it alone, it'd be nice to make it a joint effort.


Anyway, I hope I've sown some ideas. And anyone who'd like to help - I'd be happy to have you!

 

[12monkeys]

As far as I know, Russia ist not member of the ESA. Russia has its own space agency.

 

[woodelf]

The idea is compelling. Are the 5 factions starting with 1 base on the moon? Once they get there are they fending for themselves, no longer getting supplies from Earth? Are the barbarians going to be green warriors? Also the wild animals could be skinned into being wild moonbeasts.

I don't know how you'll pull off spacesuits yet, but with imagination anything is possible.

What sort of techs? Mastery of the moon terrain types? Terraforming will be huge. Solely future tech? What sort of resources are you planning? Also, will there be solely food, hammers, gold? Maybe you'll need power instead of food or something.

Sorry to ramble, but I think this has a lot of potential...

 

[JBG]

Yes. Each civ starts off with a single base (city names, btw are after real landmarks near the initial base) and some units.

The idea is that they start receiving supplies from Earth but after a short amount of time are forced to fend for themselves.

Barbarians (and possible other civs) will be independent colonists, those who want independence for the lunar colonies, &c, &c.

Wild animals... don't know about those. Will think on it.

Spacesuits are easy to do - just incorporate them into the unit's skin.

Techs will start off simple (solar panels, cyanobacteria, hydroponics, &c) and get more advanced. Yes, futuristic but not un-scientific.

Terraforming actually *can't* be huge because Luna simply cannot be terraformed (well, not before we develop technology that is *way* in the future anyway - talking 1,000s of years here). Improvements will be things like glasshouses and mines &c, terraforming could be making harsh terrain like hills more accessible.

Terrain itself will be things like craters, maria basalt, hills, mountains, dust plains, &c.

Resources will be things like oxygen, water ice, CO2 ice, metal ores, nitrates, things like that.

Food, hammers, gold will be updated a bit but will remain very much the same. I was thinking either oxygen or water for food, but then the colonists actually *would* need food as well...

I agree - that's why I'm doing it!

 

[Haarbal]

you mnight want to have a look at the martian scenerio, that was in CivII: Multiplayer gold. i contains a full tech tree, and a lot of buildings/units, which can be used for this mod.

 

[woodelf]

I was wondering if food could be manufactured using solar or wind power somehow. Since you won't be farming per se, maybe harvesting power would allow you to reproduce and grow as a city?

I think terraforming will be huge eventually when you can drill aquifers to get water or somehow "grow" a hybrid form of grass. But if you get away from food altogether then terraforming could solely be used to gain the other things like hammers, ect.

What about instead of wild animals you have microbial barbarians that can attack and kill your scouts, workers. Maybe they can't enter your culture or perimeter, but out in the wild they run rampant?

 

[Mauritania]

Is there any way you could use commerce to generate food as though you're trading with the homeworld in exchange for raw materials.

 

[JBG]

@ Haarbal:
That's actually where I got the idea. I'm thinking of doing a similar thing (same civs anyway) for a colonisation of mars thing, but that's different.

@woodelf:
There is no atmosphere on the Moon, and *definitely* no such thing as aquifers (you seem to be thinking about Mars with that and the grass). You could have biodomes, however. Microbes can't exist on the moon, anyway.

Luna is *barren* we will not be able to terraform it for many reasons: its gravity is too small to hold liquid water or an atmoshpere, for one thing. By the time we *can* terraform Luna we probably will have progressed to the stage where we won't actually *need* to anymore.

But that's beside the point. Luna is a key stepping stone to the rest of the system so we will colonise it. We will probably build lunar greenhouses and biodomes on it, but we will be unable to truly terraform it.

My scenario is based on scientific facts, and I was secretly thinking of doing a Mars one in tandem with this (see the Kim Stanley Robinson books for that).

@Mauritania:
Almost certainly. One of the city improvements will be the 'imported goods' improvement which establishes a link with the Throneworld. However, I might make it become obsolete at some point...


Anyway, is anyone actually interested in helping here?

Sorry for the rant guys (slaps self on wrist).

 

[woodelf]

Oops, I was thinking of Mars, a bit.

I read the Robinson books and got caught up.

And to respond to the mini-rant I thought we were sort of helping you with a discussion.

And it is Sci-fi so anything could be possible with improved technology. Gravity generators, anaerobic (sp) microbes, and things are possible even if you don't want to go that way. I don't know what help I could be other than maybe trying a skin or two, looking through some XML files, or playtesting. I don't have time for Python learning yet, but I have a wealth of ideas (even if they are based on the wrong planetary body!)

 

[JBG]

Yeah, sorry about that

No - keep it coming. Seriously - I think it's good to have input from other angles. I don;t know about the terraforming bit, but you could certainly have conected biodomes. I don't know what would happen if you started connecting too many, however. You might get weather systems developing if you linked too many over a large area...

I was thinking of having a sort of open-ended mod rather like the Mars scenario in Civ.II I was hoping to include some Python events in it too.

One thing I was sitting on is the idea of having a solar storm after about 70 turns, which slows population growth, damages units, and, above all, cuts off all contact with the throneworld. THAT forces the colonists to go solo, and when contact is resumed, perhaps they don't like the idea of renewed control from Earth... hee hee.

I *really* miss the ease of the Fantastic Worlds editors!

 

[woodelf]

I think you should keep it simple and see how it plays. Graphics aren't that important yet. I think Python events aren't too bad after you've done one or a couple. Kael has done some wonderful ones in FfH.

To the nitty-gritty:
Do you have a tech tree? Can you make one? Have you altered the terrain graphically at all? Do you have a layout of your goals, wishlist, ect? Do you have buildings and units all figured out? If so, do you want to list them and tell when they become available and what they do? What about religion and civics? How are they playing into this?

I don't mind brainstorming...

 

[korvgubben]

If you really want do do this, which by the way I think is genius idea but really really hard to achieve, I'd be really glad to help you with reskinnig and buttons, eventually with some XML (for units).
It's gonna be hard work but as we say in France : "inmossible n'est pas Français"
(=impossible isn't french)

Send me messges if you want me to do units. To check what I done (it's only my firsts works so be gentle!!) :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=154347

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=154044

 

[Falkonite]

What if something would go wrong in the colonisation? Could that be reflected through something similar to global warming? Or maybe some disasters?
-Digging too deep and causing an earthquake that would have an ICBM's effect minus the fallout
-Dust storm that would kill settlers and workers?
-etc.

 

[JBG]

@ woodelf:
Keeping it simple is *definitely* agood idea!

A tech tree... well, I can lift most of the techs and units from my Civ II Moon mod (which is essentially the forerunner to this one) - I can't remember? Did I ever post that one?

The tech three *ought* not to be too difficult to mod, since if I keep it simple all I need to do is alter tech names without actually altering the layout of the tech tree at all (so tech number x still leads to tech number y but the names are different). Changing unit and building prerequisites will be easy.

Terrain graphics are interesting too. Has anyone tried monochroming the Civ 4 terrain graphics? Again, I can provide basic graphics with stuff from my Civ II mod (at the very least it can be placeholder work). Is it possible to *increase* the number of terrain types and overlays?

Buildings and units again can be lifted from the Civ II mod (again only the ideas - not the programming, obviously). Of course, because Civ 4 is so much more moddable, it'll be easier to have them do what you *want* them to do.

Religion and civics... now, that's interesting. Civics ought not to be a problem, but religion...

How ABOUT having, instead of religion or civics, having differing ideologies of colonisation? These being, all-out capitalist rushing, measured expansion, &c. It's hard to put into words, and the idea would work even better on a Mars scenario. But for now I'm keeping it on the moon (for now!).

Ideologies could represent different strategies and mind-sets for tackling problems with colonists and colonisation. For example, if we were to model the 5 civilisations on their real-life member states, ASEC would have a rather draconian outlook towards its own colonists, where as one such as the CSA might be more democratic and humane. Taking this further, ASEC would want to expand willy-nilly, but the CSA might also want to study the landscape before concreting it over.

@korvgubben, "Francais n'est pas imposibble aussi, je pense!" Those units look great!

@Falkonite:
Periodic solar storms are definitely a consideration. Also, every year, the Terran system (Earth and Luna) passes through the paths of a number of comets. Comets leave dust trails behind them that enter the Terran atmoshpere as shooting stars. On Luna, they would hit the surface at speeds in excess of 100 kilometres per second. Periodic, annual meteorite showers might add more flavour, n'est ce pas?

Also, moonquakes have been detected as Luna cools down. So deep mines could be occasionally destroyed by moonquakes and need repairing.

The occasional impact with something reasonably big might be intersting too. It is estimated that over 1000 tons of material lands on Luna every year!

 

[woodelf]

Also check out the Pentagenis mod for Civ3. I'm thinking you'll want a combo of Civ2, this, and your moon ideas.

I'll have tons more ideas after you list your techs, buildings, and units. Obviously the early units won't be warriors so we'll be shooting imaginary laser beams around...

Can you remove religion or simply call it something else? I like the policy/ideology substitution if it can be done. Lots and lots to think about. Keep it coming as I want to settle the moon now!

 

[JBG]

Okay, I'll mosey on over to the Civ II forums and post my moon mod. Go over and check it out!

I'll also delve into the old Rule.txt file (how I miss the good old days of Rules.txt!) and get the unit types, &c. I think I gave UUs to the civs in that scenario...

Watch this space. I'll post again in the next few mins.

{EDIT}:

Okay, here's the file:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Moon.zip

 

[JBG]

Sorry about the double-post here. Here's some improvements:

Barracks: Military Station
Granary: Mushroom Farm
Temple: CO2 Laundry
Market: Public Library
Library: Observatory
Courthouse: Mission Control
Walls: Permafrost Barricade
Aqueduct: Water Recycling
Bank
Cathedral: Instant MessagingTM System
University
Mass Transit: Waste Dump
Colosseum: Biodome Park
Factory: Manufacturing Plant
Manufacturing Plant: Electrolysis Plant
SDI Defence: Ion Shield
Recycling Centre: Trade Unions
Power Plant: Havonic Reactor
Hydro Plant: Gravitic Turbines
Nuclear Plant: Fusion Plant

Etcetera, Etcetera. More to come on demand, but play the scenario!

 

[woodelf]

Any thought given to Wonders? Obviously you can't borrow too many, if any at all...

 

[JBG]

Well, again I could lift some from my Civ II scenario - although the two mods will be very different - in Civ II you had no choice what the wonders did, whereas in Civ IV, (obviously) you do.

National wonders could include things like spy networks and particle accelerators; world wonders could presumably include things like the Lunar Calendar &c..?

 

[12monkeys]

Reading this thread let me think this is really good idea for a mod. Maybe I can add some suggestions :

Here some ideas for some "Moon" Wonders :

- Electro Magnetic Accellerator :
Don't know the correct english word for it. Its a long vertical elektro magentic rail, used to accelarate fright and to "shoot" it into the orbit and to earth.
Will increase trade and commerce. Could effect that the owner nation will get trade +5 and all others trade +2. Also the owner will get commerce +5 in the city wher it is located. In all other owners city commerce +1 due to the taxes the other nations have to pay to use the accelarator.
Of course it can only used when contact to earth is reestablished
BTW : Such a thing is used in R.A.Heinleins "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress".

- Asteroid Defense :
Something like SDI but instead for anti-nuke its for anti-asteroids.
Could effect significant less damage due to asteroid impacts for the ownsers nation.


Another ideas :
"Streets" should be leveled up to something like "linear rails" (again I don't know the correct english term). They also shold be disaplyed a bit as straight line instead of the curved things on earth.

And again : Russia should be a separate nation and not part of the ESA. The russian space agency is called "RKA" or formerly Russaviakosmos.