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

[JBG]

Ah, but Russia is becoming increasingly involved with the ESA. I suppose I could make it another civ. Always open to suggestions.

The ESA relies heavily on Russian participation, you see.

As for the asteroid defence, it's a neat idea. By way of terrain improvements, here's what I have in mind:

Roads => Tracks (just compacted trails of dust - no wind on the moon so it would stay nice and solid and flat)
Irrigation => Glasshouses
Mines => Mines
Farms => Biodome
Mill => Refinery
Fort => Barricade
Others as I think of them (thinking, for example, of the RADAR tower that can detect hidden units and has a long LOS)

 

[woodelf]

Biodomes would be cool, and also a python script that has a random chance of something falling from the sky destroying the dome or any improvement for that matter. I like the idea posted earlier about falling debris also potentially being very, very good. Like the old pods from SMAC.

What about a civ from the Private sector? There's nothing saying that such rich industrialist couldn't put a colony on the moon, ala Moonraker. Hell, that guy would a nice LH.

 

[Falkonite]

In case such a disaster would happen, woodelf, the colonists would learn of this tradegy and learn to build enforced domes? Anyone considered about the 'learning the bad way' -option?

Microsoft. A must-civ. The moment colonising the Moon won't take all of Bill Gates' money, I bet you ten to one that he will.

Railroads. Hmm... Underground network?

Lagrange points.
Consider them, as they are ideal places for orbital colonies.
Maybe you could build a space-settler that would be able to 'settle' empty space, creating a trade link between Moon and Earth? A World-Wonder? "L1"?


Putting some ideas in your heads

 

[JBG]

I was thinking of having it start with one of the five space agencies, and then using Python to introduce (or at least activate) other civs as we go along. Although this is headin off into scenario territory a bit...

Basic terrain types would include:
- Cratered
- Sulci (dust mounds)
- Crater ejecta
- Crater wall (hill-like, formed into circular craters)
- Marina basalt (desert equivalent)
- Polar (tundra)
- Dust plains
- Dust sea (ocean eqv.)

I'm copying a lot from my Civ II mod here, but hey! I actually researched that one for a change. If you look at the map for it, it's actually (imho) quite an accurate map of the lunar terrain.

I don't think space/open space/low orbit/whatever should be a terrain type - that would get a bit complimicrated, methinks.

A lagrange point station (or control of it) could be a good idea for a wonder.

I don't know about a 'microsoft' civ. But I *was* thinking of doing some independent civs.


Special resources (basic ideas):

Water Ice
CO2 Ice
Crystals
Carbon
Hydrogen
Aluminium
Uranium
Copper
Titanium
Sulphur
Iron

Since the Moon is made of *exactly* the same stuff as Earth (if you know how the moon was formed you'll know what I mean ) then one can assume that many of the elements we have (and need) on Earth can be found on the Moon.

As well as making up interesting-sounding city names, I was thinking of doing the map (which I can start doing shortly) based on actual photos of the Lunar surface, deciding about the terrain, and then choosing the starting locations based on playability. That way, city names can be named after Lunar features near that civ's starting point.

That's what I did in the Civ II mod I did (which, in case you haven't noticed, I'm using as a kind of template).

Does anyone know if it's possible to *add* new base terrain types or overlays? I/we might not need them, but it'd be useful to know...

 

[GeneralMatt]

Maybe for railroad make it a glass covered pathway, so that people won't have to get all suited up just to walk a little distance? And you would leave the sped up travel to represent that.

 

[cmichailovlee]

I think a mod like that would be very fun! Especially with all the ideas you have in the works...it would be cool, though, to somehow combine a lunar mod with an "earth" mod...so that once you built the Apollo Project, it would open up lunar exploration and you could jump back and forth between the two...but that's just wishful thinking on my part!

 

[Haarbal]

whatsa cratar ejecta?
mountains or something?
i also like the idea of the indipent colonists and when i thought of it, microsoft also came up in my head . i think it's best to use some major companies for the colonisation. examples: Microsoft (machine software), Shell (Energy suplying) etc.
btw, check the graphics section for recolored water (recoloured terrain-> moon like terrain)

 

[JBG]

I was thinking of having a bit of rivalry between the five space agencies (NASA, ESA, ASEC, CSA, ISA) and a number of corporate civilisations.

Prototype corporate agencies:
UBI: Universal Business Industries
UTA: Unified Trade Authority
SEC: Space Enterprise Conglomerate

Thinking about it, having a play-off between, say, the five exploration agencies and five corporations sounds good.

Remember earlier we were talking about religions and civics? Perhaps that could come to play in it too.

---
@cmichailovlee: What, sort of like Test-of-Time style? Sounds neat, but how would you do it? Inter-map modding was/is *hell* with Test of Time.

@Haarbal: crater ejecta is the splat-mark shaped white stuff that you get around newer craters. Essentially it's stuff splashed out by impacts that's normally inaccessible and below the surface, so it'd be really full of useful minerals, &c. Look at a photo of the moon - wherever you see a splash-mark, that's crater ejecta.

Mountains will feature as well - there are natural mountain ranges on the moon, although I think I'll have two degrees of mountains: accessible and inaccessible.

I'll check out the recoloured water.

 

[Belizan]

Reading over this thread, I like the approach you are taking. I'm not really into the harder science aspects of colonization (or, rather, not especially knowledgable about it), but I can help you get pieces working in Python if you like.

You could do business philosophies (or "colonization philosophies, etc.") instead of religions, if you like. Or National sentiments.... Have corporations potentially be tied to various countries using the religion engine or truely multinational.

One side note. It is not currently possible in Python to add a player dynamicly. The only options for controlling players and "adding" new ones requires a scenario and putting in "dummy" players who you revive later in the scenario. I intend to change that as soon as the SDK comes out.

 

[Falkonite]

All XML in CivIV needs to work IMO is some decent common sense.
Count me in for the developement.

 

[woodelf]

I'm still interested, just don't know what your gameplan is JBG. Other than making the Civ2 moon scenario how much have you completed?

Like Falkonite stated; the XML stuff is easy. There are plenty of Python people around now and it looks like there's 3-5 people willing to playtest. Now all we need is a plan....

 

[JBG]

Okay, how about this: We have fifteen civs, broken down into three groups.

The first five are the five major scientific exploration organisations:
*NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
*ASEC: Asian Space Exploration Consortium
*ESA: Europen Space Agency
*CSA: Commonwealth Space Agency
*ISA: International Space Administration

Then, we have five major corporations:
*UBI: Universal Businesses Incorporated
*OL: Orbital Limited
*OSEC: Organisation of Space Exploration Corporations
*SEI: Space Enterprise Industries
*LPC: Lunar Prospecting Corporation

Then, we have five loose coalitions of independent colonists:
*Federation
*Coalition
*Alliance
*Republic
*Union

Which results in three overall philosophies: scientific, profiteering and independent.

I looked carefully at the XML leaderhead file, and as well as leader characterisitics and civics, you can also define something called 'flavour'. This, I think, determines which units, buildings and technologies the leader will plump for.
For example:

<FavoriteCivic>CIVIC_REPRESENTATION</FavoriteCivic>
<Traits>
<Trait>
<TraitType>TRAIT_EXPANSIVE</TraitType>
<bTrait>1</bTrait>
</Trait>
<Trait>
<TraitType>TRAIT_CREATIVE</TraitType>
<bTrait>1</bTrait>
</Trait>
</Traits>
<Flavors>
<Flavor>
<FlavorType>FLAVOR_MILITARY</FlavorType>
<iFlavor>5</iFlavor>
</Flavor>
<Flavor>
<FlavorType>FLAVOR_GROWTH</FlavorType>
<iFlavor>2</iFlavor>
</Flavor>
</Flavors>

So we can use this in conjunction with religion, civics and leader traits.
The map is coming on well: I am using NASA photos and Cambridge University's invaluable Atlas of Astronomy to help placement of craters and mountain ranges.

It looks like we may *not* have to add new terrain types after all - what we have already may be sufficient, for Lunar terrain is not as varied as Terran.

 

[woodelf]

Those 15 civs sound reasonable.

As a side note I tried to skin a worker into a space suit last night.....quite an ordeal. He's not perfect, but I'll try and tweak him later on. Since you can't remove hair, loose clothes, ect the suit and helmet look kind of dumb.

 

[Chalid]

Until we get an .nif converter the main problem with such a mod will be that on moon you will need a great amount of vehicles, and so far we only have 5 tanklike-models, 5 airplanes, an ICBM and 4 usable ships.

On the other hand i would find it quite cool if the main attack forces would be foot soldiers needing transportation tunnels (roads) to be able to reach the combat area.
Soldiers without Vehicles would of course be not very good at combat except inside Buildings or tunnels, as even a minor hit might destroy their oxygen tanks.

 

[Belizan]

Yeah, I was thinking vis a vis combat, that settlements would have sort of the opposite dynamics from terrestial CivIV. Rather then providing defense and being generally hard to damage, they would be very susceptible to damage and generally a battlefield of last resort, at least for the defenders.

It seems to me that lunar settlement would in a hostile environment such as this would cause most factions to try to build underground bases in reinforced bunkers, making terrain and surface issues less relevent :/. I suppose you could take the attitude that the "cities" are the underground bases, the buildings the modules and facilities they've built in them, and the "terrain" being the gathering efforts of the colonists on the surface. Pity we can't do layered maps. Well, without the SDK at least.

 

[JBG]

@ Woodelf: Yes, I thought that might be a problem. Still, it wouldn't hurt to have some skins available (thanks for that experiment, btw). At the very least we could have placeholder units until the SDK comes out.

@ Chalid: Ditto. Yes, I think that early units should have no defensive bonuses - until you can get armoured spacesuits (which will be either cheap, crappy and very heavy, or light, expensive and advanced).

Similarly, I completely agree with Belizan. I think cities could have two 'options' (think mega-improvements here) - either they can be bog-standard concrete armoured buildings, which have good defensive bonuses but make some people unhappy, or nice big open attractive biodomes which make people happy and add health - but that come with no defensive bonuses (or even negative defensive bonuses).

Btw: I HAVE FINISHED THE LUNAR MAP. Looks quite good imho, and I have all the major geographical features (the landmark ability is useful) - including the Mares and the large craters. I had great fun doing the Mare Orientale (which is a huge impact crater with lots of mountains around it).

I'll post a link to it on my next post, along with details on how many civs it has, &c, &c.

Not that I need it or anything - but is it possible to add civs to a savegame? Might come in handy if we think there are too few slots.

 

[Haarbal]

i'll see if i'm able to reskin the terrain, to create a more lunar feeling. don't trust me completely, it can take a lot of days (if i even succeed at it), so if you got something else, use that instead.

haarbal

 

[JBG]

Thanks!

Now, about that map:
-> Before I fired up the World Builder I specified a Large Lakes map (so the AI is closest to be able to cope with the terrain).
-> There are 11 civ slots plus the Barbarians (that's why I asked if it was possible to add civs by modfying a savegame in notepad)
-> The map is very hilly/rocky and has plenty of open land (the mares) and even more mountains and hills (craters)
-> Most major landforms are named and laid out as close as possible to scans of the Lunar surface.

Here's the savegame (You MUST load it via the worldbuilder I think):
Civ4MoonMap.zip

Now, terrain. I created the map with the following Civ-Moon terrain conversion list in front of me:
Base Terrain:
Desert = Cratered (rough, most common terrain)
Plains = Dust Plains (flatter, common)
Grassland = Maria Basalt (flattest, not very common)
Tundra = Bare Rock (flat, not very common)
Mountain = Mountain (Ranges and at centre of big craters)
Hills = Crater Wall (rough, found mainly in circles around craters)
Coast = Dust Sea (In long thin lines like rivers, where terrain is flat)

Overlays:
Ice = Polar (high chance of water ice)
Jungle = Sulci (rills of dust, quite common)
Forest = Ejecta (found in patterns around recent craters and in lines in Maria.)
Snowy Pine Forest = Frosty Ejecta (contains ice crystals: source of water)

River and Floodplain not used.
Oasis not used either; can be used as a water resource.

There are NO civilisations or units or cities placed so far.

 

[woodelf]

SO far, so good JBG. I'll look into my worker and hopefully post a pic tomorrow.

I'm no Lunar expert, but what sort of warfare will be fought? Hand to Hand, projectile weapons, beams, ????

 

[Mauritania]

Maybe you could organise have a government civics that allows for Luna regional government,autonomy and independence.

IMHO it depends on how far in future you wish to take the tech tree. I mean if humanity survives a million years in the future I'm pretty sure we could alter the gravity of the moon for Terraforming, probabily build another moon.