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

[woodelf]

Maybe in the Alpha stage you could try to eliminate them altogether and assume everyone is the same hodge-podge of religion? If the need arises later with playtesting and brainstorming then you could attach some to later techs. Maybe a cyborg religion....

 

[JBG]

Hmm. Possibly.

I think that's a good idea. We (assuming you're on board) should work towards a basic alpha to test the ideas and what graphics we can.

So, we need:

1. Graphics
2. Coding
3. Support/testing

Graphics

• Terrain
• Placeholder unit skins
• Flags
• Leaderheads
• Technologies
• Improvements
• Cities

Coding

• XMLs
• The tech tree
• Python
• &c

Support/Testing

• Do we want multiplayer?
• Support for other mods?
• Playtesting/bug elimination
• Planning ahead for the SDK

Most images can be done by me - I'm reasonably proficient at XML-ing too.
If we have Haarbal and Woodelf doing skins for terrain &c, we still need programming/python where necessary.

Oh, by the way, an aside: should I have placeholder ggraphics for leaderheads or should I try and find suitable pictures online?
And thouhts for leaders would be good. I'll prepare a master list of terrain, improvements, civs, &c. We need to brainstorm on units, city improvements and the tech tree, people!

 

[Haarbal]

i have some spare time at the moment, so i'll have a look through the civIII mods, to see if there are some good ideas/leaderheads

haarbal

 

[woodelf]

About LHs, keep it simple and 2d. Haarbal found AoW ones off the net for his Fantasy pak.

I've been thinking about Civics and borrowing heavily if not completely from AG and Kael I've come up with these very tentative suggestions. Again, keeping it simple. While you can have 7-10 categories with another 7-10 choices for each civic it simply isn't necessary.

Economy - Basically how your civ operates
- Decentralization - default
- Conquest - from FfH so it looked good.
- Environmentalism - how you value the moon versus your economy

Military - how do you run it?
- ?????

Social - This could combine lots of miscellaneous civics
- ????

Government - self-explanatory
- Depotism - default
- Aristocracy
- Democracy
- Dictatorship
- ?????

Education - how your civ values learning
- no schooling
- Apprenticeship
- Military Schools
- University

And once you fine tune the factions you might need more/less to suit them.

More scattered thoughts to come....

 

[woodelf]

And I'm worried too much about Python...yet. We need techs, the tech tree, buildings, and then units. At least we need a listing of each.

We can most likely "borrow" another Mod's tech tree and fill in Lunar techs and see how it looks. No sense starting from scratch.

 

[Haarbal]

anybody knows some good looking space games with possible LH's?

 

[woodelf]

anybody knows some good looking space games with possible LH's?

Galactic Civilizations, Master of Orion 3?

Guild Wars? (never played it though)

 

[Chalid]

Galactic Civilizations, Master of Orion 3?

Guild Wars? (never played it though)

They dont have many human looking guys in these games.

About religions. What about making them kind of political ideas. e.g. Independend Moon, Unified Moon, Back to Earth, Unification with Earth and so on. Later on Civis and relations could be dependend on these religions.

As you see i try to give some ideas but unfortunatly can't provide any real help at the moment, as i'm working on the FfH buildings when not at work and my grilfriend is not around.

 

[Belizan]

I'd say keep things simple - say from present day (+20 years or so) to 2300. If we do it in terms of months (can we actually *have* months in this game?) that would give us between 280-ish and 3,200-ish turns to work with. We don't want it to last *too* long, do we?

Yeah, we can do months.

Also, once people start having the 'independence' civic we could have massive waves of 'barbarian' units - Earthbound nations trying to reclaim the colonies.

Certainly doable.

Does anyone know if it is possible to program in Civ II-style missile weapons? That'd be cool.

Someone would have to remind me how they worked?

EDIT 1:
How about the first few units have no combat but other special abilities? That could result in a really diverse 'army' by the time the first brute-force unit comes along.

The trouble here is, teaching the AI to use the abilities. One can add a great many special abilities to units right now, but the AI won't know what to make of them :/

It'd be nice to imagine a world without religion (without meaning to be inflammatory or anything!).

...

What's the general consensus here?

Well, that was part of what I was thinking when I suggested co-opting the religion system for cultural philosophies. That way you can have the diplomatic effects of the spread of things like Democracy and the attitude adjustments between Democratic and Autocratic populations--the idea that your colonists have their own ideas as to what civics they like, basically. And introduce new future looking themes for the next generation of ideas related to how people should live, organize themselves and interact with each other and their environment.

Python Coding

Just give me specific examples of what you want coded and how you want it to work, and I'll tell you if it's possible, and, presuming it is, I'll write it.

 

[JBG]

I don't know about coding yet... Woodelf's probably right: better to see what we need doing before starting.

I now have flags and leaders for all 15 civs. In each of the three civ. categories, two dominant ones have two leaders - all the others have one.

I have assigned leader traits and have replaced 'financial' with 'populous'. There are eleven in all: as well as the eight normal ones, there are three others, which come with major bonuses and some handicaps attatched - these are 'Economic', 'Scientific', and 'Domestic' - Each civ has one of these mega-traits in addition to two others which come with the leader(s).

The traits are: Aggressive, Creative, Diplomatic, Expansive, Industrious, Organised, Philosophical, and Populous.

I am compiling a little bible with all the proposed terrains, civs, traits, leaders, civics, &c in it.

Things we need to brainstorm are units, unique units, technologies and city improvements.

I'll post the bible when it's finished.

Here are some more flags:

In order: Alliance (independent), Coalition (ind.), Lunar Prospecting Corporation (commercial), Orbital Limited (comm.), Organisation of Space Exploration Corporations (comm.),
2nd row: Republic (ind.), Universal Business Industries (comm.), Unified Trade Authority (comm.), Federation (ind.), Union (ind.)

Hopefully they're all sufficiently unique and varied so as not to pose an identification problem...

 

[woodelf]

See that's why I wasn't worried about Python....Belizan can swoop in and rescue us when we know what we need.

The flags look nice JBG. Very varied.

Did you look at my rough Civics outline?

 

[JBG]

Yes - I like it. I'm incorproating some of it into the bible (I'm currently doing terrain). I'll include some of the art from my Civ II mod for the terrain, so Haarbal knows vaguely what to go for.

Do you have any ideas for unique units? bearing in mind that we have five scientific, five economic and five militaristic civs...

 

[woodelf]

For units we'll need basic level soldiers, scouts, and workers at first. I'd shy away from UUs for now, too much skinning for one unit per civ.

Should the scouts be motorized? What are our options for land vehicles? I suppose at first the soldiers might be simple hand to hand before technology to shoot in space is realized.

And the tech tree can at least start at our current (real life) tech level. No more researching Writing, Animal Husbandry, ect. Although we will need Lunar Roads, Biodomes, Solar Cells. The first era will simply need to be surviving with Earth's help. After that it should get desperate...

City Improvements: randomly listed

Food Synthesizer
Recycling Tanks (like SMAC)
Power Cells
Anti-asteroid Beams
Hospital
UV shield

Techs: again random

Beam Weapons
Lunar Terrain Suspension (for vehicles)
Mineral Extraction
Simple Generators
Trade

The possibilities are endless. Some/most can be scavenged from SMAC or your Moon mod JBG. Or some from Modern tech in Civ4.

 

[woodelf]

Yes - I like it. I'm incorproating some of it into the bible (I'm currently doing terrain). I'll include some of the art from my Civ II mod for the terrain, so Haarbal knows vaguely what to go for.

Do you have any ideas for unique units? bearing in mind that we have five scientific, five economic and five militaristic civs...

Crosspost about the UUs. I think 15 is a ton, but I do love them. Once we get units we can always rename an old one and give it different stats to make it a UU placeholder for now. Skins will eventually filter in.

Are you planning on lots of espionage? I'm not keen on it, but it has it's place.

 

[Haarbal]

well, for the scout you can use a random foot unit, or you can use the model that's also used for the dwarven tank (i think it was the Mark V), make it a lot smaller and you've got a scout vehicle

 

[JBG]

Espionage sounds good actually. It'd be good to have hacker units that can steal maps and cash, as well as spies that can do higher-level missions.

I've got five groups of civics, each with six options:
Foreign Policy, Government, Social, Legal, Economy

One terrain improvement idea I'm rather proud of is the power line - you need to connect some advanced improvements to a colony via power lines so it can start working.

Espionage - we can stick to just two basic units: the hacker and the spy.

I'd try reskinning the modern worker variant - that way you can get rid of the odd hair and the tunic.

I like the idea of small mechanised rovers too. Add a little solar cell to the top and some spindly wheels and you're laughing. Great idea!

 

[woodelf]

I'll look at the modern worker and the MarkV that I think Mumin did. Solar cells would make the land vehicles Lunarish. Not sure what can be done about the wheels though.

The hacker and the spy will be tough to skin, unless we use different models other than the spy. Maybe something like the Lando's Bespin dude with implants on his head so he can communicate?

I see lots of machine-man melding going on for some of the civs. That would sure cut down on food needs...

 

[Haarbal]

well, less food on the moon is good, unless you like moon rocks for breakfast

 

[Lapoleon]

Maybe you could also use some elements from DireAussies random event mod, it already has earthquakes included, and there was some talk that it wasn't too diffiult to do meteors as well. The only problem is that the mod doesn't work anymore since the latest patch, but it might return.
With foreign policy as a civic, do you mean the others civs, or the earthbound nations?
I think the spy could be made to resemble someone in space. Like Lunar Special Forces or something along those lines.
Nice flags by the way.

 

[JBG]

Foreign policy civics modify your relations with other civs on the moon, the likelihood of treaty outcomes, &c, as well as how your population reacts to foreign culture and citizens.

For example, the Isolationism civic increases revenue from internal trade routes but reduces the number of foreign trade routes available, as well as reverting all foreign opinion to you to 'neutral'.

I don't think machine-man hybrids would be a good idea... what if the AIs rebel?

I think the Bespin dude is a good way to go - the original worker (or at least his head) would be ideal for that. It would also let you reskin gun units with elaborate hats (thinking cyborg sniper here).

I'd rather *not* have mechanically enhanced people, though, myself...