Science Fiction mods

[hanskamp]

I wonder if there are mods of the following types:
- a pure Science Fiction mod, for example totally in the science fiction atmosphere. One of the mods could be or is: Star Wars;
- an extended IRL mod. This mod has the same characteristic of Civilization without mods, but as soon as the space ship lands on Alpha Centauri, the game is getting more and more science fiction. It was standard with Civilization II: Test of Time, one of the best Civilizations expansion packs. You start with a settler, your civ grows, get knights, gun powder, industrialization, modern warfare, spaceflight, robotic warfare, cyborgs, robots, space ships, flying battleships like dreadnoughts, etc.

So I wonder if there are one of these mods. Maybe one of you has made such a mod.

 

[The Great Apple]

Not yet. For one, we don't have the ability to make new models, so we are limited to reskins - makes it rather hard to make futuristic units.

Secondly, such a mod would take a LONG time to make. If you browse this forum, you will see several of such projects underway - but I wouldn't expect anything for a number of months at least.

 

[Anima Croatorum]

a SMAC mod will be a must. If nothing else but to hear Chairman Yangs quotes instead of those relatively dull ones that Nimoy tells.

 

[sovarn]

a SMAC mod is being made. Check the apolyton website.

I would personally like to have a star trek mod cos i feel the universe is very expanded to have a good mod of it.
There is a space wars thread in developement you might want to look at that.

And also I do fancy an extended civ mod with extra fantasy and super high tech units. much like CTP2 - missed that with civ felt it wasnt as epic.

 

[Spatzimaus]

As others have pointed out, the Apolyton people are doing a SMAC mod. I'm absolutely sure that you'll see a Warhammer 40k mod, and then some sort of Star Wars and/or Star Trek system. Plus, there'll be a handful of people who just generate new units for fun.

For myself, I'm making a future mod that will borrow heavily from the wonder movies, tech quotes, and units of SMAC, but remain on Earth as an extension of the current Civ game. I'm looking at adding 35-40 techs to the existing tree, most likely. For any future mod that intends to extend the tech tree, though, the devil's in the details. In SMAC, even though you were at the "modern" tech level, you were just starting out, populationwise. But if you stick the SMAC techs right on the end of the existing tree, you'll run into situations where benefits overlap (Internet vs Planetary Datalinks?), or where an early-SMAC wonder is just weak in an already-filled world map (Human Genome Project, Weather Paradigm). So, I'm going to have to change quite a bit anyway.

The biggest problem with these sorts of extended-tree mods is winning. Specifically, ask yourself: how many times have you ever played Civ, reached the "modern" era, and have had the game's outcome still be in doubt? So, if you add all of that futuristic stuff to the end of the tree, how often do you think people will even reach it? They'll do what they do now; get to tanks and modern armor, then roll over the competition until they reach domination, the spaceship, or the U.N.

End result, a LOT of things have to change, besides just adding more stuff to the tree. Fundamental balance issues need to be reworked, and that'll take time. Thankfully, other people will be spending that time making units and building graphics, so I'd expect to see some good futuristic mods down the road, just not any time soon.

 

[vbraun]

I'll be working on something like the Space Armada mod for Civ3 once we can make graphics. I'll probably end up stealing many of Smoking Mirrors ideas.

 

[The Great Apple]

I'm absolutely sure that you'll see a Warhammer 40k mod,

Good! I wish I was so sure

About the rest of your post - I agree.

 

[n003lb]

The biggest problem with these sorts of extended-tree mods is winning. Specifically, ask yourself: how many times have you ever played Civ, reached the "modern" era, and have had the game's outcome still be in doubt? So, if you add all of that futuristic stuff to the end of the tree, how often do you think people will even reach it? They'll do what they do now; get to tanks and modern armor, then roll over the competition until they reach domination, the spaceship, or the U.N.

End result, a LOT of things have to change, besides just adding more stuff to the tree. Fundamental balance issues need to be reworked, and that'll take time. Thankfully, other people will be spending that time making units and building graphics, so I'd expect to see some good futuristic mods down the road, just not any time soon.

I for one, have had plenty of games that reach the moderm age and I haven't won.

One thing about Civ IV, you don't have to start in the ancient era. You could start out at something like Industrial or Modern age, then you would almost certainly reach the new techs.

Personally, I turn off the Culture, Domination, and UN victories. I turn off the UN because I really don't like the way it's implemented right now, Culture because it's way too easy to win that way, and I never have cared for Domination. If I wanted to win by destroying my enemies, I would go for a Conquest victory.

Another thing, if we could somehow improve the AI so that it was more compitent (?) in the modern age, that would make a lot more games in doubt in the Modern Age.

I saw something on the forums here that a Warhammer mod is in development, and someone was looking for input on a Battletech/Mechwarrior mod. I would really like to see that one come out. Also, I think I saw someone talking about a War of the Worlds mod, but I don't know there.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Good! I wish I was so sure

The reason I'm confident is that according to some of the unit-making folks in these forums, they were already using the same 3D graphic engines/formats to create their old Civ3 custom units that the Civ4 engine wants. So, while you couldn't convert the Civ3 custom content directly, I'm sure that many of the people who churned out so many great Civ3 units will be translating their original files directly to Civ4.

Unfortunately, this assumes:
> These people are still here.
> They still have their original files.
> They care.
But once someone's figured out the exact format issues involved, I expect to see a whole slew of translated units show up. And frankly, that's all I think we really need; so much content was made for Civ3 that if we can even get a small fraction of that available in the near future, the custom mods will start showing up long before people get bored.

And really, we can be flexible on this. My "future" mod will include elves, zombies, dragons, etc. as bioengineered units, which means I can steal from the fantasy mods, for instance. In my Civ3 mod, I took one of the futuristic attack submarines someone made and used it as an attack aircraft, and it worked fine. Point is, while something like a Warhammer 40k mod needs exact conversions of units to function well, the rest of us can improvise, mix, and match to get something playable, which shouldn't take nearly as long.

 

[Crossbowman]

There is "Space wars" too. It is a mod that starts near the end of normal civ4. It is not an extended civ4 mod, but it may become one

 

[Spatzimaus]

One thing about Civ IV, you don't have to start in the ancient era. You could start out at something like Industrial or Modern age, then you would almost certainly reach the new techs.

True. But I'd rather the game have mechanisms that made this far less mandatory. For instance, one suggestion I posted in another thread, which'd almost definitely require the SDK:

Each tile has culture percentages based on the relative cultures of the nearby cities. The tiles my cities sit on might be 100% mine, but a border farm tile might be 60% me, 40% you. The simple suggestion was to give every unit an additional +1% strength for each 5% of its civ's culture in the square the battle takes place in. So, if you're attacking in my heartland, I'll get a +20% defense bonus that can't be bombarded away, while border skirmishes will be more even; that 60/40 would give me +12% and you +8%, for a net 4% difference (but some third-party who tries to get in the middle would be at a significant disadvantage from either side).

The long-term result of this would be to greatly slow down military conquest, so that by the modern era you still hadn't quite reached that point where you were just rolling over all opposition. Still trying to see if this is workable, though, and it's not the only needed change.

If I wanted to win by destroying my enemies, I would go for a Conquest victory.

I'd agree in general, but remember that part of the point of the Domination win is that once you pass a certain threshold, it's all just mindless "mopping up". If you've got more than two-thirds of the land and population, no one could possibly hold you back, so why spend hours playing those turns? Back in Civ2, this was just aggravating, so I'm glad they added it.
Now, in Civ4, if you have the Domination cutoff you could just as easily win the U.N. vote, or win a Culture victory, or build the spaceship. But it still serves a purpose in games where those have been disabled.

 

[vbraun]

The reason I'm confident is that according to some of the unit-making folks in these forums, they were already using the same 3D graphic engines/formats to create their old Civ3 custom units that the Civ4 engine wants. So, while you couldn't convert the Civ3 custom content directly, I'm sure that many of the people who churned out so many great Civ3 units will be translating their original files directly to Civ4.

That might not work, and if it does it will take a lot of work. Maybe so much work a new unit would be faster!

 

[n003lb]

I'd agree in general, but remember that part of the point of the Domination win is that once you pass a certain threshold, it's all just mindless "mopping up". If you've got more than two-thirds of the land and population, no one could possibly hold you back, so why spend hours playing those turns? Back in Civ2, this was just aggravating, so I'm glad they added it.
Now, in Civ4, if you have the Domination cutoff you could just as easily win the U.N. vote, or win a Culture victory, or build the spaceship. But it still serves a purpose in games where those have been disabled.

Good point, I haden't really thought of it that way. I may just start turning Domination back on in the future.

Each tile has culture percentages based on the relative cultures of the nearby cities. The tiles my cities sit on might be 100% mine, but a border farm tile might be 60% me, 40% you. The simple suggestion was to give every unit an additional +1% strength for each 5% of its civ's culture in the square the battle takes place in. So, if you're attacking in my heartland, I'll get a +20% defense bonus that can't be bombarded away, while border skirmishes will be more even; that 60/40 would give me +12% and you +8%, for a net 4% difference (but some third-party who tries to get in the middle would be at a significant disadvantage from either side)

Now that is a cool idea. It would provide a disadvantage to any units from a forgien nation that intervien in a war. Then, if you are fighting someone, and they get a more powerful nation to declare on you, you would still stand a decent chance. Too bad there is probably no way to do this.

-

 

[Spatzimaus]

Now that is a cool idea. Too bad there is probably no way to do this.

With the SDK it should be pretty easy, since I'd be willing to bet that the combat strength calculation wouldn't be too hard to find, and the culture percentage is clearly already calculated by the engine, since you see it when you move the mouse over tiles.

The reason I liked the idea so much was that it solved several of my pet peeves at once:
1> Artillery/bombers taking away the entire defense bonus of a city. Even if it's been bombed flat, it should still be an advantage to the home team. Maybe a flat "can't remove more than half a city's defense" rule would work for this, in the same way that you can't bombard a unit below 50% health. But this culture-related idea would have a similar effect, in addition to its other benefits; if each city had a flat 20% defense bonus that never went away, then defense would always have an advantage.
2> If two units fight outside of a city, the odds are the same whether the fight happens in my territory or in yours, which just doesn't seem realistic.
3> Culture doesn't mean much on the strategic scale; it determines whether the tile is mine or yours, but the percentages don't affect anything. So, on an established border (between two high-culture cities) there's no benefit to pumping up culture further. But with this change, if that city was near a hotly-contested border, there WOULD be an advantage to increasing cultural strength, even if the border itself didn't move in the process. (More culture bombs!)

The problem, though, is that game balance is pretty finely tuned. Right now, when you research a new offensive weapon, you have a small window where you have a clear advantage over the defenders. Adding ~20ish percent to every city defender might easily create a situation where a city attacker dies more often than not, which'd pretty much make invasions suicidal until bombers are available. On the other hand, maybe it'd just make City Raider promotions more popular, so who knows?

 

[dlordmagic]

Currently I am working on an Alien Invasion Mod which will take place during the latter portion of the game. Aliens invading while earthlings are still primates would be rather unfair. There will be a seperate tech tree for the Aliens with an extended tech tree for the earthlings. However I,ll be waiting until the SDK arrives to be able to do new unit animations,resources and the like.

 

[Yuri2356]

My War of the Worlds Scen/Mod is an early work in progress.

(See link in Sig)

 

[Sunwolf]

I would like to see a mod that adds underwater cities, units, and resources. That was the coolest thing in Civ Call to Power (The other Civ game)