Sea Colonies

[primem0ver]

Interesting idea with the space colonies on zoom out... maybe they should become available with the space elevator tech (LOL). Seriously... could that be done?

I don't like the idea of limiting sea colonies to 5 or 10... too small but maybe 20. My strategy in CTP was to link cities across water so that I could easily fortify them with new units from cities capable of producing them quickly using the tunnels. Thats the main reason I liked them... other than the fact that sea floor tiles in CTP2 were VERY rich in production if they were on a volcano or mid-ocean ridge.

If we can find a way to alter the sea floor spaces with a "ridge" tile improvement or a "hotspot" tile improvement available with a "sonar" tech later in the game... that would be another thing that would make sea floors interesting and desireable.

[Edit: added]

I have yet to finish my first Civ4 game but once I do, I may help out... with modding and/or testing. Currently I am very busy with my own programming project which why I am taking a while to go through Civ4.

 

[MatzeHH]

Anything new about this modification?

Matze

 

[Tholish]

I was just reading the first few posts and I have some ideas. To make the sea become a mineral source with high tech just create some Bonuses that become visible with advanced tech. You can make them "Ores" so you have to build a building that requires them and produces a Free Bonus of the resource you want to have actually pop up more of later in the game.

Say you want Tech_SeaFloorMining to reveal Iron. Well, have a bonus called Bonus_SeaFloorIronOre that becomes visible with the tech, and a building SeaIronRefiner that requires SeaFloorIronOre and produces the free bonus Iron. And of course you will need an improvement to collect the resource.

 

[primem0ver]

Not a bad idea... thanks. I still think that using a sonar boat/submarine should automatically "create" tile improvements that reveal what the sea floor looks like within their visible radius... but that only referrs to the actual seafloor structure... not the minerals found there.

 

[Major]

Anything new about this modification?

Matze

Hi all,

the mod has been completely converted to Warlords. XML files and SDK files have been modified.
We received some feedback from our first beta release in a French forum and so we have changed some stuffs.
New technologies have also been added as well as new units and concepts, such as the televangelists from CTP2. We also added a bunch of new functionalities for the spies.
We are testing the behaviour of the AI regarding the new stuffs we added and of course regarding sea colonies

But we plan to release a beta version pretty soon, maybe next week !

 

[MatzeHH]

That sounds pretty good. But I hope you will release a version for vanilla too.

Matze

 

[MasterJ]

That's sound very good i come to search a mod like ctp2 for the "undersea" and space city i have found this subjetc and i see it's exactly what i search so i'm waiting for this mod too
(sorry for my bad english i speak french)
i have played long long time ctp2 and i always be too happy when i have my first undersea city and more happy when the same for space city
with the graphics of civ4 i'm sure i never stop playing with this mod when release

 

[Major]

Dubmetender and I are also French You can find us on CivFr.com and its forum.
The beta is still planned for the coming weeks !
And here a new screenshot: the AI has been improved and makes a better use of sea colonies

​

 

[primem0ver]

WOW! I'm impressed.

Hey all... I have a big update.

I have started experimenting with modding finally, because I was trying to insert the idea of allowing food relief in cities that have modern tech... based on the idea that cities are no longer bound to feeding themselves...(personally... i think a starving city in a modern country like the US is a bit ridiculous... so I decided to do something about it)... but that has got me expanding ideas in many directions. I have come up with several ideas for expanding in the geology direction which is related to this thread. My ideas for the mod idea start with additions reaching back into the industrial age and moves foreward to what I had envisioned for this underwater expansion (along tech and resource lines, not about the actual sea cities). Among some other techs, here are the ones that relate to this thread:

It starts with a "Geology" tech that is available after scientific method (geology actually got started in the mid 1800's). This tech, instead of SM, reveals oil and natural gas, or maybe I will have it reveal the natural gas thing.

Next (with some other prerequisites as well) comes the "Wave Mechanics" tech which reveals mid-ocean ridges, trenches, and seamounts (underwater volcanoes or their remnants). I decided that using "resources" instead of tile improvements as I mentioned earlier would be the best approach. There is only one difficult issue with doing this that I will mention below. This tech also allows some land and water buildings/tile improvements: Radar Tower (improves city happiness due to weather awareness/safety as well as extends the vision range/fog of war...I hope this last part is possible), Sonar Buoy.. (also improves vision range and detects submarines), Radio telescope (increases science in a city), and USGS (United States Geological Survey... a national wonder that must be built in order to enable other buildings later... such as Seismology network and Geothermal power). This tech (or maybe the next in the chain) also reveals frozen methane (on the ocean floor) and maybe one or two other ocean floor resources.

The next step is some tech concept that allows the harvesting of the frozen methane and leads to ultrapressure machinery which leads to the ability to build underwater cities and other things (which is where your mod could be joined with mine).

The ONLY issue with making these underwater features into resources is the whole trenches and ridges thing (we could do without trenches...but ridges in my opinion would be a necessity). In order to get them looking realistic we may need as many as 6 different graphics... so that we actually get a line across the ocean instead of a bunch of "dots" (i.e. a continuous rift instead of pock marks). We will have to alter the map making routine to accomodate this.

As I have started to put some of this together... I have run into a few problems... Major, maybe you could help.

First, what utility or utilities can I use to easily alter the dds tile files? (I.E. the icons used for buildings, units, improvements etc... do I have to use a graphics editor and line them up right or is their an actual tile utility?) Second, I can't even FIND the square building tiles. I can only find the round ones (in the atlas file) that go on the World Builder and city caption overlays. Third... what is a "nif" file and how can I alter or create new ones? (I assume this is a 3d file that represents the 3d version of the building in a city.)

I am including quotes and tech sounds along with my additions to the mod. Units/improvement graphics may have to be built by another volunteer since I have no 3-d software or experience with it (yet).

-primemover

 

[Dubmetender]

for dds, use Photoshop with plug in, look at the right forum for it..; or use dds converter, it convert dds in other format, same forum for the link... (utility forum and tutorial)
about .nif, use 3dsmax , but don't sure you can import nif in...
ask Master lexx, or others graphist...
I think the nif files you want are in Art/terrain/... but i'm not at home, and don't have the game, so don't sure about the right way they are...
sorry for basic language, and limited understanding...

 

[Major]

And as for the ridges, we also planned to include them in the next version of our mod (like in Call To Power). I think I will copy more or less the system currently used for rivers and adapt it for ridges. But as you said, we will need new graphics

 

[Dubmetender]

Maybe, after the mod is on line, some artworkers want help us ???

If we don't find help, we can just re skin the existing art work ...
look at the screenshot on page 2, we use the existing modern mining with re skin, it's not really good, but it's ok to play without trouble...

 

[primem0ver]

So do you agree...? did you plan on making them "resources"? I suppose the river system would work as well... but that would mean digging into the source code... I don't know that I am quite ready to do that yet.

Also... I don't use photoshop. I am a Corel person when it comes graphics software... so I guess I will have to make do unless they have a plugin as well. (I think Adobe rips its customers off... but thats just my personal opinion) I'm pretty good with making graphics as long as I can find a anonymous enough picture online and a decent tool (will I end up lining up each tile by hand?). As for 3D-Max... oh boy... thats another $700 or something right? I may need it eventually if I ever get that software business off the ground but its a bit steep for a mod!

One more thing: In the end, I am thinking something significantly bigger than a "sea floor" mod...so far I have added 4 techs, only two of them (so far... more to come) are related to this particular thread. I think in the end I may end up wanting to make a significantly more fleshed out tech tree... on the order of 30+ techs (with units etc...)

Do you folks want to focus only on this aspect or do you have aspirations for something a bit more broad?

-primemover

 

[Major]

Well, for the moment, in our mod, it works like resources. But I think in the future version of the mod, we will replace that by the "river system". I have already looked at the code and that seems possible. And the ridges would increase the yields for the adjacent tiles.

For the graphics softwares, I know they are very expensive unfortunately. But, since I am a really poor designer, I don't need one personnaly

And our mod is not only a mod focused on sea colonies. This topic was on sea colonies so we talked a lot about that, but the mod includes new buildings, new units, new technologies, new concepts, new civics, new resources, new functionnalities for spies, new wonders, etc. Actually, we have added one complete era to the game, which will now end in 2250 and some tweaks to existing eras. And this is only the first version of the mod. We hope to do more for the next ones

 

[primem0ver]

Thats great! I was just looking into doing that myself last night. I came to the conclusion that the eras are hard coded. Is that true? I was kind of thinking of adding two or three (or more). Back when I played CTP2 I was thinking of adding a "stone age" at the beginning (but maybe that would be a bore).

At the end I was thinking about:

@2000- the information age
maybe a "golden" age (like the genetic/diamond from CTP2)
and finally a "space age" which is the age accomplished for a science victory...but not another victory. Which reminds me, is it possible to add a victory condition/type?

I was thinking of a "unification" victory condition. I suppose that is accomplished through a UN vote of sorts... but thats not quite what I had in mind.

Anyway... It would be interesting to share ideas. Do you have a thread for your mod? or should we make one... for continuing and adding to this discussion? I was thinking of calling my mod the "UltraCiv" mod or something of the sort... but maybe you've already got a name.

Ultimately I may be in a position to help... but it will be somewhat sporadic as I am a teacher and have to keep up with my grading and some other projects I am working on.

 

[primem0ver]

Also:

New technologies have also been added as well as new units and concepts, such as the televangelists from CTP2. We also added a bunch of new functionalities for the spies.

I didn't notice this earlier. I think we should talk...
I considered a tech like these last night as well, including reintroducing the televangelist! In the next tech in my tech tree I also came up with the idea of two "specialist" spies. Here is the idea I came up with (with a "Y2K"/religious theme since this had an impact on what some expected to happen at the turn of the millenia):

Fundamentalism: Enables Hacker (Spy with technological bias..also defends against Y2K "disaster"), GreenPeace (National Wonder), Fundamentalist (Spy with sabotage and unrest/peacemaking abilities using charismatic abilities), Corporate Lawyer (Defends against/sees corporate sharks).

The corporate shark is from another tech in my "design document" that reintroduces the concept of stealing money through "franchises" like in CTP2

I was thinking of having a "disaster" engine as well, such as earthquakes, monsoons, typhoons etc...Y2K!

Finally, I am curious about what you meant by:

the mod has been completely converted to Warlords

??

 

[primem0ver]

Stuff i slooking great. I've been doing a lot witht he Ctp2 source code, have yet to mess around with Civ4. BUt just wondering is this part of a ctp2 mod or just people picking only the parts they miss form ctp2?

Ooops, I missed this post. Hope your still around Ekmek.

This is a Civ 4 mod... so I suppose the second statement is more accurate. But there are several things I wanted to change in CTP2 as well. So hopefully it will bring back what was great about CTP2... and a whole lot more!

I finally gave up on CTP2. I got that GREAT mod that the Australian guy did. I think it was called Ages of Man... but It was SO difficult and when on my first time through successfully making it through his onslaught called "the dark ages" it suddenly would NEVER let me get past attacking an enemy city... it kept locking up the game... well I lost my passion for it. A few months later Civ 4 came out and after purchasing it... I thought "Finally... a worthy sequel/competitor to CTP2!"... albeit missing the sea colonies... hence this thread.

 

[Major]

Thats great! I was just looking into doing that myself last night. I came to the conclusion that the eras are hard coded. Is that true? I was kind of thinking of adding two or three (or more). Back when I played CTP2 I was thinking of adding a "stone age" at the beginning (but maybe that would be a bore).

At the end I was thinking about:

@2000- the information age
maybe a "golden" age (like the genetic/diamond from CTP2)
and finally a "space age" which is the age accomplished for a science victory...but not another victory. Which reminds me, is it possible to add a victory condition/type?

I was thinking of a "unification" victory condition. I suppose that is accomplished through a UN vote of sorts... but thats not quite what I had in mind.

Anyway... It would be interesting to share ideas. Do you have a thread for your mod? or should we make one... for continuing and adding to this discussion? I was thinking of calling my mod the "UltraCiv" mod or something of the sort... but maybe you've already got a name.

Ultimately I may be in a position to help... but it will be somewhat sporadic as I am a teacher and have to keep up with my grading and some other projects I am working on.

We don't have yet a thread for our mod. We will create one in the Modpacks forum as soon as we will release it, Tuesday or Wednesday

For the eras, Dubmetender added the Genetic Era in the XML files. It comes just after the modern era, like in CTP2 if I'm right.

Concerning victory conditions, I do not pay attention to much to that for the moment, but after looking at the sourcecode, I think this is possible to add ones.

Like you, we wanted to improve the use of non conventional war, that's why we added some functionnalities to spies (steal technologies, nuke a city, launch a secret nuke production after that the UNO votes for the Non Proliferation Treaty). Plus, the two new special units are the ecoterrorist and the "Political Agitator" (or Televangelist). But we also planned to add "franchise" and maybe lawyer, like you mentionned ! I see that CTP2 is a great source of inspiration for us But, it will be for the next release of the mod, not this one. And your new ideas are welcome !

And when I said that the mod has been converted to Warlords, I meant that it will work with Warlords. And currently, only with Warlords. We have stopped to develop it on the vanilla version to only do it for Warlords. It is rather difficult and time consuming to develop a mod for both versions of Civilization unfortunately

 

[primem0ver]

It is rather difficult and time consuming to develop a mod for both versions of Civilization unfortunately

Gotcha... I am surprised they are THAT different... So xml changes for one will not work for the other? (That's all the "code" changes I have done so far... I'm also adding some sound and unit files) That would be annoying. Python (and source code changes) I can understand... if you add new features you have to have new AI capabilities. But I hope the XML works for both. OK.... so I will have to get the Warlords Expansion earlier than I was planning. I was considering it anyway... I just wasn't planning on it right now because the reviews said it wasn't really a good bye right now for the hardcore entire history player (because most of the new features are for scenario players), that we should wait for the price to come down.

How many of you are working on this mod? And what is everyone doing? I can currently work on the XML... not hard and ideas of course. And/Or I can submit the xml and stuff I've done for my ideas. Hopefully in the next month or two, python.

 

[PeteT]

So xml changes for one will not work for the other?

Not generally, because they added some new elements in some of the xml files. But it's not that difficult to merge your changes into the Warloads files if you use a program like (e.g.) Winmerge:

WinMerge is an Open Source visual text file differencing and merging tool for Win32 platforms. It is highly useful for determing what has changed between project versions, and then merging changes between versions.

http://winmerge.org/