SMAN's The Ancient World at War (AWAW)

[sman1975]

Greetings,

This is a collaboration post for an upcoming project. The AWAW will extensively rework the Ancient, Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Eras, and will be the bookend companion to my "SMAN's The World at War" family of mods, cf:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/smans-the-world-at-war.638328/

This new mod family provides counterpart features as the other mod family, in much the same manner: through companion mods (e.g. Unique Units), "End at ... Era" mods, Scenarios (The Second Punic War), etc.



Version 0.0 (BETA) of "The Ancient World at War" has been published. Here are the links:

STEAM: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2422701461




AWAW has several "companion mods" - mods that add a bit extra to the gaming experience, but are optional if a player didn't want to use those particular features. Here is the current list of published "Companions":

- "AWAW Unique Units" - adds many new unit models, unique to various civs: TBD

- "The Black Swan" - adds an events feature to the game: TBD

- "On Human Bondage" - adds slavery and the Chain Gang unit: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2433351408

- "Soldiers of Fortune" Companion Mod - adds mercenaries to the game: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2433351408




AWAW has several "Scenarios" planned - AWAW plans to add many scenarios covering important campaigns and battlefields in warfare before the Industrial Era. For more information, please refer to Post #12 below.




AWAW has several supporting "End at ... Era" mods - mods that let you stop scientific advancement beyond a specific Era earlier than the Information Era:

- The Ancient World at War - End in the Ancient Era: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2424018069

- The Ancient World at War - End in the Classical Era: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2424818767

- The Ancient World at War - End in the Medieval Era: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2424952963

- The Ancient World at War - End in the Renaissance Era: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2424957678

- The Ancient World at War - End in the Enlightenment Era: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2424964147


More mods are under development, so check this post to see what the latest list of mods for AWAW are available.

 

[sman1975]

Reserved - General

 

[sman1975]

Technologies:

Tech tree is being build as we speak. Here is a "final" version of the new new/revised Eras. Several of the buildings, units, improvements, bonuses, etc., from their original placements have moved a bit, to better incorporate the new techs:




Here is a snapshot of the AWAW Tech Tree:





And here is a snapshot of the consolidated AWAW and WAW Tech Tree:





Here is the Icons file for the 62 new techs in the mod. Many are new, and I'll be the first to admit I'm no artist, but I think they'll do well enough. They correspond to the techs in the spreadsheet below:




The attached picture below is the V 1.1 version of the AWAW tech tree. I've managed to fix the problem with the slow load times, so may take a look at expanding the techs, but for the time being, I'm sticking with this chart, and the artwork is built around these techs:

You'll notice that the most of the normal Civ5 techs have a green background. The new AWAW techs have a blue background. The peach colored background was originally taken from the Enlightenment Era tech tree, but I've made quite a few changes to that original version, to better reflect the "progression" of ideas, ideals, etc., that occurred during that Era. A few of the game's normal techs have moved around a bit to balance the tree out.

This version includes 12 new techs added since the last version of the spreadsheet was posted. This means there will be 62 techs added to the game. I believe this number is just about final for V1.0 of the mod. Can always adjust later, but for now, this will be the design the rest of the mod is built around.


EDIT: Please note - I've changed the name of the "Exploration" tech to "Age of Discovery" and the "Rationalism" tech to "Age of Reason" in order to not duplicate names of other concepts (i.e. Policy Branches) already in the game. Goal is to limit confusion where possible.

 

[sman1975]

Wonders: AWAW adds 31 Wonders to the game, 25 World Wonders, and 5 National.

Wonder Icons: These are the final icon version for the 31 wonders the mod adds (8 new, 21 recycled):



Please note that the icons at the bottom of this picture are not related to Wonders. They are part of the "New Notifications" system - icons the scroll down on the right-hand side of the screen at the start of human players' turns, letting them know about various developments.

 

[sman1975]

Buildings: The mod adds 31 buildings (6 Wonders and 25 "normal" buildings) for each of these Eras: Ancient, Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance. It adds 6 Wonders and 21 normal buildings for the new Enlightenment Era. The spreadsheets below describe the stats of the buildings going in to the mod (V0.0 - BETA):


Ancient Era Buildings:




Classical Era Buildings:




Medieval Era Buildings:




Renaissance Era Buildings:




Enlightenment Era Buildings:





Building Icons: Here are the building icons (124 total, with 1 additional building at the bottom of the Wonder file):




These are the "final" working version of the buildings. There might be a few adjustments here and there after player feedback, but more or less, the baseline mod version (V1.0) should look quite close to this.

As always, please feel free to comment if something doesn't look right.

Thanks!

 

[sman1975]

Religions: AWAW will add various items to the game's Religions, to enhance the immersive qualities of the very early game. While these new Religions/Beliefs will add some variety to the basic game, they will be even more useful in many of the scenarios described in Post #12.


New Religions (15):

1. Dodekatheism (Traditional Greek)
2. Numenism (Early Roman)
3. Imperial Cult (Imperial Roman)
4. Mysteries (Greek Mystery Cults)
5. Mithraism (Roman Mystery Cult)
6. Chaldaenism (Babylon)
7. Ashurism (Assyria)
8. Pesedjet (Traditional Egyptian)
9. Wuism (Chinese Shamanism)
10. Mahayana (Buddhist Denomination)
11. Vajrayana (Buddhist Denomination)
12. Druidism (Celtic Religion)
13. Koshinto (Japanese Animism)
14. Muism (Korean Shamanism)
15. Canaanism (Phonetician Polytheism)

Beliefs: Several new beliefs will be added, arranged in the following categories. However, as we progress through testing, some of these beliefs may change categories and/or bonuses.

Pantheons (5):
* Deism: +3 Science from Natural Wonders
* Goddess of Wealth: +1 Gold in cities with a population of 3+
* Shamanism: +2 Faith for each Deer and Fur resource
* Son of Heaven: +2 Culture and +3 Faith from the Palace
* Weapons of Our Gods: +1 Culture and +2 Faith for each Iron resource


Founders Beliefs (19):
* God is Love: +5 Happiness if not at war
* Cultural Behemoth: +5% Culture Empire wide
* Army of the Lord: Barracks and Armories both provide +1 Faith and Military Academies provide +2 Faith
* Ceremonial Law: +1% Food for each follower (max +15%)
* Church Control: Banks provide +2 Faith and Public Schools provide +3 Faith
* Church Tax: +1% Gold for each follower (max +15%)
* Faith Preaching: +2 Faith and +1 Gold in cities with a population of 4+
* Foundation of Reason: +2 Science for each Cattle and Sheep resource and +1 Science for each Fish resource
* Holy Annihilation: Gain a small amount of Faith if you win a battle anywhere
* Mythical Literature: Libraries provide +2 Faith
* Pastoral Training: Universities provide +3 Faith
* Profitable Mission: Shires provide +1 Gold and +1 Gold from Holy Sites
* Prosperity Gospel: Temples provide +2 Gold
* Reincarnation: Bison, Cattle, Deer, and Sheep resources no longer produce +1 Food but produce +2 Faith instead. Cattle also produces +1 Culture
* Religious Insight: National College provides +5 Faith and +5 Science
* Religious Relics: Museums provide +4 Culture and +3 Faith
* Servant God: Hospitals provide +1 Culture, +1 Faith, and +2 Production
* The Great Commission: +2 Faith in cities with a City Connection and +2 Faith from Harbors
* Built by God: Each World Wonder provides +1 Tourism in city


Enhanced Beliefs (1):
One True Faith: Religion spreads to cities 10% further away and spreads 5% faster, Missionaries, Inquisitors and Prophets cost 10% less and Missionaries and Prophets are 5% stronger


Reformation Beliefs (3):
* To Defend God's Word: May build Walls, Castles, Arsenals, and Military Bases with Faith and these buildings provide +1 Faith. Military Bases provide an additional +3 Faith
* To Spread God's Word: May build Barracks, Armories, and Military Academies with Faith and these buildings provide +1 Production. Military Academies also provide +4 Faith
* Religious Enforcement: May build Constabularies and Police Stations with Faith and these buildings provide +2 Faith and +2 Happiness




Credit: This design originated with the @ Tomatekh and @emperor of Awesomeness. Adjustments will be introduced as testing progresses, but the overall approach should resemble the creation of those 2 modders.

 

[sman1975]

Units: The pictures below shows the current state of the worksheets used to flesh out the units' structure. You can see that some of these "main" units could move around (e.g. the Warrior becoming the late version of the Ancient Era melee unit). Care has been taken for Enlightenment Era units, so their stats are compatible in a game with either WAW enabled or not, and that they don't use any names used by the Main WAW mod (e.g. Line Infantry).

Generally speaking, the"main" units of an Era don't upgrade directly into the "late" version, unless the main unit shares the same prerequisite building with the late unit (most often ships). Main units generally upgrade to the early similar type unit in the next Era.

The worksheets below are the V0.0 of the mod (BETA). Might be modified later as needed, based on testing results/feedback.

Also note: the pictures/spreadsheets depict the Mercenary units. However, these units have been moved to the "AWAW - Soldiers of Fortune" Companion Mod. They are left in these screenshots to give you an idea how they relate to the normal units in the AWAW mod.



Ancient Era Units: The "parade" photos below show the various types of units and how they relate to other units. Basically, the "early" version of a unit type is the one on the coast. The "main" unit is behind it, and the "late" version is behind it. Ships are arranged from strongest to weakest, left-to-right. Naval ranged units are on the left side of the picture, naval melee on the right.

Classical Era Units:

Medieval Era Units:

Renaissance Era Units:

Enlightenment Era Units:

A quick note on UU's: if the "base" unit requires a resource (e.g. Trireme requires Hardwood), then the other Unique Units of that same class (Carthaginian Quinquereme and Byzantine Dromon) will NOT require the resource. Another bonus that makes these UU's even more valuable.

The English Ship of the Line will still require Iron, but will not require Hardwood like the normal Frigate does.

 

[sman1975]

Unit Promotions:

1. Counter-Battery: Unit receives +100% Combat Strength vs. Siege Units, and +1 to Range (only Enlightenment Era Culverin receives this). Currently, only awarded to the Enlightenment-Era Culverin unit.

2. Fireship: Unit receives +100% Combat Strength in melee attacks against Naval Units, +33% against cities (only the Renaissance Era Fireship receives this). Currently, only awarded to the Renaissance-Era Fireship unit.

3. Severe City Penalty: Unit receives 75% Penalty Attacking Cities (all naval melee ships receive this penalty). Awarded to all naval melee units. They can still take cities, but it will now be much harder for them.

4. Fletcher: +33% Combat Strength against Land Units, +25% against Sea Units. Awarded to Archery units constructed in a city with the Medieval-Era Fletchery building.

5. New Model Army: +10% Defense against all Ranged Attacks, Combat Strength when adjacent to a friendly Unit, and Combat Strength against Wounded Units. Unit will Heal Every Turn, even if it performs an action. Awarded to gunpowder units constructed in a city with the Renaissance-Era Commissariat building.

6. Leather Armor: +25% Defense, +10 HP healed per turn inside of friendly territory. Awarded to melee units constructed in a city with the Ancient-Era Tannery building.

9. Field Marshal I: Adds +15% Combat bonus to all Land units within 2 tiles. Units in the same and adjacent tiles heal 5 additional HP per turn. This Unit has a 50% chance to withdraw when faced with a melee attack.

10. Field Marshal II: Adds +15% Combat bonus to all Land units within 2 tiles and receive +1 Visibility Range. Units in the same and adjacent tiles heal 10 additional HP per turn. This Unit has a 65% chance to withdraw when faced with a melee attack.

11. Field Marshal III: Adds +15% Combat bonus to all Land units within 2 tiles and receive +2 Visibility Range. Units in the same and adjacent tiles heal 15 additional HP per turn. Unit will heal every turn, even if it performs an action. This Unit has an 80% chance to withdraw when faced with a melee attack.







Addendum to Post #10 - Unit Icon screenshots: Due to the 10 picture per post limit, these icon files couldn't be posted there. For completeness, here are the current versions of the icons the mod will use. They correspond to the order in the spreadsheets, with the exception of the Spartan Hippeis and Galley units, which are the last 2 icons in the second file.

 

[sman1975]

Events: These are random things that a civ must face as it navigates the trials and triumphs throughout their history. Some of these events are quite positive, some can be devastating.


Please note: The "Events System" will appear in "The Black Swan" Companion Mod. These events will not appear in the base AWAW mod.

There are many ways to lower the chance of an Event in a city, and to also lower its impact. Various buildings can lower the damages, but a few buildings can make those damages even worse.


More to follow...

 

[sman1975]

Resources: AWAW will add a wide variety of resources - new luxuries, bonus resources, and strategic resources. These will be used in various combinations, along with certain buildings, to provide a better portrayal of economies, trade, etc. in the ancient world.

The following picture shows the current list of resources expected in the mod. The resources without a background shading appear on the map. Those shaded in light green are those created when certain buildings are constructed. They are not found on the map at all.


The layout of the picture might seem odd, but it's formatted to help me build the icons needed to portray the resources in the game (note: Goats have been removed, as the model was too buggy). Subject to change, but probably not by much.

Here is the current version of the Resource icons:




The main concern at the moment is the size of the Resource models. Currently, the 30 "map" Resources weigh in at 37 MB, which is quite a bit of memory for such a small part of the game. I've updated the spreadsheet above to show the "must have" Resources in normal text, and the "optional" Resources in italics. The 13 must-haves only require 12 MB.

I'll leave them in the mod for now, but if it becomes too much of a beast, I may move the optional Resources to a "Supplemental Resources" companion mod, which will leave the main AWAW mod streamlined, but provide the option to really recreate ancient economies for those who really want this option.

The Resources provided by buildings are quite trivial, memory-speaking, so they aren't really impacted by any possible changes later on.


Finally, here is the new Resources' font icons file. These are the pix embedded into text to represent various game features (e.g. Gold, Science, Culture, etc.):

Screen Grabs with Resources Shown:




The third one shows how common the new resources are. It might look busy at first, but you quickly adjust to the changes after a short time playing.

The primary difference in playing the game normally is that these new resources appear at different times throughout the Tech Tree, so they will slowly appear as the game progresses. Another thing to remember is that in adding many new Luxuries, I had to cut the Happiness generated by Luxuries in half. Players will still come out ahead, reducing Happiness' impact overall.

 

[sman1975]

Terrain Improvements: The mod will add improvements throughout the 5 Eras. The following spreadsheet shows the initial/latest stats for them. They might be a bit overpowered, so may tone them down a bit after testing. Also note, some of these improvements "expire" over time - meaning they can no longer be built. Existing improvements will remain in place until replaced, but no new versions can be built.

Improvement Screenshots: The screen grabs below show what the improvements look like on the map, along with a cut/paste of the HELP key when you hover over the improvement icon on the unit action popup. Can't guarantee it's all spelled correctly or even makes sense, but I think for the most part the important data is correct.

Am currently experimenting with ways of "obsoleting" older improvements. Hopefully, there's a way that some of the older improvements can disappear from the unit action popup, just to clean things up a bit.


Ancient Improvements:





Classical Improvements:





Medieval Improvements:





Renaissance Improvements:





Enlightenment Improvements:





Trading Post Evolution: Trading Posts are a special case. There are 4 levels, each with increasing yields. Only the original Trading Post can be built as an improvement. After the improvement has survived about 1.5 Eras, it will evolve into the next higher level Trading Post. The four levels are shown in the picture below, along with their basic yields. All Trading Posts retain their original bonus yields: +1 additional Gold after researching Economics, +1 additional Gold with the Commerce Social policy finisher, and +1 Science with Free Thought Social policy. These might be nerfed as testing continues.

The concept came originally from TofuSojo's "Trading Posts Grow into Towns" mod. I kept the artwork, but reworked the concept to make it more streamlined, and completely working via XML alone (i.e. no LUA required, which helps improve mod stability).






Improvement Icons:





Civilopedia Sample:

 

[sman1975]

Companion Mods, Scenarios, etc.: This mod series will be a "family" of mods in the same way "SMAN's The World at War" is structured. Here are some of the projects anticipated for this mod family:

- Ancient Unique Units
- Ancient Improvements
- End at the "..." Era (Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment)

- Scenario: The First, Second, and Third Punic Wars
- Scenario: The Persian Invasions of Greece
- Scenario: Caesar in Gaul
- Scenario: Caesar in Britain
- Scenario: Caesar's Civil War
- Scenario: Last war of the Roman Republic
- Scenario: The Conquest of Britain
- Scenario: The Conquest of Germania
- Scenario: The Conquest of the Holy Lands
- Scenario: The Crusades?

And so on. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[sman1975]

Reserved - Misc.

 

[sman1975]

Reserved - Misc.

 

[Natan35]

A question - as we stem into another thread, would it not be better to move the development to the civ modding discord server? We would have much more efficient means of instant communication over there (we might even do a conference call to sort stuff out or something)

 

[sman1975]

Hey, welcome @Natan35. TBH, I don't know anything about the discord server. Will do a bit of research.

As far as collaboration efforts go, the main reason I moved to this mod was to build a "basic" mod to provide a better framework for the Second Punic War scenario. Basically, since we're redesigning how Civ5 works for the scenario, I wanted to build the framework in such a way that it would be more transportable to other scenarios/projects in the future. This new mod will provide that framework. We can still make modifications to the basic design for any other scenarios as needed, but this new framework will save a huge amount of design time for later projects - Post #12 will be the bookmarked post for these other efforts.

I will be working on one major design aspect at a time, and will post here what the efforts involve. First is new resources, I'm working on about 50 at the moment. Next will be buildings. Then Techs. Then units. There should be plenty of opportunities to add comments during that development. If we need more interaction, we can take a look at other ways of keeping up. The first 14 posts will be a running commentary on where the project currently stands. I'll update the data there often.

Thanks.

 

[Natan35]

Gotcha, sounds great!
(p.s. do you mean you're planning on adding 50 new ingame resources or did I misunderstand your use of the word?)

 

[sman1975]

Post #10 updated with the current slate of resources. Keep in mind, these will be spread out over 5 different Eras (Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment). It may seem intimidating at first, but most of these resources have parallels already in the game. So, it's not as burdensome to learn how to exploit the resources once you realize how the new ones relate to the old ones.

It's a lot, I know. Perhaps not all of these will survive at least V0 of the mod. But, I wanted to add those which helped better replicate the economies and trading regimes used throughout the ancient world. Part of my attempts to make the mod more "immersive" in quality. With respect to the Punic Wars mod, about half of these (or more) will not appear, as either they're too far off the map or discovered much later in the historical timeline.

 

[JFD]

Hey, welcome @Natan35. TBH, I don't know anything about the discord server. Will do a bit of research.

As far as collaboration efforts go, the main reason I moved to this mod was to build a "basic" mod to provide a better framework for the Second Punic War scenario. Basically, since we're redesigning how Civ5 works for the scenario, I wanted to build the framework in such a way that it would be more transportable to other scenarios/projects in the future. This new mod will provide that framework. We can still make modifications to the basic design for any other scenarios as needed, but this new framework will save a huge amount of design time for later projects - Post #12 will be the bookmarked post for these other efforts.

I will be working on one major design aspect at a time, and will post here what the efforts involve. First is new resources, I'm working on about 50 at the moment. Next will be buildings. Then Techs. Then units. There should be plenty of opportunities to add comments during that development. If we need more interaction, we can take a look at other ways of keeping up. The first 14 posts will be a running commentary on where the project currently stands. I'll update the data there often.

Thanks.

One of the modding servers, I probs the one Natan is talking about, is here. You're welcome to join, and I can set you up with a channel where you can share your progress if you find its useful :happytibs: Anyone else reading this is encouraged to join too.

 

[Voenkomat]

I know it's off topic, but I have a question .When I want to install a mod on the сiv5 steam version, I am told that not all the conditions for using the mod are met. What to do and what to do ?