[SNEAK PEEK] GraveMod (a NEW ModPack for Warlords on the way!)

[Grave]

Ahhh... gotcha.

I'll give out more details on the content of this mod once I get the SDK put to rest. Because honestly, once the SDK is done, it won't take much for me to polish it up for a beta test.

 

[Vrenir]

Do your new wonders have accompanying movies in the CivIV style?

 

[Grave]

Do your new wonders have accompanying movies in the CivIV style?

No, they don't. What I did was I took high resolution real world still photos and converted them to .bik format. They look pretty good.

 

[Donkey Puncher]

yes scrap the better AI for now I am deing to play this mod

 

[Good Sauce]

I also say dump the Better AI, I've been looking forward to this mod for quite some time and would hate to see it dropped. I've never used better AI (I'm not a very good civer) but from what I've read it can sometimes be inconsistent.

 

[Grave]

** UPDATE **

Well, I don't want to jinx myself, but as of last night I have a new, compiled CvGameCoreDLL.dll file that doesn't CTD when firing up the game. And it has Better AI.

I have finally jumped the hurdle that put this project on hiatus for the last month, and I must say I'm very relieved that I don't have to muck about with the SDK anymore.

Next on the to-do list is Python, as I've discovered that tabs/spacing are very important in the .py files. So, as I did with the SDK this weeked, I'm going to go through the python files and make them right.

It would be GREAT if I could get the help from an experienced Python programmer, though.


I see a light at the end of the tunnel... but I'm not there yet.

 

[Grave]

** UPDATE **

Check the original post... I posted an update, as well as some of the included mods in History in the Making.

 

[Grave]

Ok, I've been plodding along with this mod silently for the past few weeks. Added the UU & UB's for all the Religions in the game.

Here is a preview for the Islamic UU, the Mamluk:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=225586


I made it myself.



I decided to scrap the "Ancient Religion" concept for now. Too many Religions were unbalancing the game, so I reluctantly removed Norse, Roman, Greek, Meso and Egyptian... for now. It sucks, but it's for the better. Once I release the mod, you guys can let me know how to better balance out the Religions, and if there's room for more, and they don't unbalance gameplay... I'll put the Ancient Religions back in.

 

[kristopherb]

i was wondering about your next post looks good

 

[Grave]

Yeah, I don't want to jinx myself and say I'm "X close" to finishing... then work or some other RL issue comes up and sets me back a few weeks.

I will say though, I added a couple last minute Wonders, the Religions are near finished (UU/UB are done, just gotta add "flavor" to each of them). After that I have a couple more units to add to the game... and I just may be done.

I dunno... we'll see.

 

[Vrenir]

I'm sorry to hear about the religions, but your Mamluk looks good. Is that also a Christian crusader unit next to it in a couple of the screenshots?

It's good to have you back, wasn't quite sure what had happened to you. Are you still planning for a Warlords release?

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Glad to hear about the progress. I have just one request, though, Grave--for the sake of the Fanatics community....

Please back up you work right now so we can avoid a repeat of what happened earlier!

 

[Grave]

I'm sorry to hear about the religions, but your Mamluk looks good. Is that also a Christian crusader unit next to it in a couple of the screenshots?

Yep, it sure is.

It's good to have you back, wasn't quite sure what had happened to you. Are you still planning for a Warlords release?

Thanks. Well, here's the deal. I'm going to release the "Beta" for Warlords. I'll take any/all feedback I get and use that feedback to smooth things out for a BTS release.

So in a way, yeah... I'll be releasing this for Warlords. But, once BTS comes out, I'll fix as many bugs as I can and release the fixed version for BTS.

Glad to hear about the progress. I have just one request, though, Grave--for the sake of the Fanatics community....

Please back up you work right now so we can avoid a repeat of what happened earlier!

LOL! Yep, I have a current backup on another hard drive, no worries there.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

I don't suppose you could post the finalized list of new UUs/UBs? Just to give us something to chew on...

 

[C.Roland]

Yep, it sure is.



Thanks. Well, here's the deal. I'm going to release the "Beta" for Warlords. I'll take any/all feedback I get and use that feedback to smooth things out for a BTS release.

So in a way, yeah... I'll be releasing this for Warlords. But, once BTS comes out, I'll fix as many bugs as I can and release the fixed version for BTS.



LOL! Yep, I have a current backup on another hard drive, no worries there.

So you will have to find additional UU and UB for the BtS civ. Maybe I can help you to find some for the civ that are publicly known.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

This looks like a very promising mod and I can't wait to have a go!! Looking at the screenshots has also answered a couple of modding questions of my own - such as, yes, you can have more than 7 religions!!

Keep up the good work, mate, looking forward to playing it .

 

[Grave]

So you will have to find additional UU and UB for the BtS civ. Maybe I can help you to find some for the civ that are publicly known.

Yeah... if I'm gonna have 4UU per Civ across the board, then that means I gotta come up with a total of 40 new UU's for the new Civilizations!

Your help would be greatly appreciated, C.Roland!

This looks like a very promising mod and I can't wait to have a go!! Looking at the screenshots has also answered a couple of modding questions of my own - such as, yes, you can have more than 7 religions!!

Keep up the good work, mate, looking forward to playing it .

You can virtually have an unlimited amount of Religions in the game if you want. The problem I ran into was... if you have a city, say, that is in the "crossroads" of many Civs, and that city has several religions spread to it, then it almost becomes overpowered. You spend more time building temples just to keep the people happy than you do building other city improvements/military units, etc. It just wasn't fun for me.

So until I figure out a way to overcome that (and be happy with the results) I only kept Shinto and Zoroastranism, besides the original Religions.

I did leave the "Ancient Religions" in the game though. They just require a technology that you can't research/discover, so therefore will never make it into an actual game. That and I couldn't remove the extra Religious icons from the GameFont files without screwing up the other icons, so they stayed.

So... if somebody wanted to use these inactive Religions in their own downloaded copy, they can. I left the opportunity there. All they have to do is make Temple/Cathedral/Shrines for them.

 

[C.Roland]

Yeah... if I'm gonna have 4UU per Civ across the board, then that means I gotta come up with a total of 40 new UU's for the new Civilizations!

Your help would be greatly appreciated, C.Roland!



You can virtually have an unlimited amount of Religions in the game if you want. The problem I ran into was... if you have a city, say, that is in the "crossroads" of many Civs, and that city has several religions spread to it, then it almost becomes overpowered. You spend more time building temples just to keep the people happy than you do building other city improvements/military units, etc. It just wasn't fun for me.

So until I figure out a way to overcome that (and be happy with the results) I only kept Shinto and Zoroastranism, besides the original Religions.

I did leave the "Ancient Religions" in the game though. They just require a technology that you can't research/discover, so therefore will never make it into an actual game. That and I couldn't remove the extra Religious icons from the GameFont files without screwing up the other icons, so they stayed.

So... if somebody wanted to use these inactive Religions in their own downloaded copy, they can. I left the opportunity there. All they have to do is make Temple/Cathedral/Shrines for them.

In fact, it's great that you have keeped them because in Bts, you have an option to choose wich religion you want to find (check the last interview with Alex). So If you keep those religion (Norse mytho for examp), when you will found hinduism, you will maybe (we will have to check when the game will be relased, but I think it will work) be able to choose Norse, or an other removed religion.

 

[Xequ]

I wondered if you have added the revolution mod, oh and the technologies from ViSa! (if they don't midn of course!)

 

[C.Roland]

Here what I got quickly, I hope it inspire you :

Portugal
-Carrack
From AoE 3 :
-Cassador
-Organ Gun or ribauldequin "rabaulds"
-Guerreiro Musketeer
- Jinete Dragoon

Dutch
Sloop
Indiaman
Boer Guerilla
De Ruyter (the modern ship)

From AoE 3 :
-Ruyter
-Fluyt
-Envoy
- Nassau Halberdier


Native American (this include different north American tribes)
-Tracker
-Tomahawk
-Brave
-Dog Soldier
-Axe Rider
-Shaman

Maya
-Plumed Archer
-Holcan
-It may be nice to have a UU that is created when you capture a worker and with their UB (sacrifial altar) they can sacrifice the captured worker to gain some boost.
- Nacoms
- atlatls
- blowguns

Byzantine
-Dromons
-Cataphract
-Varangian Guard
- Pronoiars
- Tagma
- Komnenian
-Fire Ship
-Heavy Infantry

Babylon
-Bowman
-4 horse chariot
-Dhows

Sumeria
-Enkidu
-Vulture
-Onager Chariot

From the speculate UU thread, it's a collage of all kind of ideas of the Bts forum thread :

Spoiler :

For the Dutch I would like to see the Marinier: Musketman with no penalty attacking from sea or accross rivers, plus some extra bonus say + 1 strength, or + 10 % city attack or 1 first strike

Byzantium should then have Clibanarii

As for the Duch, they will most likely have Swiss Mercenaries and they should have 8 strenght and +50% against mounted units. They'd be about as strong as Pikemen when fighting Mounted units and as strong as Macemen against all other units except melee.

Mounted Warrior. Replace Horse Archer(or chariot). Blitz

Mayas: Javelin Thower: Replace Spaerman. Can slave and don`t need recourses to be build.

Babylonia: Asharittu Bowman. Replaces Archer. 3 str, starts with Drill I. The Malinese skirmisher has 4 str and 1-2 first strikes..so giving the Bowman an upgrade would be quite good IMO.

Byzantines: possibly a fire-thrower to replace catapults, or maybe even a unique version of the Trebuchet (like a Siege tower...since those were used in the Crusades and Byzantium had a hand in starting those wars to begin with).

Sumeria: Scythe Chariots possibly.

Babylon: Composite Bowmen (geez...lots of UU archer potential this time around).

By the way, do you think you can post the actual UU/UB list that you got for vanilla/warlords civ ?