Song of the Moon - suggestions thread

[woodelf]

Please post ideas, tweaks, suggestions, impressions, ect from version 0.1 Alpha of The Song of the Moon, otherwise known as the Moon Mod.

edit - link removed until newest version comes out soon!

Things we know:
The unit graphics are mostly Vanilla.
The LHs are flag decals.
Beyond the 2nd era there are no units!
So far no siege, air, or spy units
Great people not in yet
No Wonders

Things we need to know:
Balance issues
incorrect entries
spelling problems
AI stupidity
anything else we simply missed.

Have fun and please remember this is Alpha.

 

[OwieB2003]

Not sure if I should be posting this yet as I haven't yet played the mod, but an idea for non-foot-units: First 'age' has treaded/wheeled units, as tech level can create synthetic fossil fuels/import it from Earth/whatnot. Second 'age' has "hovercraft" (not the existing Earth hovercraft, those require air, which is strangely...lacking on the Moon). These hovercraft benefit from humankind's mastery of fuel synthesis and in essence move around with a series of rockets, manoeuvering(or maneuvering, if you're American like me) thrusters, retrorockets and afterburners. Third 'age' brings the 'anti-gravity' revolution and allows for vehicles with no exhaust.

Apologies in advance if this isn't appreciated, but this mod just sounds cool and I can't wait to play it.

 

[woodelf]

There are no bad ideas. Thanks for the interest and we'll see how close we came to what you want.

 

[Leif]

Hmm, Moom map1 doesn't work correctly, however I have the nasa thing installed and it may be causing me problems.

more about civs as I discover them.

 

[The Great Apple]

Okies - from just the screenshots my first suggestion would be to consider the mapping modes you could have. It seems slightly strange to me that the moon isn't mapped out - surely any colonists would come preprared with maps of the place they were trying to colonise?

I can understand this might have gameplay implications though. I don't think, however, in Civ 4 you can see new enemy cities in fog of war... so it might work. At least have the map centred. Maybe even have something relating to if the guys back home on earth could spy on your cities and tell you're civ where they were (may be a bit complicated + unfun).

Civic screen graphics are a bit squiffy (from the screenshot) - looks like you have much more space then you'd need there.

Maybe a link to the mod thread would be in order?

Finally - urrgh... there was a "finally"... let me think for a second... err....

Oh yeah - maps! Not being able to open the file at the moment I can't tell... but have you included a random map option as well as just the moon map? Map scripts would be cool!

 

[matthewv]

Oh yeah - maps! Not being able to open the file at the moment I can't tell... but have you included a random map option as well as just the moon map? Map scripts would be cool!

We actually have a randon map script for random maps that must be used to play this mod(called Moon_Map.py. It must be placed in your PublicMaps directory in order to use it). At the moment there is no user created maps for this mod.

Mod thread link is in my sig.

 

[woodelf]

Thanks for the comments TGA. As matthewv said the maps are all random so far. The civics screen was ripped off from AG's EE3 mod so it might not work too well, but it came cheap.

And I added a link to the mod in the first post. Thanks again.

 

[Wolfiefang]

You guys have any "storyline" so to speak? Add it in fast since that'll draw and keep the most people.
Also since you already 'borrowed" from EE3 might as well take some other idea from it. GW that are kinda ports between Earth and Moon (To get resources you can't find on the moon)
I'll find more as I play on.
keep up the goodies!
Grats on being first!

 

[woodelf]

You guys have any "storyline" so to speak? Add it in fast since that'll draw and keep the most people.
Also since you already 'borrowed" from EE3 might as well take some other idea from it. GW that are kinda ports between Earth and Moon (To get resources you can't find on the moon)
I'll find more as I play on.
keep up the goodies!
Grats on being first!

I think JBG is working on back story. It's his baby so I'll leave the writing and history to him.

The Wonders are still in process, but yeah an early one to deal with Trading with Earth is a good idea. Very good actually.

 

[GeoModder]

I thought the Helium building already simulated the trading with Earth?

 

[woodelf]

I thought the Helium building already simulated the trading with Earth?

True, but an early Wonder would be cool and there are still other things we could trade. I wonder if Belizan ever coded that Earth as a trading civ python event?

 

[GeoModder]

Wonders should be for the civ, not for some distant entity.

But an idea for an early wonder could be "Earthwatch". Simply a high-resolution telescope which can zoom in to about Earths' surface. +happiness of course. (or else a number of happiness items for trade, like singles, hits and movies)

Have to check to be sure, but my first impression was that an awfull lot of resources give +health.

 

[woodelf]

Wonders should be for the civ, not for some distant entity.

But an idea for an early wonder could be "Earthwatch". Simply a high-resolution telescope which can zoom in to about Earths' surface. +happiness of course. (or else a number of happiness items for trade, like singles, hits and movies)

Have to check to be sure, but my first impression was that an awfull lot of resources give +health.

on the health. I think when we cut/pasted the resources the health was put to 1 for most of them. We'll hammer those out. If you want you can write them down and I'll do it ASAP. Thanks.

 

[GeoModder]

Well, 't was only so that if the resource=health was implemented, half my wonder suggestions have to find a place in the trash.

I'll write them down, but not before tonight.

 

[woodelf]

Keep in mind that we'll need Wonders that give free buildings to all cities, free this and that, ect. If other people can come up with cool names or cool bonues that would be, umm, cool.

 

[GeoModder]

Ah yes, forgot about that part.

In any case, here is the promised list of resources that give +health (with or without improvement):

Carbon
Carbon Ice
H³
Hydrogen
Nutrients
Oxygen
Paladium
Water Ice

From that list, it looks to me that only Nutrients, Oxygen and Water Ice are likely candidates to increase healthiness, which is a bit little.
Then it struck me that in the further future instead of solely having hydroponics, algae farms and so on, they can also build pasture domes where cattle can live. So in essence a player can increase his health bonusses by building those. Of course, some sort of limit must be put on that, like for instance the need to have at least 2 glasshouses or algae farms to provide th e fodder of that cattle.

Something else I thought about: Now, some industrial improvements give food, next to a small food surplus from the plot itself. I find that a bid odd on a barren world like the moon. Then I thought that maybe a basic specialist in the base itself could give food surplus instead of those tiles. And the food those specialists give would increase with the amount of +health giving resources that was linked to the base(s).
To let this work, every base should have a free specialist to start with, and the output of glasshouses/algae farms and such should perhaps be increased a bit to offset the lack of food of the pure industrial improvements.

 

[woodelf]

Ah yes, forgot about that part.

In any case, here is the promised list of resources that give +health (with or without improvement):

Carbon
Carbon Ice
H³
Hydrogen
Nutrients
Oxygen
Paladium
Water Ice

From that list, it looks to me that only Nutrients, Oxygen and Water Ice are likely candidates to increase healthiness, which is a bit little.
Then it struck me that in the further future instead of solely having hydroponics, algae farms and so on, they can also build pasture domes where cattle can live. So in essence a player can increase his health bonusses by building those. Of course, some sort of limit must be put on that, like for instance the need to have at least 2 glasshouses or algae farms to provide th e fodder of that cattle.

Something else I thought about: Now, some industrial improvements give food, next to a small food surplus from the plot itself. I find that a bid odd on a barren world like the moon. Then I thought that maybe a basic specialist in the base itself could give food surplus instead of those tiles. And the food those specialists give would increase with the amount of +health giving resources that was linked to the base(s).
To let this work, every base should have a free specialist to start with, and the output of glasshouses/algae farms and such should perhaps be increased a bit to offset the lack of food of the pure industrial improvements.

Thanks for the input. I'm printing this out now....

 

[GeoModder]

Mmm, perhaps bit too farsougth in my previous post

Essentially, agrodomes (which I thought are already implemented?) can already fulfill the role of +health improvement. And the need of "lesser" food providers (like algae farms) to sustain it makes a bit more difficult to put them everywhere.

Anyway, here's another wonder on itself: "Earth Biosphere". Remembered an old book of the scifi writer Varley. In it, he describes a sublunar (artificial) cave, dozens of kms across and 2-3 km high, and modelled to simulate a typical terran scenery. A gigantic parkland without close boundaries. +health (excercise) and + happiness. Should be a late wonder, holographics is needed (to "hide" the cave boundaries) as a tech that supports the knowhow of such huge closed environments.

And for a free AI-core in every base: Holistic Memory (or Network). Enables AI's to "go" to a hardware location in the net wherever/whenever they want.