"Terra Fantasia" Mod Development Thread

Ozymandias

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I'm making a major change to how Culture Groups work. Rather than having Cultures grouped together, I'm using he 5 Groups to represent 5 different types of Cultures, with each type representing the ecological/terrain type they are evolving in. Each will have inherently different strengths and weaknesses: UUs; Improvements; Small Wonders; Large Wonders. There will also be universally available SWs & LWs.

There will be 5 Civs within each Culture Group, and they will be distributed fairly evenly around the globe. They are (and name suggestions are welcome) -
  1. Hill People
  2. Forest People
  3. Sea People
  4. People Of The Open Sky (Plains)
  5. People Of The Clea Water (large lakes and River Deltas.)
Each Civ within each Culture Group begins with an inexpensive Improvement simply called an Obelisk, a stone column of sorts essentially declaring, “We Are Here.” They are necessary for building Improvements, etc. Example: Only "Clear Water" Civs will have the Improvement "Canals" available to build.

There will also be 5 "types" within each of the 5 Culture Groups:
  1. Commercial
  2. Expansionist
  3. Scientific
  4. Militaristic
  5. Religious.
They will each work rather differently than as described in the Editor.

I like real worlds without violations of the laws of physics.

That being said - Before the last Ice Age was an 80,000 year long, or so, period with the ghastly name of "The Eemian." Homo Sapiens were most definitely around, but the Earth was warmer, and the seas higher:

.... OK, this is a bit weird. I just Googled "Eemian Wold Map" and got this:


I (obviously) had begun an similar project before I became ill - You can ignore pretty much everything about it except for the 2nd post - https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/terra-fantasia-mod.556714/ - but the two other screen shots are pretty cool: the very large Island of Scandinavia, and the "Green Sahara," with its several large lakes, all of which are ego-historically accurate (note: the Great Lakes & the St. Lawrence seaway weren't actually conjoined: it was merely something I was playing with.)

Moving right along ...
 
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Now some interesting notes on early units:
  1. Horses evolved in North America, and didn't cross into the "Old World" until the Siberian Land Bridge formed during the last Ice Age. There were different species of elephants around too, but I'm exercising artistic license and not having any in the Americas.
  2. Now that we have so many wonderful Elephant units, that's what you'll find all over Eurasia and North Africa.
  3. ... And, in South and Central America - Terror Birds:

 
Tech & Eras - I'm shooting for 4 Eras, with the mod ending a Tech level ending with an equivalent of our mid-20th Century - but otherwise quite different.

A Steampunk Mod never emerged, and (to the best of my knowledge) no thought was ever given to Diesel-punk.

In TFW, advances in metallurgy occurred slightly more rapidly than in ours, making steam tanks viable before the internal combustion engine ("ICE") was invented. There will a long span of time for steam warships and landships.

Steam tanks never achieved the speed of later ICE ones. Even the “super-advanced ones" (the “Wells Ironclad” etc. already in the db) never achieved speed greater than our WW1 AFVs. This meant that:
a. They began (as in WW1) as infantry support vehicles.
b. At a certain size, they began to battle each other in a true equivalence to “land battleships.”
c. The blitzkrieg was never developed - which, I believe, is a good thing, as Blitz warfare can't really be modeled in Civ3.

It's also important to note that steam AFVs will ultimately be powered by kerosene derived from coal. (AFVs using coal-derived kerosene were in the planning stages at the end of WW1.

Militaries tend to be conservative, and these vanished peoples' even more so than ours. When the ICE was eventually developed, it is was used for airships. As with fixed-wing aircraft in WW1, despite the initial skepticism of military brass, the airships soon proved their value as recon craft, and they rapidly evolved into “Warlords Of The Sky.” - OK, I am making a bit of a reality-stretch here: presently, there is only one, significant underground "pocket" of helium on our planet ... And that's because they tapped out all of the others. Furthermore, thy were able to achieve a high enough altitude, and carry sufficient firepower to knock early, fixed-wing aircraft out of the sky. The aeroforces of the age were also the first "early adapters" of ICE AFVs - each aeroport will auto-produce AFV security units.
The possibilities inherent in ICE AFVs rapidly became apparent, and Diesel-punk kicks in ("Where?" "How?" - Well, with a little help from my friends of course - *cough* @Delta_Strife *cough*

Essentially, the 4 Eras are going to comprise:
  1. The Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.
  2. Gunpowder, pre-steam engine.
  3. Scientific "Steampunk" - Land Leviathans, but no "Ether Fliers" etc.
  4. The Internal Combustion Engine - with the game ending at a technology level roughly equivalent to our mid-20th Century, without nukes.
 
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Would you like the maps reworked. I'd be happy to put some time in on that. I've also got an idea for a "beta test" map that would let you work out the mechanics & test terrain types, etc. without having to be the full-blown all-era geographically & ecotonally correct world map.
 
Went with the older name. I just like Terra Fantasia - taking "fantasia" in the musical sense of the term. anyway, here's some visual encouragement. Still trying out ideas. got some completely different images to experiment with.

Ovquah.png
 
One "word" - :clap: I do, however, have a question, which I don't think would obviate your fine graphics. I thought of a new, accurate, and (I think) catchier name for the mod: Uchronia. (Wikipedia: "The term uchronia refers to a hypothetical or fictional time-period of our world, in contrast to altogether fictional lands or worlds."

Thoughts, from both @Blue Monkey and anybody else?
 
Here are more thoughts on mod "mechanics:"
  1. I have long wanted to address the limitations of the game's (non) portrayal of logistics and C3 (Command, Control, and Communications. A simple example -
    • 1776. Something nasty happens in Albany, the capital of New York. A decision is required from the King. It takes, perhaps, a week for the Colony's Governor to assess the situation. A rider is dispatched to Boston: a week's travel. Then a four week's trip, by sailing ship, to London. Consulting with his cabinet, and making a decision, takes another week, then the decision is made, and dispatched back to Albany, via the same - and BTW fastest route. So: something dangerous happens in Albany, resulting in an opinion that the matter is so important that the King's ruling is necessary. The time between the problem occurring, the Governor's decision to , and the round trip for the answer: 13 weeks. How much might have happened, on the ground, in 3+ months.
  2. From my POV, there would be limits as to how far a unit could venture, whether from a city or colony, with the distance increasing by Techs like Writing and the Radio.
  3. Accordingly, in TFW, I'll do my best to use the game's mechanics, accordingly:
    • Movement factors will increase, dramatically, over time.
    • I'll build in appropriate Tech limitations. E.g. building Railroads will not be enabled the Tech "Steam," but by the later Tech, "Telegraph." (I'm happy to answer any questions on the matter.)
    • Every terrain type will cost 2 MF to enter, so Hill People's Hoplites - with an MF of 2 - will move 2 squares in hills, but only one on grasslands.
Combat will also become dramatically different with each increase in technology. No more: :spear:.

Stay tuned. :D
 
I thought of a new, accurate, and (I think) catchier name for the mod: Uchronia. (Wikipedia: "The term uchronia refers to a hypothetical or fictional time-period of our world, in contrast to altogether fictional lands or worlds."
Those were just examples of the kind of thing that could be done. Names can certainly be changed. I keep the graphic elements in various layers and have the images saved in different files at several stages of the process.

i wasn't even sure what you were looking for as a basic visual theme. So I am just experimenting with various ways of representing "Eemian civilization" - especially focused on the single era scenario. If you want something more inclusive of the dieselpunk end, that's possible also.
 
@Blue Monkey, my friend, I really like the topmost graphic, from font, to colors, to the Eemian backdrop - and name. So "Terra Fantasia" it is :D

I won't be releasing TF Era-by-Era as separate scenarios, but, rather, as a different approach to developing it, with these goals in mind:

1. Making sure that each Era is, in itself, fun to play, especially as I'm introducing some "radical" ideas throughout. Example: horses will only be available in North America for the first 2 Eras, so the only war animal in the entirety of Eurasia and Africa for the first (probably) 1/3rd of the game will be elephants. No chariots, cataphracts, etc. And elephants weren't the "charging fortresses" I once imagined they were: they're skittish, and as likely as not to turn and trample their own army's foot soldiers. I haven't quite figured out how to model that yet. My thoughts so far are:
  • With a "traditional" MF of "1" for foot soldiers and "2" for horses, a "realistic" MF for elephants might, arguably, be "1." But I'm definitely going with "2" for game play purposes.
  • Unresolved: handling them in combat. Devastating AF with low DF, but an extra "hit" strength ... ?
  • They'll also be going through 3 phases of development: "Primitive" (no howdah); Carthaginian-through-Seleucids with bows and arrows and very long, sharp, pointy sticks; to gunpowder (a "nostalgic" moment here: how I recall pining for elephant units, oh, 15 years ago or so - :old: - and how many splendid ones there are now.
2. After making sure that the first Era is indeed fun, then seeing that each additional Era added on makes it more so; and,
3. If I've succeeded with (1) & (2), people will play along, and any glitches - either in game play or mechanics - will be caught earlier than might otherwise be the case.

I'm also shooting for smooth transitions from "Elephants" to "Steam Elephants" to whatever I wind up calling dieselpunk AFVs.

Delineations between "steampunk" and "dieselpunk" will not be - I guess "abrupt" is the best word. In Terra Fantasia, advances in metallurgy allow "Steam Elephants" to rule the battlefield while "Battle Monitors" and the like ( :hatsoff: to @Delta_Strife !) rule the seas, the "early adapters" of the internal combustion are airships - "Warlords Of The Air" - followed by Dreadnoughts and "Oily Chariots" ( :joke: ). Fixed-wing aircraft development will be presumed to be going on in the game's background, until they become powerful enough to challenge the most potent "Aerial Battleships" (Oh!, @tom2050, where art thou?) ... And, about those dieselpunk aircraft, let me just ad " :hatsoff::hatsoff:" to my partner-in crime on that one.

Lastly, @Blue Monkey, there are matters of terrain, terrain gfx, and City Sets soon to come :yup:
 
Similarly to the title screen, era splashes are relatively simple to produce. So be thinking about what sort of thing you want. for example, does your first era start in the neolithic?

Here's 2 examples of taking an existing image & reworking it. On the left cutting & pasting to fit different parts of an image into the era splash proportions is started. A note on hue change there as well. On the right is a similar image, not yet reworked, where what is cut off is a vista with animals & forest.

Spoiler :
iMRoXj.png


Possible overall concepts to unify diverse images is to gradually change the hue range as you move through the eras - starting dark & moving toward are more vibrant & wider range of colors. Using a semi-transparent overlay suggestive of a significant technology in each era is another way to give a unified look & feel without requiring images from a single source.

Spoiler :
eBt22m.png


for the steam/diesel punk era, keep in mind my tech icon sets. More could certainly be added, but it's a start.

As to city graphics, I've experimented in the past with combining elements from various sets to make cities with a distinctive look. Easier than starting 100% from scratch - at least in the absence of a committed specialist. So that's one approach to consider. Here's an example of a concept that might be useful for the Clearwater people's first era as a basis for cherrypicking the available resources here at CFC.
Spoiler :

vzBEY0.png
 
for the sake of clarity -

Everything i've posted is just concept art to add to the brainstorming discussion. Some may look polished, but it's nothing more than "client presentation" level. Ozy knows what means even if no one else does. :D
 
Oz, with respect to the time delay to report something from Albany to getting a reply back from London, the real world time frame was more like 6 months. That did play absolute hob with the British government trying to run things from London during the Revolution. I am not sure how you would model that though for the game.

Are you going to allow for Mammoth units in the game. or will they have all died out or been killed off?
 
The period in question has the scientific and ungainly name, "Eemian." It was the last interglacial period before what we usually call "The" Ice Age. (Basically, the past 1,000,000 years has been a series of ~100,000 periods of "temperate" climate divided by ~20,000 year long "Ice Ages.") The Eemian began about 130,000 years ago and ended about 115,000 years ago. So definitely mammoths - as a matter of fact, one of the many ironies of our species' time on Earth concerns the horse. It evolved in North America, and only made it to the Old World via the most recent Ice Age's Siberian Land Bridge. Then our ancestors ate all the ones in North America - and the rest, as is said, is history.

So, not only will there be mammoths, there will be only mammoths - well, mostly regular Elephant units, since the woolly sort didn't appear until the most recent Ice Age - for the game's first 2 Eras. I'd appreciate any thoughts on how to best implement this. Military elephants have certainly been great shock units, but also very "brittle" - as likely as not to turn around and trample their own side's troops.

But, back to your first point: land and sea units' MFs will increase, dramatically, over time, as both mobility AND communications capability evolve. (As an aside, if I could add just one "simple" rule to the game's base code, it would be the ability to limit how far units could stray from cities, with increases adjustable by Tech - ocean-faring over sea-going; "Roman" roads over dirt roads; radio over telegraph; etc.)

I can also throw in a few minor curve balls - e.g., Workers won't be able to build Railroads with the Tech "Steam Power." Those will, instead, require he later Tech "Telegraph."

... Much more to follow :D
 
Question: If I go with historical accuracy, Horses will only be found in North America, and the entirety of Eurasia and North Africa will have only Elephants for war animals.

If I go this way - and knowing that here are a great number of excellent Elephant units at hand - I'd like any and all advice about how to best implement this (to the best of my knowledge) unique situation in a mod. Elephants were historically proven to be skittish beasts in combat, and there MF should be ... "1"?

:help:
 
keep in mind too that there are several Mammoth units which could be initially available & then upgrade to elephants. The ones i know about: Supa's includes resource icons, Wotan49 made a multi-unit which perhaps could be capturable & upgraded to a cavalry unit, and Plotinus made several to choose from depending what civs/culture groups you wish to have them.
 
keep in mind too that there are several Mammoth units which could be initially available & then upgrade to elephants. The ones i know about: Supa's includes resource icons, Wotan49 made a multi-unit which perhaps could be capturable & upgraded to a cavalry unit, and Plotinus made several to choose from depending what civs/culture groups you wish to have them.

Great minds think alike - and so do we ;) BTW, there were still mammoths roaming the Earth while the great pyramid of Giza was being built.

I'm more concerned about how to work them into the game mechanics. Horses are easy - if nothing else, they're basically faster assault or scout units than infantry, whereas an elephant's pace is - I think - about the same as a man's. How can they be differentiated?
 
Ozy... an elephant can walk a about 121 Miles a day although usually walk 15 & 1/2 miles a day. They are faster than a man with more endurance.
A Man cannot out Run an Elephant. Elephants can Run faster than a man.
The basic difference between riding an Elephant or a Horse is that the Elephant is much stronger and can carry a man much easier than a horse.

Woolly Mammoths were not a great deal larger than the Modern African Elephant.

I would set Elephants to walk 4 times more distance than a Man. After all, the Elephant has a longer stride than a man.

Go with Distance rather than Speed to differentiate Elephants compared to Horses.
 
Ozy... an elephant can walk a about 121 Miles a day although usually walk 15 & 1/2 miles a day. They are faster than a man with more endurance.
A Man cannot out Run an Elephant. Elephants can Run faster than a man.
The basic difference between riding an Elephant or a Horse is that the Elephant is much stronger and can carry a man much easier than a horse.

Woolly Mammoths were not a great deal larger than the Modern African Elephant.

I would set Elephants to walk 4 times more distance than a Man. After all, the Elephant has a longer stride than a man.

Go with Distance rather than Speed to differentiate Elephants compared to Horses.

Perfect! For game purposes, I think that MF=3 (with Foot units still/MF=1) will be a foundational element in an entirely new type of warfare which we've never seen in action!

Any every thought and input is most welcome.

A quick aside: The African elephant can't be domesticated, and Hannibal's North African species is extinct; Ditto the Seleucid's Syrian.

QUESTION: I s it worth starting a thread to more fully flesh out a hypothetical/ unique warscape like this?
 
QUESTION: I s it worth starting a thread to more fully flesh out a hypothetical/ unique warscape like this?
This Thread allows an eclectic grouping of Posts and will probably suffice however, if you want to delve into a more specific topic, perhaps a New Thread would be advantageous for that discussion.

Regarding Unit Moves... Other than having a decided ratio between different Units, it also requires taking into consideration many other factors such as the Tile Distance and Terrain in the Game. That said, in the end it is the decision of the Creator :)
Basically, the One Tile Unit Moves, although necessary in many instances, seriously slow Game Play until some sort of faster transportation is gained... and the AI does NOT use basic Land Transports.

The ability to travel longer distances faster is one of the most powerful abilities a CIV can have.

Personally, I dislike moving many Units slowly across a Map for many turns, trying to get to a location, only to have the Game situation change by the time the location is reached... usually becomes tedious, boring and a waste of time on Large Maps.
If Slow Units are used, I believe it necessary to have some faster transports available for them and due to the AI programing that has to be Water and Air Transports. Early Transports can be Rafts and Hot Air Balloons for example or even a Floating Log :lol:

As Usual, when making a Game using the CIV III/Conquests Game Engine there is a Plethora of things to consider and try to implement for Game Play... especially given the "Hard Coded" Programing Factors. That is perhaps the Biggest Challenge.
 
This Thread allows an eclectic grouping of Posts and will probably suffice however, if you want to delve into a more specific topic, perhaps a New Thread would be advantageous for that discussion.

OK :)

Regarding Unit Moves... Other than having a decided ratio between different Units, it also requires taking into consideration many other factors such as the Tile Distance and Terrain in the Game. That said, in the end it is the decision of the Creator :)
Basically, the One Tile Unit Moves, although necessary in many instances, seriously slow Game Play until some sort of faster transportation is gained

[...]

Personally, I dislike moving many Units slowly across a Map for many turns, trying to get to a location, only to have the Game situation change by the time the location is reached... usually becomes tedious, boring and a waste of time on Large Maps..

Agreed - With one caveat: I've always been mystified that "C3" ("Command," "Control," "Communications") have been ignored, not so much in the game engine, but in mods. Within the game engine, a simple "rules" change could have inhibited how far away a unit can be from a home city, with that range increasing with different Techs. In Terra Fantasia, the Techs "Map Making," "Longitude," "Telegraph," and "Radio" will each provide Upgrade units with higher MF units (only ships, with "Longitude" - ya with me, @timerover51 :cooool: ) without necessarily significantly higher AFs/DFs (I think that some increase will be necessary, as I don't think that the game will upgrade a unit based solely upon MFs.)

I'm also going to be using both the "Radar" capability and (possibly) Bombard unit ranges >1 to approximates a unit's "area of operations," over the course of, say, a 100 year turn. The latter is admittedly going to be tricky, given the AI's indifference to offensive artillery ... But I'll see what I can do.

- Now, back to the Elephant Matter. It's impossible to imagine a military with only Elephants, so there simply must be infantry, 1 MF to start (I like 3 MF for the Elephants, but with no possibility of Retreat, despite their speed - And, of course, this will set that limitation for all units throughout the game.) It's easy to crudely imagine as Elephants always as Attackers as Infantry likewise Defenders, but:
  1. I think an Elephant unit's AF should be significantly higher than its DF, and I've yet to wrap my mind around how that would actually play out; and,
  2. I've mentioned that I want a constant back-and-forth of technology and/or tactics resulting in significantly different ratios of AF:DF throughout ... "thinking aloud" -
    • The game begins before Elephants are domesticated.
    • Once domesticated, they'll trample whatever foot soldiers are around, until -
    • "Phalanx" infantry (as in, Alex The Great's) can be armed and trained to properly resist them ...
    • ... And then it will just keep getting more and more complicated! :bounce:
Please do keep that "thinking cap" on :salute:
 
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