The Ascent of Mankind

[Civ Fuehrer]

Looking at lemmy101's DUCKS mod gave me an idea for a backbone to space discovery.

After you research Stargazing, it will unlock the Astropedia. In the Astropedia would be multiple tabs, the first and default would be the Discovery page. In the Discovery page you would be able to tell your Star Mappers/Astrologers/Astronomers/etc. on what to look for. According to what techs have been discovered, you could have them look for different things. At mysticism you could have them looking for signs of the god(s), at Astrology you can have them look for constellations, at Astronomy you can have them look for landmarks, etc. Over the turns your scientists will provide results that you are looking for, it could be a bonus to units, culture (in relations to beliefs), science or an addition to the Planetarium tab in the Astropedia. The Planetarium shows you what galaxies you know of, what sections of the galaxy you know of, what solar systems of those sections you know of, stars, planets, comets, asteroids, etc. and gives you demographics of each spacial phenomena. Finally the Command tab will be unlocked when you discover Satellites and will allow you to communicate with space stations/lunar colonies/planet colonies/etc. and will allow you to micromanage those colonies whether it be specific colonies, all your colonies on a given planet or all your colonies in a solar system or even all your colonies in a given galaxy sector.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Civ Fuehrer

Since I have been having trouble even getting the files you gave me even to work, did you actually put in "Astropedia"? If so how did you do that part?

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

In the Civ IV version it was called Spacepedia. If you're have that much trouble with it, I could look into my older mod archives for the last stable version of that mod which was what was released. IIRC that version did not have a few techs in there and the tech tree was not fully organized but it's compatible with RoM 2.6. Also it had a non-functional screen with a screen button.

EDIT: Actually, to get the techs by themselves I can list off the XML files you need and which python files you'd need to merge with the prehistoric mod.

EDIT2: Come to think of it, the Galactic Era would be incompatible with all of the hundreds of Civ leaders that were added as extra.

In Assets/XML/Civilizations/ there is the file CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml that contains all of the era-related things to the different civs, you'd need to go through all the extra civ leader heads and add the galactic era like what I did in that file without misspelling a single word.

The Game Info/EraInfos needs to be merged.

Buildings/CIV4PlotLSystem and Buildings/CIV4CityLSystem needs to be merged with the prehistoric ones.

the AudioDefines & AudioScripts can also be copied over - they point to where the galactic background music is.

the Sounds folder can be copied over

the Python file needs to be merged with the other (if there is one) python file to get the era-specific tech colors to show up.

the Not Just Another Game Clock.xml needs to be merged with the one in prehistoric mod

The art folder just puts in a moon at the startup menu.

In the modules folder, it refers to Afforess's sports mod because of a tech dependency issue where both tech couldn't fit and were merged/deleted/etc.

In the AToM folder under modules, there is sports mod buildings artdefines xml which does something and I forget now... but it's there to stop another error popup relating to sports mod dependency.

The technologiesSchema/TechInfos is the main file with techs.

The gametext was the file that you helped make and gives everything a name.

The building files are random buildings I was intending to replace.

The art defines schema is the file that the sports mod buildings art defines needs.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Well I just want to get a version that won't have no screen. I am wondering if its because Afforess put in the BUG menu icon which is messing it up. Or maybe its his whole disabling future techs options. I have no idea.

Also do you know how to combine the Galactic Era with the Prehistoric Era? Specifically CIV4EraInfos. Here is the Prehistoric Mods file. Do I just copy and paste the Galactic Era section or do I need to do something different/more?

EDIT: Ack! You edited while I was posting.

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

Another tab in the Astropedia would be Ship Augments. This tab will literally be a miniature tech tree related directly to how fast, dangerous or beating-prone your ships out in space will be. Chokepoints in the tree will unlock as you progress through the main tech tree and will be unlocked at Space Flight. Only the ships that you build (in all colonies with trade routes to the home planet can access these augments) after a teched augment will be applied to that ship. Of course you will not have direct control over those ships like you do on the home planet, but the ship augments will turn the tide of battle more in your favor should ships encounter any resistance on their travels. Ship Augments will ultimately lead to ships that can explore the galactic core and give the player another victory type.

New tab in the military advisor screen showing what ships you have constructed, how many there are, which ones have what augments, where they're headed.

These are all ideas, not in any actual mod form yet.

EDIT: New release ideas:
The Ascent of Mankind: The Magnificent Skies will be a standalone mod with only Ancient-Future Era techs (dumbed-down to fit with vanilla) TMS will allow for planet discovery but will not allow colonizing or any victory type. Astropedia's Discovery and Planetarium tabs will be available.

The Ascent of Mankind: The New Frontier will be RoM-dependent and will contain all eras and all techs. Astropedia's Command tab and Ship Augments tab will be available along with tabs available in TMS. New Military Screen tab for ships will be available.

The Ascent of Mankind: Temporal Tampering and The Ascent of Mankind: Alien Outbreak! will need revisions on concepts. Content will remain the same.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Civ Fuehrer

So I copied over your techs to my chart. However I have a few questions.

1. What about the Modern and Trans-Human era techs?

2. Which are which on your chart for the Trans-Human and Galactic Era techs?

3. I know that Space Tourism and Space Colonies were taken out but what about "Stealth" and "Sentient Earth"? Where do they go?

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

Oh, whoops I forgot to copy down Sentient Earth. Just put that and stealth where they are in Afforess' tech tree.

Come to think of it, quite a few techs on your spread sheet are way out of place...

Stargazing practically parallels Mysticism, you can have either require the other.

Astro-Environmental Systems would replace Space Flight which would require Astronautics and leads to Space Stations.

Astronautics requires Satellites and leads to Astro-Environmental Systems.

Astrogeology and CCD Photography you came up with so you can probably find a place for them.

Optronics would replace Terra Computer.


x46 would be all Trans-Human
x47 Orbital Megastructures is Galactic
x48 all are galactic except Advanced Shielding

finally, put Gene Manipulation back where it belongs.

On x39 you can shift the bottom 6 up by 1 so you can put Gene manipulation where it's suppose to go.

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

Since I'm not one to actually fill out extensive and repetitive XML files, I have asked Decimatus if I could use his Call to Power mod as a base and he accepted. So currently I am designing & coding the first portion of the mod which would allow the user to micromanage off-planet colonies.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Civ Fuehrer

Is that a Civ5 mod then?

Because we already have some included in C2C and have been planning out the rest.

EDIT: Doh! I should have read the mini title "The Development of ATOM for Civ 5 has begun!"

Well that's good news then. Best of luck with ATOM for civ5.

 

[ikillu64]

This looks awesome, I will be sure to download it right when the alpha comes out.

 

[chrome-rome]

Ditto what ikillu said

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

I went ahead and made a thread on the main C&C forum for the first Civ 5 ATOM installment Call to Power with a screenshot of how the project is coming along so far. See my sig for a direct link to the ATOM:CTP thread.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Civ Fuehrer

I had some questions about the ATOM Civ4 files. Which ones control the new space menu?

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

Erm, I was in the middle of figuring out the insane python to make a screen come up when other things distracted me (mostly school) and I never really implemented it, just the button which does nothing... That's actually one of the biggest modding infuriations about Civ IV... the python for screens was insanely complex. Why else do you think only a few mods with the bigger mod teams came out with new screens? (FFH, BUG, Rev)

 

[Hydromancerx]

Wait so what was really in it? I was tying to find the stuff I could not make myself.

- Building (Can make those)
- Techs (Can make those)
- Menu Screen (not needed)
- Galactic Era (I can't but strategyonly can and even then we could always just add techs to the trans-human era)
- Sounds (I am sure they are not that hard to add)
- Art (I can do that)
- Text (I can do that)

So all I really needed besides the outline of ideas we went over was the whole new screen for the space stuff. And now your saying that you never got it to function?!?

Well if you ever want to help out with C2C, making a menu would be the one thing we would really need. (besides adding the new era). The rest of the stuff I can totally do. I know you would not want to download the whole mod. So just let me know what files I need to grab and I can post them for you.

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

Well I just checked in my dropbox which version I linked to you... I gave you the version I was cleaning up for alpha stages without a screen which is what C2C is doing so far, so what you listed was all that was in the file. I've deleted that zip and uploaded the messy version with the button and the screen python scraps. Looking through it you can see all the different python files that I was working on and making, trying to get it to show. I followed the Civ IV screen tutorial with no luck seeing as how the tut was made before the warlords expansion it was worthless. I looked through both the BUG mod and the Rev mod files with no luck. So yea, there is the screen stuff but it don't work. If I were to return I might be able to make a little more sense out of it now than before, but I doubt I can make anything with that python coding in a month as I have in Lua in a few days.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Ok Downloading now. What about in the way of adding the Galactic Era? Could you help with that if I gave you the appropriate C2C files (which you would have to tell me)?

EDIT: Oh my what a horrible horrible mess. ROFL! Its all the spore-ish icon too. I almost forgot about those!

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

In Rise of Mankind/Assets you want:
Config/Not Just Another Game Clock.xml
Python/Screens/CvTechChooser.py
XML/Buildings (both XML files)
XML/Civilizations (the only file in there)
XML/GameInfos/CIV4EraInfos.xml

You can just take them from the messy folder and give them to Strategyonly for merging.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Civ Fuehrer

Thanks! I will give it to him.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Civ Fuehrer

So these concepts are going into C2C right now. Such as the Galactic Era and techs and soon the buildings. However how do we put in the "Spacepedia" part?