The Salvation of Gaia (mod)

[Oni Ryuu]

The Salvation of Gaia​

Introduction

Evil has reigned for many years and drained Gaia of her strength. The sprites (wardens of the life stream) have been enslaved by the darkness to feed the growing power of our chthonic overlord. You must send your ambitious band of plucky do-gooders to singlehandedly save the world from this plague of monsters and their unholy masters. Failure will lead to the inevitable starvation of our people and ultimately the death of all life.

Notes

• Cities are renamed to manna springs
• Citizens are now rescued sprites (twinkling lights) that supply you with experience
• There are several characters of different classes; Soldiers, Mages, Summoners, Summoned Beasts, Pack Mules and a Sprite Assistant.
• You acquire team mates as you explore the map. They need to be sent off to be healed (upgraded) or carried until you reach an appropriate manna spring to become useable
• Mobile AI units can’t use equipment so will be fairly basic
• Immobile AI units (bosses) can have summons and other interesting equipment comparable to the player.
• All found equipment (proto units) should be a foot unit so it can be transported by your pack mule. Summons excluded.
• All characters will need a minimum of 10 HP or they’ll be slaughtered in the first outing.
• The main characters need an unarmed attack value so they can capture equipment.
• Cities are doted throughout the maze as checkpoints for healing and upgrading.
• Most cities are defended by a boss/mini boss.
• There is an allied AI player that you can buy skills from at inflated prices.
• Money is used to represent experience (pure manna) and shields (crude manna)Experience is gained by acquiring checkpoints.
• Experience can be used to develop new skills (tech) or improve items and characters.
• Zero corruption
• No war weariness
• Most checkpoints have 1 or 2 sprites; boss checkpoints may have 5 or 6
• Larger opponents can have manna units (Population cost)
• Goodie huts are chests that can yield Start Unit 2 (Manna Unit), Pure Manna (cash) or a trap
• The player’s civ needs to be expansionist to reduce goodie hut traps
• Bonus resources are manna concentrations with a combination of manna types
• Characters can teleport to another room by using telepads disguised to suit the graphics.
• You need to capture Airfield (in neutral territory) to take the ‘key unit’ (removes forest) and airdrop it onto the door (forest) to open the way.
• Your Sprite Assistant can directly unlock Fairy Doors but it will take several turns from your busiest unit.
• Enemy radar towers need to be destroyed to remove the summon bonus from a boss.
• Required food is reduced to 1 (can’t exceed pop 1 if required food is 0)
• Will need bonus resources to feed the lesser sprites and provide pure & crude manna
• Will need 1 specialist citizen (big sprite) for every city, to produce pure & crude manna and cap the population

Characters

Soldier - loads foot + T-missile
Mage - loads T-missile
Summoner - loads aircraft
Pack Mule - loads foot
Cart - loads mech
Sprite Assistant - (No combat stats, Nationless, invisible, Can absorb Manna, Rebase to any city, all terrain as road)
Roaming Enemies - can attack, bombard and withdraw
Static Enemies - can bombard
Wall Creatures (Naval Enemies) - can bombard and withdraw
Bosses - can only defend so need other units to support them.
Keys -
Manna Crystal - (Flag unit)
Manna Crystals 1-6 (Units with a population cost that separate into Flag units)
Equipment -

Terrain

Grassland needs to be dominated by adjacent terrain graphics so it can blend in.

Grassland, LM Grassland = monster blocking floor type (No wheeled units)
Plains, LM plains = Floor type (Outside)
Desert, Flood Plain, LM Desert = Floor type (Inside Building)
Tundra = Floor type (Cave)
Hills = high ground (Cave only)
LM Hills = high ground (Outside only)
Mountains = impassable floor type (Cave only) stalactite & Stalagmite (Stalagmite is more common)
Snow Capped Mountains = impassable floor type (Boss Building only) Column
LM Mountains = impassable floor type
Forrest, Pine Forrest, LM Forrest = Locked door (Cave, Outside, Inside Building only)
Jungle = = Fairy door (Cave only)
Marsh = Fairy door (Inside Building only)
Volcano = unpredictable volcanic vent (Boss Terrain only)
Coast = walls

Coast + Grassland = (Requires detailed explanation)
Coast + Plains = Outside Wall of Trees
Coast + Desert = Building Walls
Coast + Tundra = Cave Walls​

Sea, LM Sea = Tall Trees (Dead space) impassable filler for outside
Ocean = Black (Dead space) impassable filler for inside and caves

Door Terrain

A Foot unit called “Old Key” is a proto unit that can be placed on any traversable tile. The “Old Key” needs to be taken to the desired city so it can be upgraded into a “Key” unit. This immobile and unloadable “Key” is airdropped onto the blocking tile (Forrest) to clear it the following turn.

Buildings

Buildings can’t be built or destroyed. The enemy and allied civs can only do Capitalisation.
‘Veteran air units’ & ‘Veteran ground units’ = Upgrade and heals all units (auto built for every city)
Battlefield medicine (starting building)
Capitalisation = purify manna

Demo (without wall graphics)

Spoiler :

 

[nick0515]

This sounds awesome man! I'm happy to help obviously!

I've started creating units large/small and units_32 weapon images for my mod which might be useful for you.

I assume you are aware of Tom's awesome unit spell packs and fantasy terrain buildings which are invaluable.

Happy to help with testing. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

If it wasn’t for you I would never have considered it possible to mod Civ into a worthwhile RPG.

I’m going to wait and see if it generates enough interest before I start work in earnest. I’ve still got to polish-up my TLC mod for its formal release.

I’m going to poke at the idea for a while in case I’ve missed something but I’m quite eager to see where this is going to go.

Thanks for offering to help; I’m sure I’ll need it. I’ll share what I find and hopefully some of it will be useful for your mod too.

 

[nick0515]

I think your mod will help me a lot in general with ideas, testing concepts etc, but especially with the dungeon areas I want to incorporate in my map! I think there will be a lot of cross over in our mods to make them compliment each other but also enough differences that both could be fun in different ways, or for different people.

I just saw your map example. That's very good. I hadn't thought about using goody huts but actually they could be very useful! What will 'doors' be? Terrain that only heroes can cross? Something else?

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Terrain

• Grassland, LM Grassland = monster blocking floor type (No wheeled units)
• Forrest, Pine Forrest, LM Forrest = Locked door (Cave, Outside, Inside Building only)
• Jungle = = Fairy door (Cave only)
• Marsh = Fairy door (Inside Building only)

You need to capture an Airfield (in neutral territory) to take the ‘key unit’ (immobile worker) and airdrop it onto the door (forest) to open the way (clear forest).
Your Sprite Assistant ('move as road' worker) can unlock Fairy Doors (clear jungle) unaided but it will take several turns.

 

[nick0515]

Sorry didn't read the terrain descriptions above properly. That's brilliant with the fairy doors! I'll definitely have to test that out in my mod too!

I actually made a basic dungeon terrain a while ago. It was very simple. I just took someone's underground terrain (sorry forgotten who and too lazy to check at the moment) and then modified the mountains to be a sold block of stone that takes up and entire title. Then I could generate a filled map of all mountains and then draw on the dungeon with the rest of the underworld terrain making a sort of cave dungeon. Your plan is far more complex and will be of great use though!

Now to read the explanation in the initial post properly for other things I might have missed!

Edit:

Coast = walls
Coast + Grassland = (Requires detailed explanation)
Coast + Plains = Outside Wall of Trees
Coast + Desert = Building Walls
Coast + Tundra = Cave Walls

This is a very interesting idea! I would love to use this terrain if you create it.

I like the idea of money being experience. So would research be engineered to be zero for the player so you have to use you money/experience to buy techs?

I'm think for my mod the experience would just be represented by regular researching of techs. I am also planning that the players can 'buy' items with gold in their city via the hurry production button. Terrain would give zero production meaning that the hurry production button is the only way to get a unit. The amount of production assigned to a unit would determine how much gold the item costs.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I like the idea of money being experience. So would research be engineered to be zero for the player so you have to use you money/experience to buy techs?

I want the player to learn the skill over time (research tech) and also be able to buy it from the shop civ.

I am also planning that the players can 'buy' items with gold in their city via the hurry production button. Terrain would give zero production meaning that the hurry production button is the only way to get a unit.

Every city has at least 1 shield by default. If you make cash = shields in a 1:1 ratio and have a high income; normal production could be made unfeasible.

 

[nick0515]

Ah I hadn't tested zero production yet. I didn't realise cities had a default 1 shield although that makes sense. Will play with what you said.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

This is just an experiment to see how it would look. I need more texture to the floor and it needs some cave walls. Some rocks, cracks and maybe a bleached skeleton (decorative resources) would be nice too.

 

[nick0515]

Nice one! Looking good already!

EDIT:

If you need icons for items/spells etc other than what already exists in the databases, two potential sources I'm planning to use are:

https://opengameart.org/

http://www.wowhead.com/

The first has open permissive licenses the second is presumably standard restrictive copyright.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’ve slightly improved the image in the previous post. The black gaps (walls/water) will need to be thick enough to prevent you from seeing passageways on the other side.

Try to picture giant spiders (ships) scurrying along the walls (cost) trying to bite you whilst being chased by a few really angry bats.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’m getting some behavioural problems with the AI. If left unimpeded, they charge straight past my guys and attack my nearest city. If I block the way (no wheeled units), the just fortify and wait for death.

Can anyone tell me why my bats won’t attack my party?

Download Demo

 

[nick0515]

I’m getting some behavioural problems with the AI. If left unimpeded, they charge straight past my guys and attack my nearest city. If I block the way (no wheeled units), the just fortify and wait for death.

Can anyone tell me why my bats won’t attack my party?

Download Demo

Yes I'm getting the same problem in my mod. Haven't had much time to play with settings though to improve it

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’m beginning to think that we’d need to rewrite the AI.

For my mod, the fodder units should stay dormant until they see an enemy, then charge.
For once, I need dumber AI.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’m now certain that my RPG mod won’t work well and it’s too much work for just three people to play. I’m going to abandon the idea now before I get too invested in a substandard mod.

@nick0515
I hope you have better luck making your mod functional.

 

[Nathiri]

Isnt there some flag you could add to encourage them to attack your party? I cant test anything at this time and I may not be able to for several months.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

It doesn’t look like it. I’m trying to get the AI to attack a far superior force with whatever it has to hand; the total opposite to what this AI was designed for.

EDIT: The spiders (coastal ships) work the way I want so I could use only ship units.

It’ll need an amphibious land unit to take the cities. Could be the sprite assistant
Acquiring equipment and team mates will be awkward
It couldn’t support a Mage class
It won’t support wall climbing creatures
It won’t be able to do doors
It could only have 2 floor terrain types because 1 will need to be blocking terrain

 

[Nathiri]

I dont know, but do the AI use cruise missiles? and would they be an alternative? I dont know the mechanics of the AI involving that, but I assume they would suicide them at whatever and at least the party receives damage.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’ll poke at it a little more but it doesn’t look promising.

 

[nick0515]

I've been too busy to do any modding recently but hope to start again soon. Maybe tonight.

I have had limited success in the past getting the AI to attack me but I don't remember the settings.

It is possible to get the AI to attack you with artillery type units. I have done this recently. They need to have 4 plus range though. There are other factors too that I can't remember right now. Does giving the AI units hidden nationality help? HN units are always very aggressive. Giving them Blitz, Treat all terrain as roads and multiple moves might also help possibly? I think whether or not the AI thinks it's cities are well defended affects it's aggressiveness too.

Another problem is once wounded with a ranged attack the AI will fortify rather than attack you making them a very easy kill for a ranged unit.

It will be difficult though if not impossible for the reason you say above of trying to get the AI to do the opposite of what it was designed for. I should probably work on this before doing anything else on the mod as the whole idea hinges on getting the AI to cooperate.