The Sword of Islam: RFC Medieval Middle East

[Akbarthegreat]

Indeed, this is the best mod for Civ4, and his mods have been of the best quality as well. Can't think of any other mod as well polished, researched and bug free as his (Sengoku and Sword of Islam).

Completely echo your sentiments
There are so many brilliant mods for civ4 but this one feels the most like a standalone game, because of how well it is done.
Not to mention how much I learnt about Islamic history from it

 

[Yoda Power]

Embryodead will probably not return. I've been in contact with him after he left the forums.

 

[AtlantaMarty]

Embryodead will probably not return. I've been in contact with him after he left the forums.

That's a bummer.
Are you allowed to say why he left and why he won't come back?

 

[The Southerner]

Completely echo your sentiments
There are so many brilliant mods for civ4 but this one feels the most like a standalone game, because of how well it is done.
Not to mention how much I learnt about Islamic history from it

I agree. Brilliant game and brilliant history lesson.

 

[The Turk]

Embryodead will probably not return. I've been in contact with him after he left the forums.

I'm curious about this as well. Is he finished modding for good? Seems like a rather abrupt end, granted however he did complete SoI and Sengoku. He always talked about starting a new mod, which I was very excited about, focusing on Medieval West Europe. I always felt RFC:E was overly bloated, so was looking forward to a concentrated mod concerning Medieval Europe.

Can't believe he is gone

 

[Yoda Power]

He left for personal reasons not related to anything on the forum. Sadly I don't think he will return. But I could be wrong.

He's a great guy BTW. I modded Civ3 with him for years, and his talent always blew me away.

 

[AtlantaMarty]

Sadly I don't think he will return. But I could be wrong.

Link to video.

 

[Genghis Khaiser]

Is there a way to change a civ's core and historical provinces? Whether it's in the files or in the WB.

 

[Autumn Leaf]

Is there a way to change a civ's core and historical provinces? Whether it's in the files or in the WB.

Depends what you want to achieve.

The lists of Core, Normal (historical), etc provinces are found about halfway down in Assets\Python\consts.py. Editing the lists is straight-forward and works just fine as long as you are careful with the syntax and avoid duplicating entries.

For example, here is the top of the core section:

# Core (spawn) regions = RFC tCoreAreasTL/BR and AIWars +10
lCoreRegions = [
    [rThrace, rAsia], # Byzantium
    [rMakuria], # Makuria

You can edit this by adding or deleting regions from the relevant civ's core array, e.g. to add Nobatia to Makuria's core:

# Core (spawn) regions = RFC tCoreAreasTL/BR and AIWars +10
lCoreRegions = [
   [rThrace, rAsia], # Byzantium
   [rMakuria, rNobatia], # Makuria

The complete list of defined regions is found immediately above this section in consts.py.

Note that these edits should be done before you start a game. It is possible to edit the lists "on the fly" and the changes will indeed show up in the colour overlay, but it's not completely clear to me that the game will always recognise the on-the-fly changes. RFCEurope, by contrast, dynamically updates provinces and uses a utility (setProvinceType) to do this. SoI doesn't work this way; instead provinces switch on and off automaticaly as civs reach their spawn and die dates. What this means is that if you e.g. define a province as core before starting a SoI game, everything works as expected, but the game is sometimes whimsical if you change a region's type in mid-game.

Region and Settler maps are in Assets\Python\maps.py. Editing these is more complex, but if you work carefully and, where necessary, co-ordinate with edits to consts.py and Middle East 750 CE.CivBeyondSwordWBSave, you can achieve very fine control over where civs and cities spawn and how they grow.

Take backups of everything, before and after, and enjoy your custom games, but remember to always put everything back the way it was before you play a "real" game.

 

[Publicola]

There isn't a dedicated 'bug report' channel (though I'm not sure this actually counts), but I really wanted to share it with the community. I'm teaching a class, 'History Through Games', where homework consists of students playing Civ IV and one of three RFC mods (DOC, RFC Europe, and this mod SOI). Unfortunately, I recently got a message from a student indicated that their game was on the fritz.

Here's what they sent me:

I am having some trouble with SOI. First, I tried loading a SOI save from the BTS home screen. It started loading the SOI, but it kicked me back to my desktop. Then, I tried loading the game itself, not a save. The background of the home page was the picture of Notre Dame, just like in BTS. Then, I tried loading one of my saves and it took me to this screen:

And then they shared this screenshot:

At this point, I'm recommending a complete uninstall and reinstall to make sure whatever horrible thing has corrupted his game doesn't infect the rest of his system. But sitting in my home, a minimum safe distance away, I can't stop laughing at how cursed this screenshot is. Just look at it!

 

[freethink]

How.... did he manage this?