The Touhou Mod Development Thread

[Huitzil37]

I'm getting really annoyed that I can't seem to get my Moriya Shrine civ uploaded here so people can test it. Starting to wonder if I should just try and get it cleaned up enough to post to Steam...

Yeah, I have problems with the uploads here too, just put it up on Depositfiles and put the link in here.

Not to be pushy or anything, but what civs are you all working on? I was going to make a Moriya Shrine one but since bouncym is already doing that I'll scrap that idea. I don't want to overlap over anyone's work. I saw Mamizou, Riko, Makai, and Hakugyokurou. Any I missed?

I am finishing up Mugenkan led by Yuuka Kazami. What I do next depends on what I can figure out how to do in lua, I have some ideas for Aya / tengu and Miko.

 

[bouncymischa]

What I do next depends on what I can figure out how to do in lua, I have some ideas for Aya / tengu and Miko.

That reminds me, now that the old Aya civilization seems to be gone from Steam, I'd been debating resurrecting some of the old plans I had for it.

I suspect that her UB would really have to be a Newspaper Office or something -- looking at the tech tree, it might work best as a Zoo replacement, so you could build it with Printing Press.

For a UU, I had really wanted to do a Ninja unit for the Tengu. There are rumors that certain ninja clans received training from the tengu, and I saw them as basically being some version of a Scout (or a replacement for a unit that behaved Scout-like). The unit could have Submarine-like invisibility, and the ability to pass through borders, so you could use your Ninja to spy on and scout out your enemies... a rather Aya-like thing to do, I figured.

For a UA, I was leaning towards something mobility and sight range oriented, so that her units could react to things more quickly.

Those were my thoughts, at least. I'd be happy to work on it myself, but given that I've already got at least a couple others on my plate, I suspect I may have to leave it up to someone else. If people don't like the Ninja idea for Aya, I may end up using it with the Tanuki instead to support their espionage theme (although I'm currently leaning towards using Sohei with the Tanuki...)

 

[bouncymischa]

Yeah, I have problems with the uploads here too, just put it up on Depositfiles and put the link in here.

Okay... I think the Moriya Shrine file should be available here ... hopefully!

 

[Kiefmaster99]

I agree that there's little point in making a civ for every Touhou character -- there's no real point in making, say, a Sakuya civ, since the Scarlet Devil Mansion is better represented by Remilia. On the other hand, I could certainly see Yukari, Renko/Mari, and Yumemi all making three valid and distinctive civs on their own -- Yukari with an emphasis on gaps for mobility and combat, Renko and Mari with an emphasis on exploring and diplomacy to reflect their club activities, and Yumemi as a pro-science civ with an emphasis on sci-fi technology.

You're still looking at an immense amount. I'm assuming you're aiming for numerous civs nonetheless (so every 'breakaway' listed in my other post), and I'll agree that Yukari, Renko/Merry, and Yumemi make sense in their own civs. Yukari can easily cover both Chen and Ran though, and Yumemi with Chiyuri. Certainly Renko's GPS abilities can be reflected somehow in Civ5.

But I would still be in favour of trying to keep the Forest of Magic intact, or if you're not, give Alice her own Doll gimmick and merge Marisa with Reimu. I'm not exactly a fan of civs that represent one character only though, as it tends to dilute out the major factions in the end (SDM, Myouren Temple, Divine Spirit Mausoleum). Though I suppose the other idea is to break up the major ones into two.

 

[aranicar]

Of course plenty of diversity would be lost. But you have to keep in mind that, if you really wanted to do individual chars, at a rate of one civ per char, you're looking at about 80 civs, counting spell card users alone. I think there is more than enough diversity to be found in Touhou alone even with clumping into factions, and I doubt 80 civs would be an easy thing to manage, let alone finish. Quality over quantity.

I agree that there's little point in making a civ for every Touhou character -- there's no real point in making, say, a Sakuya civ, since the Scarlet Devil Mansion is better represented by Remilia.

For me it's not about the representation, it's about the gameplay. I believe that if somebody comes up with a unique or interesting idea that would fit a specific character, they should make a civ for them, instead of just letting some other one be the leader.

One example would be Nazrin. She can find things, so what if her trait lets the player see all resources from the beginning of the game? They can't gather/mine it, but they will be able to see which spots will have the iron/coal/oil and settle there preemptively. Under the lump-together mindset, she would just be under the Myouren Temple Civ, thus losing potential gameplay possibilities.

How about the Tengu Civ? Momiji would fit more under extended sight range and Aya would tend more towards speed and mobility, while Hatate could either be an in-between or have something of her own (less damage from ranged attacks, because bullets disappear when you take a picture of them ). That just isn't possible with 'Lord/Lady Tenma' being the leader of the Tengu Civ, unless they get all of the above, which wouldn't be balanced.

I'm all for the quality of civs, and these ideas would undergo extensive testing (if I made them, just throwing ideas out there, feel free to use) to see if they would be fun to play with or not, but I feel that we shouldn't limit ourselves to just thinking about set Touhou 'groups'.

Okay... I think the Moriya Shrine file should be available here ... hopefully!

I'm getting an 'Access to the following file is limited' page.

 

[Kiefmaster99]

For me it's not about the representation, it's about the gameplay. I believe that if somebody comes up with a unique or interesting idea that would fit a specific character, they should make a civ for them, instead of just letting some other one be the leader.

One example would be Nazrin. She can find things, so what if her trait lets the player see all resources from the beginning of the game? They can't gather/mine it, but they will be able to see which spots will have the iron/coal/oil and settle there preemptively. Under the lump-together mindset, she would just be under the Myouren Temple Civ, thus losing potential gameplay possibilities.

How about the Tengu Civ? Momiji would fit more under extended sight range and Aya would tend more towards speed and mobility, while Hatate could either be an in-between or have something of her own (less damage from ranged attacks, because bullets disappear when you take a picture of them ). That just isn't possible with 'Lord/Lady Tenma' being the leader of the Tengu Civ, unless they get all of the above, which wouldn't be balanced.

I'm all for the quality of civs, and these ideas would undergo extensive testing (if I made them, just throwing ideas out there, feel free to use) to see if they would be fun to play with or not, but I feel that we shouldn't limit ourselves to just thinking about set Touhou 'groups'.

The thing about a Touhou mod, or any mod really attempting to represent one franchise, is that there should be no (or as little) redundancy and overlap as possible. For example, you can't have both a "SDM civ" and a "Sakuya civ", especially since Sakuya has her flavour represented as the Fairy Maid. Otherwise, it feels like you're just creating a civ because you can and you have the idea for it, rather than trying to fit it in with the big picture. It kinda leads to a rather fractured Touhou mod as a whole.

Nazrin can just as easily have her flavour represented by being a UU Archaeologist (Dowser) that is able to dowse/discover strategic resources for example. It can either:
a) in addition to digging Ruins, can discover 1x strategic resource in a blank tile that doesn't already have a resource (or if it has a resource, it discovers it); this consumes the unit if a new resource is discovered
b) has a one-time ability to discover a resource, similar to the Great Merchant from one of the Madoka spoiler civs

And if you really wanted to create a breakaway from Myouren Temple, you can group Nazrin and Shou together, since they both have related abilities, and are related under Bishamonten.

 

[bouncymischa]

I'm getting an 'Access to the following file is limited' page.

I think I screwed it up... first time trying to use Depositfiles...

Moriya Shrine should now be available here ! I think this one will work...

 

[aranicar]

The thing about a Touhou mod, or any mod really attempting to represent one franchise, is that there should be no (or as little) redundancy and overlap as possible. For example, you can't have both a "SDM civ" and a "Sakuya civ", especially since Sakuya has her flavour represented as the Fairy Maid. Otherwise, it feels like you're just creating a civ because you can and you have the idea for it, rather than trying to fit it in with the big picture. It kinda leads to a rather fractured Touhou mod as a whole.

I am in no way advocating overlap (I did just ask for civs that have already been taken) and redundancy is a very poor design in terms of gameplay. I'm just saying that every char should have a chance of being represented.
(Anyways that Nazrin thing was just an example)

On the other hand, I would be interested in creating/contributing to a Touhou complete-conversion 'super' mod with 11 or 12 defined civilizations each with multiple UUs and UBs. I think that would be fun .

 

[bouncymischa]

Hey Huitzil, I've got a problem.

I was working on my Makai civ today. The UU is being pretty straightforwards (I'm going to make it an Anti-Tank-Gun replacement that shows up earlier, to fit between Lancers and Helicopter Gunships). However, the UB is being kind of bleah.

I had originally thought to make a Travel Agency UB to replace the Hotel... except I've found out the Hotel actually does very little, aside from convert some Culture production into Tourism, and that's pretty hard-coded. I could change the percentage, so the Shinki gets a massive Tourism boost from having Wonders and culture improvements around, but that seems kind of simplistic. I'm a bit frustrated I can't modify improvement yields using a building, because my first thought had been to have improvements generate culture or tourism. Bah.

So my backup plan ended up being to consider giving her a UI. I'd always liked the description of Makai's "extensive fields of crystalline forests and frozen fields", so I'd considered a crystal forest UI as an option. However, in order to have it lead to Tourism yields, it needs to be a culture-generating UI -- which means it's getting rather close to Yuuka's flower fields.

I still really like the idea -- I'd figured they could only be built in hostile, poor yield terrain like Snow, Tundra, and Desert (to fit with the 'frozen fields'). Perhaps, if Yuuka is going to have vast fields of flowers, the Crystal Forests could be a very limited (but high yield) UI. But I wanted to bounce the idea off of you, because I don't want Shinki to end up being too close to Yuuka in playstyle if I go through with this. Although I suppose if the UI can only be built in bad terrain but has useful yields, it's rather different from Yuuka's UI that vies with farms for where it can be built? I figured I'd see how you felt about it and if you had any suggestions...

EDIT: Talking with another friend about it, I'm rather tempted to move Shinki away from a pure Tourism focus to more of a terrain focus, emphasizing a Tundra environment for her. Considering playing up Makai as a hostile "Devil's World"...

 

[aranicar]

Moriya Shrine should now be available!

I played a game, and everything seems fine. The problem with the mountains is that the faith bonus doesn't seem worth it, but it's probably just me failing (I'm losing a religion war with Ramesses II and his Islam).

The UU feels balanced, though I was mass-producing them as soon as I researched Iron Working. I messed up the faith collection this game so I couldn't test out its full potential. How I messed up faith? (3 faith a turn in classical age and I had 2 cities near mountains). I don't even know.

I don't really have feedback for the UB. It was a building I built and it does something. Now that I look at its stats... Does it need +2 Sci and Prod? I'm not sure if the UB helped much but I'm currently the leading civ in terms of Science (my musketmen annihilated Ramesses's swordsmen).

Also, could you reduce the music volume a tad bit though? I don't know if it's just me, but the music is quite loud.

 

[bouncymischa]

I played a game, and everything seems fine. The problem with the mountains is that the faith bonus doesn't seem worth it, but it's probably just me failing (I'm losing a religion war with Ramesses II and his Islam).

I've been playing with Shinki's UI, and I've noticed that the computer isn't fond of putting citizens on either Kanako's mountain tiles or the tiles I develop with Shinki's UI. I suspect it's because they don't produce growth, and I tend to leave my citizen management up to the computer, which probably prefers to keep the city growing. I'm debating if I should up the yields on those tiles a bit, to make them more appealing...

The UU feels balanced, though I was mass-producing them as soon as I researched Iron Working. I messed up the faith collection this game so I couldn't test out its full potential. How I messed up faith? (3 faith a turn in classical age and I had 2 cities near mountains). I don't even know.

For me, since my city manager never put citizens on my mountains, I mostly just relied on a) building Shrines and Temples, and b) building Wonders like Stonehenge. Then again, I also play at the Prince level, so I'm not under nearly so many restrictions regarding my build order as I might be at higher difficulties...

I don't really have feedback for the UB. It was a building I built and it does something. Now that I look at its stats... Does it need +2 Sci and Prod? I'm not sure if the UB helped much but I'm currently the leading civ in terms of Science (my musketmen annihilated Ramesses's swordsmen).

It's one of the hard parts about playtesting... "did my uniques actually impact the game, or was I just lucky this time?" Especially when you change up something like science or gold generation that you're doing automatically. With regards to the Taisha, it seems roughly comparable to the Burial Tomb, although with different benefits. I suppose I could consider making it more like a Windmill benefit (available everywhere), to benefit building production...

Also, could you reduce the music volume a tad bit though? I don't know if it's just me, but the music is quite loud.

Sorry about that! The music seemed fine on my computer, although I can tell it's louder than my Suika civ (because I can usually barely hear Suika's music, and Kanako's music was audible just fine). But I'll turn it down a bit. :3

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[aranicar]

Thanks for the feedback!

My city manager eventually put them on the mountains, but it was only when Moriya Shrine had ~25 pop and I had maxed out the surrounding countryside and filled the specialist slots (city was bordering a mountain side and the ocean). It does give a good amount of faith, maybe change one of the other bonuses to +1 food? I would actually take that over the +1 production.

I also play on Prince, but it really depends on city spawn. I was able to fast expand into 2 jungles so I'm going to blame my Sci boost on that. In hindsight Nitori has way more Sci and Production from her rivers so IMO the UB is balanced. I'm not sure how to go with Nitori but that's a discussion for a later date.

Anyways, that was one of the best games I've played (first BNW game too ). I started the World Congress by accident (auto-explore) and managed to make my Moriya religion the World Religion. Then I took out Egypt to stop his Islam missionaries and managed to fight off France on my west flank and the Shoshone on my east flank while taking over Mongolia and the Inca with my tourism.
BNW is fun.

 

[Kiefmaster99]

On the other hand, I would be interested in creating/contributing to a Touhou complete-conversion 'super' mod with 11 or 12 defined civilizations each with multiple UUs and UBs. I think that would be fun .

Well, there are two distinct possibilities we can create a Touhou mod. We can have either a 'modular' mod, where we essentially put all the custom Touhou civs into one package that can be integrated with any other custom civ mods. This does require all the civs to be balanced against each other though, meaning UA, UU, and some other unique component. You have a somewhat limited design space though. This is the direction we are currently heading in.

The other one as you suggested is a total-conversion mod. This can entail not just more unique components, but other things such as new techs, units, buildings, promotions, and so on forth. or even Hero-like units. This would take a lot more work though to design and code for though, and serious consideration of this idea deserves an offshoot thread. I'm not sure how we'd go about this.

I've been playing with Shinki's UI, and I've noticed that the computer isn't fond of putting citizens on either Kanako's mountain tiles or the tiles I develop with Shinki's UI. I suspect it's because they don't produce growth, and I tend to leave my citizen management up to the computer, which probably prefers to keep the city growing. I'm debating if I should up the yields on those tiles a bit, to make them more appealing...

Well, maybe 2Fd/1G/1Fth might be more convincing. It's an early-game Trading Post on Grasslands with a faith boost, rather than Trading Post on Plains, but loses out in the mid game. In the late game it becomes a better Coast/Ocean tile.
Another idea could be to make tiles adjacent to Mountains get +1 Faith, though it might be a bit swingy. Or just Hills adjacent to Mountains.

 

[aranicar]

Well, there are two distinct possibilities we can create a Touhou mod. We can have either a 'modular' mod, where we essentially put all the custom Touhou civs into one package that can be integrated with any other custom civ mods. This does require all the civs to be balanced against each other though, meaning UA, UU, and some other unique component. You have a somewhat limited design space though. This is the direction we are currently heading in.

The other one as you suggested is a total-conversion mod. This can entail not just more unique components, but other things such as new techs, units, buildings, promotions, and so on forth. or even Hero-like units.

Too limited IMO. When I first started in Dec, I had wanted to do 4 civs. I released with the three civs hoping to get some feedback, and was going to do the fourth one later. The problem now is, she has already been done, indirectly, by Huitzil. While Utsuho isn't the civ I want to make, there is already a 'Palace of the Earth Spirits' civ on Steam, and I don't want to overlap over any other civs. That saddens me, since I was going to greatly change her units, and was curious on how that would have played.

Total-Conversion mod.
All of my yes. I will contribute in any way I can and will even start it, if need be. That sounds much more exciting than what is happening right now. We can still release our 'modular' civs parallel to the Total-Conversion, so that players can still play against the standard civs.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

For total conversion to Touhou, you'll need to change the victory blurb to "Nobody got hurt in the fighting, and everyone went to Reimu's place for a tea afterwards"

 

[Kiefmaster99]

Too limited IMO. When I first started in Dec, I had wanted to do 4 civs. I released with the three civs hoping to get some feedback, and was going to do the fourth one later. The problem now is, she has already been done, indirectly, by Huitzil. While Utsuho isn't the civ I want to make, there is already a 'Palace of the Earth Spirits' civ on Steam, and I don't want to overlap over any other civs. That saddens me, since I was going to greatly change her units, and was curious on how that would have played.

Total-Conversion mod.
All of my yes. I will contribute in any way I can and will even start it, if need be. That sounds much more exciting than what is happening right now. We can still release our 'modular' civs parallel to the Total-Conversion, so that players can still play against the standard civs.

I'm completely fine with having two co-existing, parallel mods. They are intended for different experiences after all. Unfortunately, I have next to no experience in coding for Civ5, so if you're willing to spearhead that, I'm willing to contribute to brainstorming and other stuff.

 

[Graan]

When I made Remilia, I had no serious intention of creating even more. The reason I'm making Yuyuko is because I found out how to make certain abilities work, which made me want to finish it up (I really still don't have an estimate, though).

Choosing whether to make a single civ or a whole bunch of them is really just a choice between quantity and quality, and I'd much rather pick the latter. Touhou Epic is well known, and I feel it set a standard for Touhou civ mods. Creating something below this standard would be very disappointing for people switching form civ 4 to 5, but meeting the standard with a total conversion would be too much work for one person.

It's great to see more people interested in creating Touhou mods, since it means the standard can be met while still adding in multiple civs. Whether we're going Freedom or Order about this doesn't matter much to me, since I probably won't have much to add beyond Remi&Yuyu. I could help out at times, but won't have the time for another full civ.

 

[aranicar]

For total conversion to Touhou, you'll need to change the victory blurb to "Nobody got hurt in the fighting, and everyone went to Reimu's place for a tea afterwards"

Brilliant.

""

I feel like we would need a new forum thread, though I would like to get a 'can help contribute' list before doing that. As much as I'd like to, I won't be able to create it by myself. But, if there was one thing I've learned since entering college, it was "Everything begins with the resolve to take the first step."

Touhou Epic is well known, and I feel it set a standard for Touhou civ mods. Creating something below this standard would be very disappointing for people switching form civ 4 to 5, but meeting the standard with a total conversion would be too much work for one person.

I have personally never played Touhou Epic, so I cannot comment on how it plays (I never got BtS for some reason...). I've read the wiki page for it on TH Wiki though and have a loose understanding of how the spellcard system worked.

 

[bouncymischa]

I know some people have undertaken full conversion mods by themselves -- I think FramedArchitect's Faerun mod and Pazryk's Ea mod are both individual projects that are basically full conversions. On the other hand, I believe PawelS has been organizing a group to work on his Chronicles of Adea project. I suspect I wouldn't be of much help, though... I'm having a hard enough time keeping up with just making my own little mods here, and trying to commit to a more massive project would be difficult. Still, I enjoy brainstorming, so could help toss ideas around.

As for my own work... lately I've been mostly focused on the Makai civ, which is coming along rather nicely. I've had some good games with it lately, and for me at least, it has a very different feel to the other civs.

I increased the yield on Shinki's UI to 1 Culture, 1 Production, and 1 Gold, and I think adding the gold bonus did the trick. I suspect the AI wants to work tiles that put out either Food or Gold, although it does seem to make Moais and such too. Ah well... the Crystal Forest also gets a bonus of +1 Culture and +1 Gold with Economics.

It's probably about ready to throw up here for testing, although I should make an icon for the Drakes and clean up the text more. After this, I think I'll go back and tweak Moriya a bit to see if I can get the trait to give Mountains a bit of a better yield, in the hopes it'll encourage cities to work them. I also need to knuckle down and finish up the diplomacy text... although I'm tempted to just post them on Steam without diplomacy text, and add it in as a later update.

 

[Huitzil37]

Too limited IMO. When I first started in Dec, I had wanted to do 4 civs. I released with the three civs hoping to get some feedback, and was going to do the fourth one later. The problem now is, she has already been done, indirectly, by Huitzil. While Utsuho isn't the civ I want to make, there is already a 'Palace of the Earth Spirits' civ on Steam, and I don't want to overlap over any other civs. That saddens me, since I was going to greatly change her units, and was curious on how that would have played.

The game lets you play Rome, Byzantium, and the Ottoman Empire in the same game, dude. If you want to make Satori as a leader, make Satori as a leader!