trying to improve the gem with greater variety of civs

[glacis]

so i'm trying to implement the starting points

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=356237

mod in the gem for c2c. basically what it should do is allow players to choose any of the civs they want for the gem (up to the civ limit same as before). so you could swap out civs you don't like for others you do. it keeps the gem fresh at least so you dont always see the same faces and you can experiment with different balance options, too. anyways, i can't get it too work, and i'm beginning to wonder if it isn't possible to do in c2c, although i remember i've had it working in other mods before. anyone have any ideas?

edit: i may have it working now. i've been able to add new civs and make them playable, including the custom civs that sparth recently added back in his mod mod. we'll see if i can add more than 50 civs. some civs don't seem to look the way they should yet, but perhaps i can fix this. when its done i'll post it.

 

[glacis]

so it appears i need to merge the .ini from startingpoints mod with the c2c .ini in order for this to work (or so i think -- i'm an absolute beginner to any sort of modding or programming languages). would a someone advise me if this is even possible? how do i go about it? the startingpoints.ini file looks like this:

Spoiler :

[CONFIG]

; Modular XML Loading
ModularLoading = 0

; Skip Main menu
SkipMainMenu = 0

; Custom Art from user folder is not loaded
NoCustomArt = 0

; Custom XML and Python from user folder are not loaded
NoCustomAssets = 0

; No Custom Scenario option in main menu
NoCustomScenario = 0

; No team play allowed
NoTeams = 0

; Read Game options from XML, not .ini
ForceGameOptions = 0

; Always start in the standard era
ForceStandardEra = 0

; Scenario file (Single player)
ForceScenario = 0

; This mod is only for single player games
SinglePlayerOnly = 0

; Allow public maps to be used with this mod
AllowPublicMaps = 0

; Mod Image file
ImageFile = 0

; Name of Mod
Name = StartingPoints

; Description of Mod
Description = Generic Mod

thanks for any help i might get.

edit: not the problem. i don't know what im doing. sorry.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

When including a link press the icon with the world and keyboard and paste the link eg http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=356237.

From that thread

This is not a map, but people will search for it here, so i place the thread here:

...Questions a modder might have:

How do i merge this with my mod?
Python: There are 2 changes in the CvEventManager, both labeled with "starting points", both changes have to be merged.
In the second part, there's 2 times "startingpoints" mentioned. This is the name of the mod folder, so you will have to change it to your mod folder.
The second python file, the startingpointsutil.py can just be dropped into the same folder like the CvEventManager, and you don't have to change anything there (only if you removed the units settler, warrior, worker and scout, then you have to adjust the starting units, just search for these unit types).

XML: In XML\CustomXML\mapname_startingpoints.xml are the civs mentioned. If you added a civ or changed the key for one, then you have to change the entries there.

Note: In the maps i've set the mod path, you also should change it there.

How do i add a map?
For every map in the PrivateMaps folder there's also an XML file in XML\CustomXML\. The XML file is named mapname_startingpoints.xml, the mapname without the file extension.

How do i make a civ invalid for this map?
Just set the values for the starting position in the XML both (or one) to -1.

Baah, searching for starting positions is horrible, i can only guess!
You don't have to guess. In the CvEventManager.py, there's the line AddPositionsToMap = False. Change this value to True, and every tile will be labeled with X and Y coordinates, so that you can see, what values you should put into the XML file. The labeling will make the start very slow (can be up to 6 minutes, depending on map size), but you'll only turn this on 1 or 2 times .
Note: The XML for this map must already exist! There's a Dummy_startingpoints.xml included. Just copy this file, rename it, and you'll start at the position 1,1 on the map.

So this is a Python mod and you will need to merge and change python code.

First you need to merge the bits of code labeled starting points from this mod into the C2C CvEventManager.py file.

Then in the same file you wll need to replace "startingpoints" with Caveman2Cosmos.

Then you will need to copy the startingpointsutil.py into the same folder as the CvEventManager file - actually we have a The_J folder where we place The J's work so it should go there.

Then you need to copy the CustomXML folder across.

Now it should be ready to test.

edit having said all that it may be possible to do it a different way using the BUG facilities which would be better. I'll have a look.

edit 2 Yep, this is very easy to do using the BUG modular python. I'll put something together and post it here.

It does not fit the aim of C2C which is about getting rid of the civlizations completely and making you build your own but it is probably a good mod mod.

 

[glacis]

thanks so much. both for coding and the explanations.

i had gotten the civs to start correctly with a simple cut and paste but i was getting several bug errors on start and part of brazil would be explored on start no matter what civ you chose :s. if i can find the time i think i will take a look at the resources for modding on c2c forum and cff to learn the basics properly. its intimidating to start.

i realize it doesn't fit so well with c2c. the idea of building a wonder culture with production doesn't work for me personally and i just generally like really diverse civs--but i must admit shaping my civ in c2c has definitely grown on me. anyways, at least this mod allows for choosing a nice variety and balance of civs in fixed locations where their base continental culture and artstyle will still be correct.

thanks again.

 

[glacis]

i forgot to include the xml file that stores the starting points. it isn't finished yet but it might help for testing. one limitation i've discovered with it: because it uses the CIVILIZATION_TYPE to find the starting points in the xml, as it stands now, i think its only possible to have one starting point per civilization. for example because Yangshao and Cantonese both use CIVILIZATION_CHINA there can only be one of them in the game.