Viking-esque Civ

[Valkrionn]

No problem, I *still* have to ask for help.

 

[xienwolf]

Just remember Valkrionn, soon wingshot will be your minion and answer all kinds of questions so you don't have to.

 

[deadliver]

Alright, I just copy and pasted the Bannor at the bottom, removed every BANNOR from every line and replaced it with FRAELIM. Removed two of the leaders and changed the other to NHOJ YEANEK, and switched the hero from DONAL to SENOJ. Is there anything vital that I am currently missing (other than actually making all the units and stuff)?

By the way, thank you to everybody who has posted here so far; especially Valkrionn, Deadliver, and Shatner

Hey. If you are not already, use Notepad++ for editing XML, I love this program! good to see you jumping right in there! Soon i will be carving a swath of destruction through that pesky D'Tesh.

EDIT: just be careful accepting help from Valkrionn, next thing you know BANG your civ has been absorbed and then everyone gets to play it

 

[Onionsoilder]

Alright I just did the leader.
Started off by copying and pasting Maer to the bottom and switching each line that said MAER to NHOJ (also made sure this matches the leader name in the civ info files).
From there I switched the traits to RAIDERS and AGGRESSIVE.
Changed the Religion Weight Modifiers for all religions to 0 except for the Empyrean which is now -20
Favorite building is Form of the Titan and favorite civic is Conquest
And...those are the only changes that I can remember/find, I'll mess more with the AI once its all well and done
Also, the traits, favorite anything, weight, etc are all subject to change once I figure out what I'm doing

Final note: Thanks again to all who have been helping Time for me to try and figure out ArtDefinesCivilization

One thing of note: A -20 Empyrean weight won't do much at all(Besides, do you even want that? Empyrean actually seems like a decent religion for a viking-esque civilization).

Have you decided on what palace mana your civilization will have? This actually is a larger part of how the civilization plays then you might think.

Some ones I think fit in:
Water(Removes Desert + Water Walking)
Law(Host of the Einherjar)
Body(Haste + Regeneration fits Bezerker theme)
Air(Malstrom + Faster Ships)

Ones I would be wary of:
Chaos(Make them too similar to Lanun)
Ice(Despite living in the cold, the ice spells don't seem to fit into viking lore)
Nature(Like above: Spells involving trees and poison also don't fit into viking lore)

 

[wingshot]

Alright, another day some more steps to take so I'll start with getting the flag and such ready which I am assuming is changed when I switch
,Art/Interface/Teamcolor/Fraelimbutton.dds
to
flagdecal_adler.dds
I suppose I should start to look into how to edit the palace

Current concepts:
I will give them Body mana but the other 2 or relatively up in the air, I'd like to avoid Law because I have an idea regarding the Einherjar

I really want this civ to have something cool about it, originally it would be that every unit can activate burning blood but that seemed a wee dull (even if it does have potential for a horde of warmongering supermen). My current idea that I am tweaking is that at around level 5 a warrior can freely turn into a Host of the Einherjar variant that has spirit guide. An axeman can convert to a stronger Host, Champion can convert to the strongest (though it will lose the power to go Immortal). I'm trying to balance it out but I think that is what I want for the special thing, essentially, a distinguished warrior can become a part of a collective soul which takes over his body (host part) and uses it until destruction. Because it is a collective, the experience gained is not destroyed with the unit's death (spirit guide). I realize that I may need to explain the thought process for it more in-depth but that is the general idea.

Again, thank you everybody for all the help you guys have been giving me

 

[wingshot]

Quick question: for unique buildings, do I go to the Special Building XML or...?
BTW Deadliver, I have in fact been using Notepad ++ and I will not lie, it makes life so much easier

I think I'll just make my sig say thank you

 

[Valkrionn]

All buildings are handled in buildings.xml. For unique buildings, just use the same BuildingClass as the building you want to replace, and then set it for the civ in CivilizationInfos.

 

[wingshot]

Alright I just copy and pasted the Balseraph Palace, switched the mana to body, spirit, and water, the type so that it reads the same as it does under the civ info, the name, and...that's it. I made sure to paste it so that it is in alphabetical order so unless I am missing something I am off to make some UU for the Fraelim! I'd imagine that I should go to units.xml.

Once again, thank you guys for all your help

 

[wingshot]

Just took the Warrior info and copy and pasted it, renamed it Eryas and looked at the Beastman entry for a reference. Everywhere that warrior was replaced by beastman, I switched the corresponding spot with Eryas. Before I move forward (I'm going to figure out the unique part once I make all the unit entries) I just want to double-check, is there anything I am missing/screwing up about units. Main reason I'm doing this is because the unit part will most likely take up the bulk of my time and I don't want to do it all incorrectly

You guys ready for another thank you, because there is one right behind you!

 

[xienwolf]

Careful of the Art Define tags, if you changed those out without creating a new entry in CIV4ArtDefines_Units.xml and pointing at a valid unit that will cause you issues.

 

[Valkrionn]

Woops, missed that post... Yeah, a blank artdefine will cause an instant crash. No crash report, no pop-up telling you what's wrong. Rather annoying.

 

[wingshot]

Just finished up my melee units (warrior, axeman, champion, berserker, phalanx), made the longbowman, and...that is about it
I only made the appropriate entries, I have yet to add in the unique properties. and I checked the artdefines and made it a point to leave them the hell alone. I suppose that it is about time for me to make a unique building or two

Thanks again everyone

 

[wingshot]

Just recreated the Totem of the Old Enemy into the Tomb of the Einherjar which is mechanically the same except it does not give Orc Slayer as a free promotion, it gives Spirit Guide instead.

 

[Valkrionn]

Saw this in the Orbis forum, thought it would fit here...

I remember an idea from a while ago that could be resurrected and discussed... it is a way to get early coast raids like the vikings. The way the mechanics would work is that early units would be able to cast a boat (a viking Karve) that would be very weak (like str 1-2) that they could use to travel the coast to land and raid and pillage other civs. It would require the fishing tech and raiders trait and must be cast in the forest (but doesn't consume the forest). The karves are destroyed when the casting unit leaves the boat. With the early game so focused on other important things, I think having a castable boat to carry units to conduct raids would add a lot to the "raiders" feel. Anything to enhance the sea is sorely needed in this game IMO. To be more fair to non raider trait leaders and civs, they could build a karve instead of casting and have it cost like 20 hammers. The built karves would also not be destroyed when the unit leaves and could be upgraded to other boats. They would also benefit by having other units as cargo (except maybe no settlers) where the castable ones would only carry the caster.

Another minor request - to look at the enhanced coastal cities changes and see if anything would fit in - for example some of the civics changes like getting food from trade routes is a nice change...

 

[deadliver]

Interesting idea. Can't wait to try these guys out/

 

[Skitters]

Regarding a Viking-esque feature - what if all ships had an extra crew option that worked similar to the landing party ability but would actually switch the ship to HN - allowing it to enter other nations borders - and then have give a 1 turn spawn that could land and pillage in the same turn?

Perhaps also the Vikings could also have a unique galley - which whilst being the same stats as other galleys - could enter Ocean tiles, but with a 100% risk of sinking if it starts a turn on an Ocean tile?

 

[Opera]

Perhaps also the Vikings could also have a unique galley - which whilst being the same stats as other galleys - could enter Ocean tiles, but with a 100% risk of sinking if it starts a turn on an Ocean tile?

Why not give something similar to the Cog (some chance to sink if on ocean tile, not 100%) but to all naval units that can't go in the ocean? Maybe except the Work Boats...

 

[wingshot]

Well my 5th day of work begins now and I am very intrigued with the castable ship idea. Admittedly it will take me forever to figure out how to do that but still, I definitely want to make that happen.

Let me look at what I have done and what needs doing:
I did the unit entries (may need to make one for the summon ship)
I made the palace and one unique building
I made the leader

I need to make the unique stats for units, another building or two, create the two spells that will make this unique, unit art, civ art, art art, pedia entires, etc

I still have a massive amount of work so I guess I will focus on another building right now. Maybe a unique barracks or...?

EDIT: Thanks for all help!

 

[deadliver]

Well my 5th day of work begins now and I am very intrigued with the castable ship idea. Admittedly it will take me forever to figure out how to do that but still, I definitely want to make that happen.

Let me look at what I have done and what needs doing:
I did the unit entries (may need to make one for the summon ship)
I made the palace and one unique building
I made the leader

I need to make the unique stats for units, another building or two, create the two spells that will make this unique, unit art, civ art, art art, pedia entires, etc

I still have a massive amount of work so I guess I will focus on another building right now. Maybe a unique barracks or...?

EDIT: Thanks for all help!

Well you would make a spell in spell infos called "Whatever" that can create a unit. Look at the spell infos file for the summoning spells for ideas, such as Summon Frostling, Battering ram etc.

 

[wingshot]

Well you would make a spell in spell infos called "Whatever" that can create a unit. Look at the spell infos file for the summoning spells for ideas, such as Summon Frostling, Battering ram etc.

Oh, that sounds vastly less complicated than I thought, I suppose I'll begin editing the units to include the stuff as no unique building ideas are jumping out at me

thank you