Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD]

[Daft73]

Congratulations vincentz

Take it from someone whose first born is now 4 months old - now you'll have much less time
.

Heh, no kidding..I have a boy who turned 2, three days ago, and a soon to be 13 yr old

Time is going to start slipping into the future..entire months will go by then you get a moment. But I'd be foolish to say that I don't appreciate every single minute of it, congrats Vincentz, a great day for you indeed!

 

[The_J]

TOT (nope, not Test of Times but : Totally off topic)

My wife gave birth to our firstborne (a son) on september the 3rd.

Just thought I'd share, and at the same time give a valid excuse for the lacking updates of my mod

His name is Alexander

Congratulations .

 

[stolenrays]

Congrats. I put you as secondary author on Super Spies because of your help.

 

[Vigil]

Installed Windows XP on my mac, so now I can play this mod!

However, all my units have zero range of sight - they can only see the square they are standing on.
Is this normal? I'm very new to Civ4 in general.

 

[vincentz]

First off. thanks for all the nice greetings

Installed Windows XP on my mac, so now I can play this mod!

However, all my units have zero range of sight - they can only see the square they are standing on.
Is this normal? I'm very new to Civ4 in general.

Yep. I wanted more exploration in the beginning, plus making scouts and spies extremely valuable. Now u have to recon the area. Its a challenge I promise you

 

[Red Boxer]

I dig the visibility at the beginning but I feel it needs some work.

One fast example is that my starting scout has Sentry, but can't see anything beyond his square.

A certain points techs should grant increased visibility to different units because it is bizarre and frustrating that more modern units not be able to see around them without being forced to spend exp on Sentry.

Perhaps at horseback riding grant sentry (or otherwise give +1 vis) to all recon units, then at optics grant +1 vis/sentry to ALL units. This coincides with the Age of Exploration/Discovery, which is incredibly hard to accomplish when you can't see a damned thing and then at Radar grant another +1 to water units.

It would be nice if standing on hills still granted a view of a neighboring plain and that when you moved along a coast you'd get a view of the sea (this is important because units will try to move there if they can't tell what's going on) and conversely if you are sailing along a coast you should have a view of the shore..

Additionally the way the limited visibility impacts cities is weird; at some point it'll extend normally but at others I will have FoW within my own territory (I've even had it next to a developed city).

 

[vincentz]

yep, it needs some work + some free promos later on.
The scout can see surrounding tiles when standing on a hill that doesnt have forests/jungle btw.
I'm also adding more modern recon units (air balloon is one of them). Plus a radar vehicle might be usefull.

 

[Vigil]

First off. thanks for all the nice greetings



Yep. I wanted more exploration in the beginning, plus making scouts and spies extremely valuable. Now u have to recon the area. Its a challenge I promise you

Thankyou, then I understand. Although I agree with Red Boxer, and you, that some tweaks would be nice in the future.

Having a lot of fun with this mod by the way, thanks!

 

[vincentz]

btw. I guess you might already have found out, but giving a scout the [special] promotion, it will be able to get another Sentry making it very usefull. Barracks and Vassalage or a settled Great General (3+2=5XP), then the scout can do some serious scouting.

 

[vincentz]

In a quite moment I messed a bit with the mapgenerator, plus adding a few new mapfeatures:

Rocky (+1 -1 ) Mine/Quarry - Desert/Plains/Tundra/Grass

Fertile (+1 -1 ) Farm/Pasture - Plains/Grass

Marsh (+1 ) Camp/Farm - Swamp

Scenic (+1 ) ? - Tundra/Plains/Grass

The map generator changes was > reducing ice > reducing tundra > increasing desert > increasing plains

Makes IMHO much better variety. Example is Giant Archipelago/Temp Climate/Low sealevel/Continents

 

[vincentz]

Uploaded 0.84

added and tweaked. really happy about the result.

attached a savegame turn 450 year 450.

edit : and a turn 620 / year 950 AD.

edit2 : around 15 second turns in 1100 AD!!! Nice

 

[JosEPh_II]

C2C sucked me in so I missed the Good News! Congratulations on the Son Vincentz!

Mod still set up for Normal Speed?

The Archi map looks good!

JosEPh

 

[vincentz]

Thanks.

Nope. Been playing Epic for a while, and I guess marathon is ok too.
Though I build it even more now for a slow start. It gives IMHO better feeling starting with 0 and working the way up. Something about better sense of achieving more. Cant really explain it.
But when sitting in 1165 AD and looking back on history, I remember when it was just a clubman desperately trying to find a friendly village, or a worker that worked for hundreds of years trying to cultivate the nearby grass field.

I'm really enjoying my mod at the moment (in the breaks where Alexander sleeps ), and I might put a patch A up with some xml changes that gives Sentry promos with Horseback Riding and Optics (Astronomy).

 

[JosEPh_II]

I've been playing Epic for so long now that the other 'speeds" just don't feel comfortable any more. Old dog getting set in his ways I am.

Saw you pop in to C2C the other day. I keep fighting for Jungle Camps and making them equal to Cottages, etc. My personal Crusade for your JCs.

I think personally, that if Afforess does put out RAND1.76 (he said sometime this month, but I'm not holding my breath over it) that he's done with modding BtS. And will disappear like Zappara did.

JosEPh

 

[vincentz]

yeah, i guess it went Rom -> RomAnd -> C2C, with no turning back.
I havent tried C2C, coz its too big for my machine, but most of the old Rom Modmodders are still going strong there I think.

I think I'll download it and give it a try. Some of the stuff they put in seems really nice.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Never know, it could give you "Ideas"!

Just don't play with Rev On right now. Save your self some headaches until they get some issues ironed out.

Hope to give some feedback this weekend on VIP 0.84.

JosEPh

 

[vincentz]

Well, I think I'm going to upload a 0.85 pretty soon, but 0.84 should be very playable. Biggest problem is when Tech Trading becomes available with Education, then the AI will trade ALOT, making the otherwise acceptable era progressing go bananas (I'm in 1300 now and especially 1 AI are tech'ing industrial techs). (Asoka)
I countered that in 0.85 with increased tech cost for the later eras (might be too much though) and more difficult to accept trades. I was kind of chocked to see that most AI would trade techs with a civ they were annoyed with. IMO it shouldnt be possible unless friendly or pleased. Same with Maptrading which I might put back at cartography.
Might also adjust the numbers of turns in medieval era, as there are alot.

The AIs are doing fairly well, though I added a 50% discount promo with forges as upgrading was way too expensive.

They certainly knows how to build an army :

Spoiler :

 

[Feneris]

Hey, in case you don't remember I offered to do some of the civilopedia articles for your mod. Do you have a list or something I can use so I know what you want done?

 

[vincentz]

Hey, in case you don't remember I offered to do some of the civilopedia articles for your mod. Do you have a list or something I can use so I know what you want done?

Well, I think the easiest would be to start with is the Resources :
the () is to describe when the TXT_KEY is vague

TXT_KEY_BONUS_ALCOHOL_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_ALLIGATOR_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_ALLOYS_PEDIA
(advanced metal alloys)
TXT_KEY_BONUS_APPLE_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_AUTOMATIC_WEAPONS_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_AUTOS_PEDIA
(automobiles, or engines)
TXT_KEY_BONUS_BOWS_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_BRONZEWEAPONS_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_CAMEL_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_COTTON_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_COFFEE_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_DIAMONDS_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_ELECTRONICS_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_CLOTHING_PEDIA
(fashion clothing)
TXT_KEY_BONUS_FIREARMS_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_FUEL_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_GLASSWARE_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_EXPLOSIVES_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_HEMP_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_IRONWEAPONS_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_LEMON_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_MEDICINE_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_NATURAL_GAS_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_OLIVES_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_OPIUM_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_POTATO_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_RUBBER_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_SALT_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_STEEL_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_SHRIMP_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_SULPHUR_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_SYNTHETIC_RUBBER_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_TEA_PEDIA
TXT_KEY_BONUS_TOBACCO_PEDIA

Again, thanks . I really appreciate the help.

 

[vincentz]

Uploading 0.85 (I'm starting to use an old upload page, so the previous version is available on CFC)

still some work and modifications left, but 0.85 is so much better that 0.84, so why wait

Added 5 loading screens that changes every time the VIP loader is run.

I added a Readme.txt but it might be confusing so I'm adding it here as well in case of questions :

Spoiler :

VIP Loader

This little tool will change the loading screens and launch the VIP mod.
There are 5 different loading screens, but I might add more in the future.

Remember to put the correct Destination path in the VIP shortcut and change the Icon which is in the VIP\Icon folder.

example : "C:\Games\Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\VIP\VIPLOADER.BAT"

Also changed the theme to a transparent green. Thinking about making a similar tool as the VIP loader for changing color.
Modified the tech beakers ALOT. Especially later eras are now much more costly.
Changed Map and Tech trade threshold for AI. Before (in vanilla) some AI would trade even when furious. They now have to be Friendly or at least Pleased to trade maps and techs.
added more movement to horses
added a few promotions to buildings
added the ability to build weapon resource buildings with captured warlords
added Encyclopedia Galactica project (replaced internet, but internet will be back in 0.86)
decreased chance of discovering,planting,breeding etc from improvements

and a lot of other minor stuff..... but mostly I've been playing reached turn 800 without any bugs or crashes