This is great, Macmatt. I got tired of the new opening items pretty quickly, and I'm very fond of the ones in vanilla. Even so, having that "Warlords" banner above the menu in your opening screen is a good reminder that I'm playing the expansion pack. Good job!
I did a couple of things with your mod differently that I thought I'd share in case others are interested. I copied your mod's files into the matching folders under
C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Games\Warlords\CustomAssets
That allowed them to be loaded without using your desktop shortcut, and without the game considering them a mod--so I could load the game I already had in progress without restarting.
In addition, I missed the opening movie from vanilla (the one with the coronation scene). So, I made a lucky deduction/guess and I copied the 2 files in
C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\Art\Movies\Intros
to
C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Games\Warlords\CustomAssets\art\movies\intros
Worked like a charm.
I feel the changes are more than just cosmetic. I've become a bit of a warmonger in Civ IV, so I enjoy the expansion pack's additions. However, I've shown Civ to friends who play other turn-based strategy games, such as
Age of Empires, and they're impressed by the range of options in the game compared to the ones they play, which they say are pretty much
just war games. Civ is more than that (a
lot more, I think most of us would agree) and the original opening's soundtrack and visuals emphasize it. I appreciate the work put into the expansion pack's opening elements, but in a way, they sell the game short. Even with
Warlords' changes and additions, this is so much more than just a war game! The original opening, I feel, set the mood appropriately.
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