What scenario of a Civ4Col mod is most interesting to you ?

[raystuttgart]

Just out of interest, if you - the community - were to choose the scenarios that Civ4Col modders should focus on, what would it be ?
(We all know it is not realistic to really influence such decisions of modders, since each modder will follow his own preferences but anyways ...)

1. I don't care
2. New World Colonization setting (North and South America)
3. Global Colonization setting (Europe, Americas, Africa, Asia,...)
4. Medieval setting with new gameplay
5. Science Fiction setting with new gameplay
6. Fantasy Setting with new gameplay
7. Something else

I am simply curious to know, what interests most people from Civ4Col community.

Edit:

By the way, this poll is public so people can see how you vote.
(This might even help to find team members or supporters for new projects starting.)

This thread is definitely not meant to compare "popularity" of existing mods or anything stupid like that.
So please don't start discussions like "Mod X is so awesome. We should all work on it."

 

[orlanth]

I'd be interested in anything from 4 through 7 (anything that's a total conversion, or focused on making a new game). For example in Civ4, the most interesting mods are those like Dunewars, Planetfall, Fury Road, Fall from Heaven which create a new game experience.

 

[raystuttgart]

I'd be interested in anything from 4 through 7 (anything that's a total conversion, or focused on making a new game). For example in Civ4, the most interesting mods are those like Dunewars, Planetfall, Fury Road, Fall from Heaven which create a new game experience.

Total conversion can be really interesting.
But you have to decide for one type of scenario with your vote, if you want to give your vote at all.

 

[Tigranes]

Nothing beats World colonization! Rhyse and Fall of Civilization series have many cool modmods, but no mod is more popular than Global one. Global has majesty and unique appeal. Very good Global attempt was presented here, but unfortunately it was left unfinished in early stages of development...

 

[raystuttgart]

Nothing beats World colonization! Rhyse and Fall of Civilization series have many cool modmods, but no mod is more popular than Global one. Global has majesty and unique appeal. Very good Global attempt was presented here, but unfortunately it was left unfinished in early stages of development...

I can see why "Global Colonization" is interesting to many players.
It really gives space for massive amount of Nations, Units, Resources, Buildings, ...

On the other hand it might be pretty hard to create atmosphere.
The historical and regional aspects are simply so extremely diverse.

 

[Fullerene]

Another vote for global colonization. Though, I like the medieval Europe scenario a lot too.

Maybe it would be possible to create global scenario from ancient times to industrial/reneissance era? That would give you massive space for mod components and units/buildings etc.

Another idea:
The Great War scenario. Europe screen would the colonies screen, where you hire voluntaries and buy important goods for your people so that they can/want to carry on fighting the war. Would be designed especially on Europe map, but could support random maps too. Maybe the game engine doesn't support the total war scenario very well however.

 

[Kailric]

Well my vote is obvious as I am working on a Medieval conversion. But, I would love to see a fantasy conversion as well. As I have mentioned else where that a world of warcraft mod would fit well with the main concept. You would start as either Horde or Alliance in a tiny ship discovering a new world and you would then have to exploit its resources flora and fona while building your forces to withstand the coming invasion of the enemy.

 

[drjest2000]

I don't see "Global colonization" as necessarily being exclusive from the other categories, but rather more inclusive of everything else. I want a mod that is diverse, rather than narrow. If seen from the proper perspective, all scenarios are sub-categories of global colonization.

The differences between a SciFi setting and a Medieval setting (from a purely coding point of view) would be the technologies and the economy, but these are mostly symbolic. Most games that simulate city building or empire building all start the player with nothing and then he must gather resources, must invent fire or the wheel or whatever until he can expand from his base city. This is as true of Civ4Col as it is of Age of Empires or Rise of Nations or Stronghold or Railroad Tycoon III or any number of others. There is very little that is unique about empire building sims.

What sets a colonization setting apart from a standard empire builder sim is difficult to define. I can clearly see the differences between Civ4 and Civ4Col, but I have a harder time seeing the differences between Civ4Col and Rise of Nations. The fundamental differences are in the economy of Civ4Col -- i.e., raw resources are processed into finished goods -- whereas in Civ4 the resources and finished goods are reduced to such a symbolic level that they are indistinguishable from one another. But truth be told, all a player needs to "win" any Civ4Col game is wood, iron, horses, and food... but post "revolution" there is nothing but disappointment. The game simply dead-ends.

The vanilla game is linear in design, as linear and tedious as any arcade platform game. All the mods can be said to have been created from our disappointment with the vanilla game. We all see the potential to do something more with the game, but we have clouded vision of how to best achieve that. There are a great many other games similar to Civ4Col, but most of them cannot be modded, so at least Civ4Col has that much going for it. So the real issue is how do we mod it?

We can't really change the rendering engine. Nor can we alter the video engine to accept animated models from other games, those have to undergo a tedious surgical process to be converted to the NIF format, most usually by cloning and replacing a model already existing in the game. Even porting a unit model from Civ4 to Civ4Col can be a tedious and unfruitful exercise.

This is important because no matter which way we mod the game, we need to have new model art to create the visual tableau of the setting. Whether it is a SciFi setting or a Medieval setting or an African setting, we all find ourselves faced by the problem of finding units that look right for the setting. Very often we find ourselves having to work with what will work, ending up with a mod that has a hodgepodge look. It is a purely cosmetic defect, but we all have to admit to feeling a degree of disappointment that we can't populate out maps with units that look the way we'd like them to look.

So, to my mind, a Global colonization mod would encompass the creation of a large number of unit and building models that fill many of the voids that exist in the Civ4Col modding process. The American setting (in the broadest sense) has been fleshed out very well and I do not mean to detract in any way from that. But I see that only as the first part of the work, not the completion.

Also, I think in the process of creating a Global colonization mod, many of the "missing features" would need to be fleshed out and refined. For instance, Europeans were several centuries in India, but India remains largely Hindu. But an East Indies setting in Civ4Col would have them all converted to Christianity in a matter of turns. I see that as both false and racist. In fact, I see many of the basic features of Civ4Col being so Euro- and Amero-centric as to verge on racism. I would like to rip most of that out and drop it in a burn-barrel. So, in order for a SciFi setting or a Medieval setting to really function, we need to remove or replace many of the built in biases from the basic code.

TAC and RaR have done much to reduce the "white man wins every time" aspect of the game, but I want to take that further. As I have said, I want Native civs to be playable and to have the chance to "win". China, India, and Japan are examples of "the white man did not win". And in order for a Sci Fi setting to work, the Europeans have to be leveled off so they do not dominate the game. In a purely game setting, the Scandinavians for instance would be considered either barbarians or a minor civ, but the lasting impact of their Viking Age are felt in every sentence spoken in English. In fact, such was the success of the Scandinavians that today most people who think of themselves as Scot, Irish, or English, are arguably more Scandinavian than they are anything else.

But if one simply inserted the Scandinavians in the vanilla game, they would be just one more England clone. Doomed to do exactly the same things as the English colonies did. So, yeah, I say Civ4Col is racist and that aspect needs to be changed. And I believe a global colonization mod would be the best route to achieving that change.

EDIT: After thinking on it, I believe "racist" is maybe overly harsh, but Civ4Col as shipped is most certainly very ethnocentric. I would say to such a degree that it negatively affects its over-all market appeal.

 

[raystuttgart]

I don't see "Global colonization" as necessarily being exclusive from the other categories, but rather more inclusive of everything else.

I cannot really share that point of view.

If your main goal is to create a certain atmosphere or even try to tell a specific story you most likely have to concentrate on a specific period of time or region,
add the aspects that fit and eliminate everything that does not fit into that.

For example Werewolves from Writing Bull.
The mod offers only one playable Nation but achieves a certain atmosphere and tells a story.

In TAC and RaR we even had lots of discussions about adding new Colonial Nations like New Denmark, New Sweden, New Scottland ...
Even though these Nations all had colonies they were still so unimportant for the setting of the New World that some people said they would damage atmosphere.

Another example is Civ4.
Some people think it is great that France can build the Pyramids.
Some other people simply feel that such things are absolutely unatmopspheric.

Too much diversity makes it much more difficult to create a specific atmosphere because it gets much more difficult to focus.

But of course it is not necessarily said, that authenticity or atmosphere are important for a mod.
(Personally I like to see these things in a game or mod though.)

I want a mod that is diverse, rather than narrow.

Well, there is nothing to say against your own preferences.

But there are certainly players that rather have less diversity but more authenticity, atmosphere or story.
For those players a "Global Colonization" setting might very well be exclusive to a "New World Colonization" setting or a "Medieval" setting.

The differences between a SciFi setting and a Medieval setting (from a purely coding point of view) would be the technologies and the economy, but these are mostly symbolic.

Not necessarily.

You could have a map script that generates many "small planets" instead of one World map.
Also in a SciFi setting you could have Nations (or Aliens) that absolutely do not fit into a mod that has a more Earth focussed approach.

There is very little that is unique about empire building sims.

I disagree.
I do believe that Total: Wars, Civ4Coloniatzion or Galactic Civilizations all offer quite a different gameplay and several unique features.

The fundamental differences are in the economy of Civ4Col -- i.e., raw resources are processed into finished goods --

Agree.
The most fundamental conceptual difference of Civ4Col is the economical system (including the transportation system).

But even that could be changed ...

... but post "revolution" there is nothing but disappointment. The game simply dead-ends.

Agree again.

But it is the same with many other strategy games.
Once you have gone past a certain point in gameplay, there is nothing more to do than grow even bigger.

All the mods can be said to have been created from our disappointment with the vanilla game. We all see the potential to do something more with the game,...

Agree.
But each modder might see the potential somewhere else depending on his own interests.

... but we all have to admit to feeling a degree of disappointment that we can't populate out maps with units that look the way we'd like them to look.

I never had that feeling.
Mostly due to the fact that the teams I was part of (TAC and RaR) always had graphical geniusses on board or as partners that could create all the graphics needed.
(melcher kürzer, Fankman, Willi Tell, Schmiddie, ... all have great graphical skills)

It is simply a matter of skills you have or might need.
Some mods have problems getting great graphical modders, others have problems getting great programmers.

The American setting (in the broadest sense) has been fleshed out very well and I do not mean to detract in any way from that. But I see that only as the first part of the work, not the completion.

Let us formulate it differently.
It would be great to have more mods trying to create other scenarios as well.

In fact, I see many of the basic features of Civ4Col being so Euro- and Amero-centric as to verge on racism.

Please, let us not start with "racism" again.
(I am really sick of such useless discussions.)

TAC and RaR have done much to reduce the "white man wins every time" aspect of the game, but I want to take that further.

Well thanks.

TAC wanted to create more atmosphere. (Graphics, Texts, Events, ...)
RaR focussed on creating a more complex and challenging gameplay (Features) on top of TAC.

As I have said, I want Native civs to be playable and to have the chance to "win".

That aspect is more or less independent of the setting of the mod.
You could try that in a "New World" or a "Global" or a "Science Fiction" setting.
It is simply a matter of the gameplay you want.

Summary:

I think all new mods would be great.
May they be "Global Colonization", "Medieval", "Science Fiction" or whatever.
I do see the interesting aspects in all of these potential mods.

I just don't hope that modders will try to stuff all of that into one single mod.

Simply because I believe that such a mod would need to make too many compromises and thus loose too much atmosphere and probably also quality.

I like to eat Pizza and I like to eat Steak.
But I am not very fond of getting a strangely tasting "Steak-Pizza".

 

[orlanth]

no one else interested in SF total conversion mods? well that's ok lol, I'll be more than happy to see any kind of total conversion modding developed in Civ4Col.

Just for kicks here's an even wilder idea I'd had for a really unique total conversion of Civ4Col, which I'd mentioned in a PM with Ray recently (after which ray probably thought I was insane, and was probably right )

Here's one other wild concept for a unique total-conversion mod I've had for a while: a mod set purely in an abstract version of Cyberspace (as inspired by William Gibson of Neuromancer fame and similar cyberpunk authors).

* the players are rival Corporations, Hacker Organizations, or Artificial Intelligences seeking to extend domination over cyberspace and break away from their masters; "Natives" are smaller independent corporations and organizations that can be fought and subjugated or allied with.
* Cities represent major system nodes which can exert control over adjacent tiles & harvest various forms of raw data, financial assets and other resources, which can be processed into more valuable forms and sold for credits to fuel expansion of your cyberspace empire.
* Terrains represent a system type (Corporate, Public, Government, Military, Criminal, Top Secret, etc), which produce various types of Data when controlled. For graphics, could probably use unusual cyber-appearing abstract textures such as circuit boards, glowing binary digits or translucent crystals, some of which are in my terrain pack.
* Bonuses represent control of valuable system resources like Mass Media Network, University Mainframe, ISP, Satellite Uplink, Undersea Cable, Power Plant, Biotech Facility, Law Enforcement Database, Corporate HQ, Semiconductor Fab etc. The more valuable ones could be protected by security measures you need to hack into (ICE in cyberpunk lit); using stationary "animal" units which you need to defeat to claim the resource. (kind of inspired by how you first had to conquer the mana nodes in Master of Magic to use them.)
* Features represent local conditions such as Encryption, Malware, Firewall, etc which inconvenience players until they are cleared
* Each Unit represents a type of program, hacker, subroutine, or AI, which may "work" in a local city system to generate data, or be sent out across the network to explore, attack and subjugate rival systems. For graphics could likely use some cool fantasy units from FfH, maybe retextured with a glowing binary digits as cyberspace avatars. Instead of Food, each tile generates a certain amount of CPU or processing power, so you'd need to create improvements such as Server Farms to develop the capacity of your systems.
* a unique flavor could be added by making Terrains and Features more tactically important; eg certain program types (or programs with appropriate Promotion such as Government Protocols) could move faster through Government systems or get a combat bonus there, etc.

maybe sounds crazy, but could certainly make for a unique game experience! anyway I have no plans to develop it presently but it's a cool concept to think about.

Link to video.

 

[Fullerene]

I've been thinking the Great War Mod/Scenario. I don't think it would be too hard to create, but I'm not sure I'm willing to start it.

Scenario would take place in late 19th century till mid 20th century.Goal is to conquer Europe.

Playable factions (Major Nations):

• Germany
• Russia
• France
• UK
• Italy
• Turkey
• Maybe spain

Natives (Minor Nations) would have to be modded a little bit. The religious mission one sets in native village would be reworked into propaganda mission.And if you manage to get over 50% of the native nation to your mission, they will share your foreign policies (declare war to your enemies). Native villages (read minor nations cities) can't be burned but instead if you conquer one it will automatically adopt your mission. Minor nations would play an important role in this scenario.
Minor nations would simply be all small European nations.
For example: Austrian and Hungarian cities would be under German influence at the start while Baltic nations and Finland would be under Russian sphere.

Europe screen would be renamed to World screen. It is accesible to Atlantic Ocean and maybe in Read Sea too (for Turkey). From this world screen you can hire mercenaries and get voluntaries to your military campaigns. Of course you can also sell and buy weapons and other stuff like you do in normal colonization game.

Changed Game Concepts:

Crosses are changed to propaganda. More propaganda you generate more voluntaries you get from world.

King is U.S president for all factions. Game can also be won by repelling D-Day invasion of American army. (But focus should be on Conquering the Europe.)

Founding Fathers are if possible different for every Nation. Some of the FFs would be very powerful, for example Lenin would turn Russian into Communism and start Civil War.But if you win the civil war you become more powerful than you were before. I don't think it would be a problem to find enough ideas for FFs.

Units (and/or professions):

• infantry
• tank
• artillery
• plane( not sure how to implement)
• submarine
• battleship
• cruiser
• maybe aircraft carrier
• etc

Things to do:

Overall I don't think this would take too much work. Graphics are needed lot, but you can always convert stuff from Civ4. Minor nations takes some programming to behave right, but shouldn't bee too bad. Some things like planes and railroads might be harder but maybe there are workarounds.
AI should also be made to understand that in this game you produce things mostly yourself instead of buying everything from europe screen. This is very importnat for gameplay, not sure how hard to create. Also I'm not sure how well AI understands the goal of conquest, but at least this would be fun scenario for human player.

Just for kicks here's an even wilder idea I'd had for a really unique total conversion of Civ4Col, which I'd mentioned in a PM with Ray recently (after which ray probably thought I was insane, and was probably right )

Yes, you are maybe insane, but your insanity is very good. I like that idea a lot. I think it might be even worth of an own little game. Called Geek chess or maybe Cyber Invasion

 

[orlanth]

Hmm I like it Fullerene. It could actually be even more interesting on a global scale including the overseas posessions of the UK and other European powers (and Japan if shifting forward a bit to WW2); with important strategic yields such as Rubber and Petroleum only found in certain places.

One central issue with Col modding is, I'm really not sure how effective the AI is at planning and producing units, buildings and professions that have yield requirements, especially multiple yield requirements, and *especially* anything that demands advanced planning or productionlines with >1 step. Even with very hard work by TAC/RaR and other mods, the bottom line is that teaching a computer to precisely plan and coordinate production and inter-city transports many turns in advance across multiple cities and yield types when considering multiple things it might want to produce are damn near impossible to achieve with anything near the flexibility and focus of a human player. The result is that ambitious mods that add strategic choices that would be very interesting for humans can end up crippling the already weak vanilla AI. Anyway, I think the AI is able to spend gold to "rush" production when it can't access needed yields which is an important safety valve, I'd be in favor of making this even easier at higher difficulty levels for mods with strategic resources or complex production chains.

Just for kicks here's an even wilder idea I'd had for a really unique total conversion of Civ4Col, which I'd mentioned in a PM with Ray recently (after which ray probably thought I was insane, and was probably right )
Yes, you are maybe insane, but your insanity is very good. I like that idea a lot. I think it might be even worth of an own little game. Called Geek chess or maybe Cyber Invasion

Great, glad someone likes it lol I guess I'm interested in any truly outside-the-box remakes, being at this point throroughly tired of Caravels, Coats and Cigars etc. The idea with the Cyberspace mod would be to try a fairly minimalist approach; not having tons of different buildings, units, & civs etc, but to try to give the gameplay a new & unique flavor; where you'd have to carefully think about the best routes to take when "hacking" through a system, plan which attack program is most appropriate for which situation, and fight to establish control of each new system resource or "Treasure"-containing goodyhut database.

Well since you liked that so much, now let me tell you about my next truly visionary idea in C4C modding - Colonization: Gut Instinct. In this groundbreaking TC mod you lead civs made of bacteria, helminths, or protozoa to establish colonies across a variety of Terrains representing gastric and colonic mucosa..

Spoiler :

(damn, was April 1st several months ago?? )

BTW that youtube link to Gibson's Neuromancer was a fanmade vid rather than actual movie trailer, but it looks like a movie actually might get made - really hope it does, and that they do justice to the original book!

 

[raystuttgart]

One central issue with Col modding is, I'm really not sure how effective the AI is at planning and producing units, buildings and professions that have yield requirements, especially multiple yield requirements, and *especially* anything that demands advanced planning or productionlines with >1 step. Even with very hard work by TAC/RaR and other mods, the bottom line is that teaching a computer to precisely plan and coordinate production and inter-city transports many turns in advance across multiple cities and yield types when considering multiple things it might want to produce are damn near impossible to achieve with anything near the flexibility and focus of a human player.

To my experience there is nothing more difficult in Civ4Col-Modding than creating good AI when trying to build a big new complex mod.

The amount of small influences you ideally should consider is simply unbelievable.
And of course you have to code AI logic without totally ruining performance or accidently introducing heavy bugs.

Something like a "reusable great AI for all mods" does simply not exist.
Every big mod with new concepts and complex features will need to adjust AI.

The result is that ambitious mods that add strategic choices that would be very interesting for humans can end up crippling the already weak vanilla AI.

Most "ambitious" mods that I have seen "failing" were failing for one (or even all) of these 3 reasons:

A) Too many bugs / CTDs
B) Extremely bad performance
C) Very bad AI logic

In some cases A) and B) resulted from C).

Usually it is a very long way from a generally working modcomp (basic functionality) to a fully integrated feature (taking care of side effects / bugs, AI, performance) in a big mod.
It is possible though to create "good AI" which of course is still very far away from "as smart as a human player".

Like always in modding:
All you need is skilled people motivated enough to invest the work necessary.

 

[raystuttgart]

So ok, I am also going to tell one of my old crazy ideas.

I am quite a big fan of Battletech / Mechwarrior.

So I was once wondering if an interesting Battletech mod for Civ4Col could be created.
Probably not, since Civ4Col is focussed a lot on economy and Battletech too much on combat.

My basic idea however was to have Clans (replacing Europeans) invade the Inner Sphere (replacing Natives).

There are simply 2 things I was always missing a bit in Civ4Col:

1. intersting combat system (turn based is fine for me, I don't need realtime)
2. epic story (or even something like campaigns)

But I guess, the Civ4Col is simply not made for these things.
And as I always said, other aspects like the economy system are simply great.

If anybody would ever achieve to create a mod combining the great aspects of Civ4Col with a good combat system and an epic story ...

 

[orlanth]

So ok, I am also going to tell one of my old crazy ideas.

I am quite a big fan of Battletech / Mechwarrior.

So I was once wondering if an interesting Battletech mod for Civ4Col could be created.

I like the sound of it too and had played a bit of Battletech in the past as well.. let's keep these crazy ideas coming!

Yes, the vanilla combat system is pretty deficient. (a "Combat" promotion with a flat bonus certainly leads to one-dimensional strategy.) Kailric's recent changes to M:C re combat promotions are really nice and add a lot of depth by bringing back the possibility for First Strikes and Withdrawal etc in addition to a flat bonus. It could be possible to have interesting special weapons and modifications for Mechs, Infantry, and Spaceships using this kind of system. It's also true the Battletech universe didn't seem to pay much attention to economy or production which is a core strength of C4C. Making your own scifi mod like Pttt could give more flexibility to determine the economy, trade, political, and story features you want.

I'd have to say I'm really not as interested in getting tied down to premade fixed campaigns, compared to the flexibility/replayability of being able to start actually new games, setting custom parameters however you like, and not know in advance what world you will face. Particularly since exploration/discovery of the unknown is such an important aspect of this game. Some good scenarios could certainly be interesting, but I wouldn't want to be tied down to only that. IMO too many promising TBS games (like Elemental War of Magic, to some extent AOWSM) really suffered from neglecting decent gameplay for random starts and replayability. However, I agree some more good epic backstory feel could be added by making interesting story based Events.

I'm also starting to realize, I really love the potential for the Advanced Start feature. You can try out a variety of start times and parameters, set up how you want while paying attention to strategic tradeoffs, and end up facing a very wide variety of interesting strategic situations right from the start.

 

[Tigranes]

Dear modders! While we are on this can somebody please make a quick fix to this mod. Marsh is missing so no ability to make Rum. This is a very simple mod and the ONLY more or less functional World colonization scenario with some realistic city placement.

I mean entire World was colonized, not just Americas, I don't know why is it that Worldwide colonization is not the main theme of everyone's interest. In BTS modding Earth's maps winning hands down over any regional map, but for some reason not in Col... There are so many German modders, don't you want to see colonies on Bismarck archipelago, Nauru, Tanzania, Namibia and Togo ?

 

[Fullerene]

@Tigranes
If you have Religion and Revolution mod installed, you might want to playtest a scenario I'm building up. It's a world map scenario where player takes role of European nation in 1492.
It's of course bit silly to sell goods from europe to europe screen, but what can you do about it... And you also have to imagine the independence war is representing something like French revolution where you rise against the king.
Scenario is a little bit inaccurate, as I placed and named the cities from my head and didn't do much research. Anyway playing the global game is interesting.

I wish we will someday have proper global colonization mod.

 

[Tigranes]

Thank you! Is this for v 1.5?

 

[Fullerene]

I'm not actually sure, which version of RaR I have. Guess it should work with latest version.

 

[Kailric]

I've been thinking the Great War Mod/Scenario. I don't think it would be too hard to create

I love this idea and have thought about it too as I'd love too see a tank come rolling into Civ4Col It could be a combat focused mod. You could have to Build your units like tanks and Submarines and then train your "colonists" to operate them. It would be a very ambitious mod.