Why is this ModMod Not in C2C Already?

[Hydromancerx]

So I am just looking around the forum trying to get caught up on everything i missed for the last 2 years and then I find this ...

Space Colonization Mod
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/space-colonization-modmod.561834/

And I am floored by the amount of stuff in this. And this is from someone who makes HUGE mods. Ever since I saw Accent of Mankind by Civ Fuehrer for a New Dawn I wanted there to be a space era. Then I teamed up with Afforess and DH to make Caveman2Cosmos. Which was to join his NWA Prehistoric with the stuff of AoM.

It was added and then MrAzure came along and added a TON to C2C. Especially in the Transhuman Era. But he would only show up once in a blue moon and work was slow to fill stuff in when he was gone. Dreams like multi-maps gave hope for new planets to go to, but then there was a map that generated multiple maps on one map. It was into perfect but gave new hope to the space stuff. DH anI added new space terrain and some basic space units. But still it was mostly empty.

I go off from C2C modding and work on a mod for the game Project Zomboid. And then I come back after 2 years to see that mod! All the things that we planed on working on plus more! Why is this not in the base game? Why is this just a mod mod?

C2C Team please give your input on if this should be added to C2C base game. And pepper2000 wonderful job! please tell me all the details. Do you have a list of all the techs, civics, units, buildings, etc?

Seriously this saves me so much work of stuff I already wanted to add.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Pepper is a Team member and has been working on this for sometime now. Once he gets it to his satisfaction the plan was to incorporate iirc the conversation between him and T-brd.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I see why some things have not been added such as terrain stuff lacks unique art. Also a lot of icons re-use existing icons such as with Civics. Still it looks like it has a lot of potential.

Through it would be nice to start adding the easy stuff. Like new buildings for existing C2C techs. So much cool stuff!

 

[Thunderbrd]

The main reason for not patently including the whole thing is that it requires maps that give other planet spaces and more on them. It's not currently designed to work with the singular planet map and we don't yet have multimaps. It's a huge step forward and if someone wants to play it, they can but they need to do so with special maps. I've given Pepper full authority to import whatever he can into the core.

 

[pepper2000]

Thanks a lot. I've had a lot of fun working on this project, and it is now probably more than 10 times bigger than I imagined when I started. As Tbrd noted, the map issue is the biggest hang-up right now. TPEHEP has been doing a good job making maps.

Part of it is my fault, because I keep saying "once the next version comes out", and I don't seem to reach the point where i am satisfied enough to start integrating it. However, there is a lot of material which is strictly Earth-based and that could be included.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Ok can we go over the Earth-based stuff first? What all do you have? I would like to do a review of your stuff with you pepper2000 and then we can work together into making it work with C2C.

You have so many good ideas. A lot line up to stuff I originally wanted to add. So if we can merge our ideas into version that works within the current C2C stuff that would be good.

I also a some questions based on what I looked at so far. But that can way until after we go over the Earth stuff.

 

[pepper2000]

OK, great. First I will have to get organized a bit myself. I have python scripts that generate all of the buildings and techs, and the other things were done by hand. In about a week I will be on vacation and will have very limited Internet access, so I will try to get some material before them.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Cool. I look forward to your overview.

I wanted to bring up some other related stuff too.

Space - Map vs Imaginary
You might have noticed that space in C2C has been broken up into two methods "map" vs "imaginary". I worked on both methods. Map is when you use real map terrain like Mars or Lunar terrain and then travel there on a specially made map. The many maps in one are great but they have their flaws. Such as they are side ways meaning north is not up. This messes up all the animal spawning since its based on map location in the normal "north is up" configuration.

There is of course a way to have the map with up is North and have Mars terrain and that is the whole multi-map project that was worked on. Where it loads a completely separate map. However I am unsure of the status of this. Last i read it was abandoned.

The other way is the "imaginary" way. Where we use the player's mind to imagine everything not on the planet. Thus via buildings you get that are suppose to be far off the planet. This 2nd way is of couse easier to do but of course not as satisfying because you cannot explore new parts of a map or have real space wars.

I am personally torn on which method is better use now. And wish multi-maps were a working thing we could use finally.

Aliens vs Aliens
I have not looked too close to your techs but one thing I tried to do is keep true aliens off the table for the most part. Where human colonization of the galaxy ends up making their own "aliens" via isolated humans, robots, genetically altered species, etc. In short everything can link their origin back to Earth and not from somewhere else. There were two exceptions planned which were 2 alien events. but for the most part it was no non-Earth origin aliens. So like if there were Vulcans they would not be some alien species that originated from the planet Vulcan, they would be future humans that inhabit a planet called Vulcan that have since evolved pointy ears and emotional suppression. In all ways that matter they are Vulcans, except they are not "alien" aliens, just "alien" humans. In the same way that if a human born on Mars would be a "Martian".

 

[pepper2000]

When I started out, all space colonies were "imaginary", meaning that they were build on Earth. I've moved to the point where they now all have their own terrains. So, if a player wants to explore all the new content, they will have to either use a custom map such as the one TPEHEP built, or edit in the needed terrains via WorldBuilder. I switched because I didn't know when/if multi-maps would be done, so whatever the flaws, a large map with space and Earth terrains was the next best thing. There's too much Earth-based content for Earth cities to do the space buildings as well.

As far as aliens go, what you describe is also what I have in mind for now. Interstellar conquest is more of a space race than true imperialism, in that you are trying to beat your Earthbound rivals rather than conquer aliens. I would at least like to have aliens as barbarians but have no idea how to do that. In practice, it's hard to imagine that a real game that starts in the Prehistoric Era would go on long enough for an interstellar space race, let alone evolve in this manner, so really the way to enjoy space colonization is in the builder mindset.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Yeah I want to look at TPEHEP's map in world builder but I cannot seem to load it. Where do I put it?

And yeah "imaginary" colonies were more of a place holder to test how a colony would work with multi-maps when/if they ever come.

I also like the idea of your other terrains but they obviously need some graphics love before those can be added.

I am glad we are on the same page when it comes to aliens. As for "space barbarians" DH and I have talked at least about space "goodie huts" where you find crashed probes and what not. If there were barbarians out in space from the beginning of the game then I think they might get too powerful. Which means by the time you get out to explore the rest of the map there is nothing to colonize. So a space colonization race is probably best.

Some idea for keeping it interesting would be like once you start colonizing stuff even if its only you there might be rebel factions that break off from yours. So some sort of delayed barbarian cities. That spring up. Same would go for all other levels of space be it interplanetary, interstellar or if we get this far with maps, intergalactic.

One other issue I know DH and other want is to eventually consolidate buildings so they either obsolete and/or get replaced. I started working on that before i stopped modding but it has many loose ends. Also there is the issue of loosing stats from the buildings that come before. You can see the consolidation of buildings I did already with housing eventually turning into the launch arcology. In short it should end up something like ...

City Building -> Planet Building -> Solar System Building -> ??? Galaxy Building?

The down side to this of course is a lot of detail is lost. But of couse when you are up to this scale I suppose it would be needed.

EDIT: Also what is "Cislunar"?

 

[TPEHEP]

Yeah I want to look at TPEHEP's map in world builder but I cannot seem to load it. Where do I put it?

There

 

[Hydromancerx]

@pepper2000

I have been looking closer at your tech tree and man, soo good! I am not sure if i agree with your eras, but I am sure sooner or later we will be splitting up the eras more anyways. Plus we can always discuss that in the tech tree topic. In short its the techs that are important. The eras are less important.

- Paleolithic
- Neolithic
- Ancient
- Classical
- Medieval
- Renaissance
- Industrial
- Atomic
- Information
- Nanotech
- Transhuman
- Galactic
- Cosmic
- Transcendent
- Future

 

[Hydromancerx]

Ok looking through more of the mod I see you have a lot of obsoleting for buildings at existing techs. That might be a good first step to go over those.

I also noticed you moved the arcology stuff over and made some new techs. I am not sure my feeling on it but we shall see as we go deeper into this.

EDIT: This is so weird to dissect a mod made for C2C. So much of my time was directing mods other mods that were no way compatible with C2C. Or even other games!

EDIT2: yeah I can see why it should not be just ported over as it is. There is a lot that needs to be sorted especially with the building tweaks.

One that caught my eye was the Fossils going obsolete at Novopaleontology. Things like this should be tweaked. its just a matter of sorting through them I guess.

So yeah don't move over everything like I first said. We need to do some review and sorting.

EDIT3: Looking closer at all the consolidating mega-buildings i really think those should be added. on of my original plans was to have all the residential, commercial and industrial buildings combine into a giant arcology.

This is a good step to that since we can always take your and combine them to each other later.

 

[pepper2000]

Thanks for your comments, Hydro.

As far as building consolidation, I saw early on that the enormous build lists in the Modern Era and later were getting inconvenient, and consolidation was needed. Lots of details to be worked out, of course, but overall I think it works much better now. One complicating factor is that there are some fairly long and complex dependency chains that we have to be careful not to disrupt.

I consider Cislunar Space to be the space of all points that are beyond geosynchronous orbit (42,000 km from Earth) and where objects can have stable orbits around Earth. This is also called the Hill Sphere, and it extends to roughly 1.2 million km from Earth. By comparison, the Moon is on average just under 400,000 km from Earth.

There are as many ideas for how to do eras as there are people who have thought about it. The last five eras are deliberately structured to correspond to five major space colonization zones (cislunar, Solar System, galaxy, intergalactic, hyperspace). The Neolithic and Atomic Eras were added to balance out the lengths a bit. I'm open to doing it in other ways, but I added the era split so that we would have something tangible to discuss rather than just talking about it on the forum.

I also noticed you moved the arcology stuff over and made some new techs. I am not sure my feeling on it but we shall see as we go deeper into this.

Are you referring to the Nano-Architecture tech? I did that mainly because there was too much material at Metamaterials, and it needed to be split up. And there is a significant conceptual difference between Julia Greer's nanotrusses (which is what I imagine Megatowers are built from) and other metamaterials.

yeah I can see why it should not be just ported over as it is. There is a lot that needs to be sorted especially with the building tweaks.

Fully agreed. And frankly, that would be too much for any one person to do unilaterally.

Also, if anyone reading this can help with designing terrains and terrain features in space, we could really use that help because I don't know how to do it myself.

 

[Hydromancerx]

So last night I added the obsolete for Fossils at Neopaleontology. I will be looking for more easy little fixes in your mod to move over. That way it will not seem like such a huge task later on. Overall i see there are the following areas ...

1. Buildings Fixes and Tweaks
2. New Buildings / Wonders
3. New Eras
4. New Techs
5. Altered Techs
6. New Units
7. New Civics
8. New Resources
9. New Terrain

Am I missing anything?

The first 2 would probably be where we want to start. At least for the Earth based buildings that don't use any new techs or resources.

 

[Thunderbrd]

3 & 4 strike me as the best places to start. If we can get ourselves an updated tech tree according to his methods that would be cool. The era list above seems appropriate. Would require some expansion of the education system immediately... but otherwise I don't see any real 'problems' with that era list. Could be good overall. We've gotta get our eras locked down and soon or a lot of the unit reviews I'm about to do are going to be a waste of time.

 

[pepper2000]

There are two basic strategies for integration that I see. One is the gradual approach, adding a few things at a time, and I take them out of the modmod as that happens. The faster but riskier option is to put things in quickly and make adjustments later.

I would probably do the tech tree first. It doesn't depend on anything else, and most everything else depends on it in some way. Af first, that would mean a lot more future techs with no content, but this should be of little concern for most players who never reach the future eras anyway. I am planning on several new techs for V9, and I am still in the process of designing them (setting flavors, finding good quotes, etc.).

The era structure that I presented is just my suggestion; I'm not married to it, though I have my reasons for doing it this way as outlined before. If that could be integrated into the main mod, that would make life easier for me because I wouldn't have to maintain this era split separately, but this will be a controversial move.

Units should probably be done last. All the new units I added are specifically for use on space terrains. Tbrd has been working on a few futuristic naval units, and most of mine are settlers and work units.

Two major artwork issues where I need help. First is designing icons for civics that are consistent stylistically with the existing civics. The second is the new terrains and terrain features.

I attached the python code that I use to generate buildings, techs, and resources. Everything else (civics, units, etc.) is done by hand, so I have nothing more than the files in the modmod. It's a little messy, but in the python code you can see the files for building consolidation, earth buildings, earth buildings that are related to space, and other categories, and this should help show how things are structured. Also, in tech_generator.py, you will see the as-yet-uncompleted techs that I have planned for V9. I also have a list of buildings planned for V9, but none added yet.

 

[Thunderbrd]

First is designing icons for civics that are consistent stylistically with the existing civics.

This would be Sparth. He said he'd be back in a bit. Maybe PM him with this request.

The second is the new terrains and terrain features.

This would probably be Toffer. He's also in a bit of a small break mode at the moment but he's a lifer. He'll be back. In fact, he's not really 'gone', just in a bit of a hibernation at the moment. PM him your request.

Units should probably be done last. All the new units I added are specifically for use on space terrains. Tbrd has been working on a few futuristic naval units, and most of mine are settlers and work units.

And there's a lot more futuristic stuff to come... I just need to build up to it with proper game-wide unit path charting with every bit of unit data included in the review. I agree... this is basically 'last'. But it's comin'.

We'll have to include equipment into the future as well. And there's a number of combat factors still to be programmed that round out the future unit warfare situations. Y'all ain't seen nothin' yet but suffice it to say, the combat mod isn't intended to just be about warfare up to the medieval era.

 

[Hydromancerx]

3 & 4 strike me as the best places to start. If we can get ourselves an updated tech tree according to his methods that would be cool. The era list above seems appropriate. Would require some expansion of the education system immediately... but otherwise I don't see any real 'problems' with that era list. Could be good overall. We've gotta get our eras locked down and soon or a lot of the unit reviews I'm about to do are going to be a waste of time.

The eras that he uses are not bad and I agree that those eras need to be split up. I just am unsure if it should be exactly like that. Toffers was not a bad split.

The break down i see like this ...

prehistoric gets split into two with Paleolithic and Mesolithic. Where Mesolithic comes around Microliths and Composite Tools. This would make the Paleolthic 9 columns and Mesolithic 9 columns.

Neolithic comes at Sedentary Lifestyle or Agriculture. Copper Age is sometimes merged with the Bronze Age However if no copper age then the neolithic would be 10 columns wide. Or if there was a Copper Age then there would be Neolthic is 5 columns and Copper is 5 Columns.

Iron Age would be at either Iron Working or Classical Lifestyle. But then what tech would it stop at? Siege Warfare maybe? That would make it 5 columns wide. Note the whole Classical Era is only 12 wide. With 2 blank columns at the end.

The Medieval Era is by far the smallest Era at only 7 columns. But it could be split into Early and High Middle Ages. Without new techs however we might want to keep it one Era.

Renaissance Era has 11 but could be split into Renasiassance and Imperial. But at where? Colonialism is early in the era.Flintlock? Scientific Method? And Imperialism is in the middle of the Industrialist Era

the Industrial Era is 15 columns. Industrialism doesn't appear until the middle of the Era. So lets say the 2nd half was Industrial Era is Steam Power to Industrialization its own era? If so what? Steam Maybe? If it was split the first era would be 6 columns. And then if Electrify was the key tech of the Industrial era.

For the Modern Age it was sudgested we have an atomic age. If so it goes into the Industrial era. at Fission. WW1 and WW2 go pretty fast at the end of the Industrial age as we have it. Basically the modern age is post-WW2. So would post- WW2 be considered "atomic"? So if we split up the Modern era into Atomic and Information then it would be around 5 Columns for Atomic and 10 for Information, if we use Computer Networks as a starting tech for the Information Age.

Transhuman is a massive Era with 23 columns. However the Space Mod breaks it down a little better. Their information age is a bit different. And the way its done i tend to agree with. So the way they split it I am fine with.

1. Paleolithic
2. Mesolithic
3. Neolithic
4. Bronze
5. Iron
6. Classical
7. Early Middle
8. High Middle
9. Renaissance
10. Imperial
11. Steam
12. Industrial
    
13. Atomic
14. Information
15. Nanotech
16. Transhuman
17. Galactic
18. Cosmic
19. Transcendent
20. Future

As you can see if we do this we have a nice 20 eras. Even if the last era is just one repeatable tech. Basically all eras are split into 2 eras. And just a refresher of our current set up ...

1. Prehistoric
2. Ancient
3. Classical
4. Medieval
5. Renaissance
6. Industrial
   
7. Modern
   
8. Transhuman
9. Galactic
10. Future

What do you guys think?

 

[Hydromancerx]

Note if Classical and Medieval are too small i would suggest this instead. Where they stayed basically the same.

1. Paleolithic
2. Mesolithic
3. Neolithic
4. Ancient
5. Classical
6. Medieval
7. Renaissance
8. Imperial
9. Steam
10. Industrial
    
11. Atomic
12. Information
13. Nanotech
14. Transhuman
15. Galactic
16. Cosmic
17. Transcendent
18. Future