[WIP]The Peacekeeper Wars

[Ajidica]

I added more info to the dl page. I'm going to work in buildings/resources next. I really don't have very many ideas, so I'm posting here what I do have.
Resources:
Melange: produced only from a national wonder. Gives +2 happiness, +1 health.
default (except oil)
Anything else

Buildings:
L-Colonies(LaGarange Points): +1 pop to a planet
Melange Storage: (unbuildable by Veneria)
-3g, +2 happy, +1 health.
Arrakis:
Provides 3 sources of Melange
I will remove some of the +x% production buildings.
CHOAM Directorship:
+1g, +15% trade, +1 inf. req CHOAM
Temple to Life:
+1happy, +1 inf, +2 xp. req Orange Christianity
Florentine School:
Stores food, +1 food, +10% sci, +1inf. req Humanism
Aurora Chair:
+4xp, -2 happy, -15% WW, +4 ep, +15% ep, +1 inf. req Cult of the Warrior
(I know it is OP, but it will basicly be only for the PK, and the Aurora Chair was a training/torture device in Farscape.
Retreat to Solitude:
+1 xp, +25% sci, + 1 inf. req Revelation

Civics:
I only have the groups.(There is 5 default, right?)
1. Government Involvement (in industry)
2. Military Style
3. Values
4. Domestic Policy
5. Foreing Policy

Any ideas?

 

[GoodGame]

Why not make melange act like as in Herbert----it pilots warp drives. A civ with melange access gets a promotion that gives its ships like +20 movement (versus 1 to 3 normally).

Removing redudant buildings from plain FF would be a good idea. There's so much redudancy and micromanagement to them that they're kind of pointless. Adding in civ-specific UBs as replacements would add a lot of character though. Aiming for FFH2's level of uniqueness for each civ would be very thematic.

Your civic categories seem reasonable, though borrowing from SMAC might be useful in some cases. FF's military specializations should probably carry over ok.
But I think values should stay as religions. That way it's possible to have multiple values in one city/civ, and still get minor rewards (e.g. buildings) for spreading values around. What I think would be appropriate would be to make an extra level of specialization (bonuses and negatives) for making a value the state religion. Also have holy city wonders for each value, but instead of making a city the founder of a value, make it so if a civ has a city with the value, has the value as it's civ's state religion, then such a city can build a world wonder to become the holy city for the value. That way it doesn't just reward teching faster. To facilitate that, I suggest borrowing the FFH2 mechanic whereby researching a tech that founds a value, any civ gets a free missionary for the value.

I think it'd be good if certain planets held resources, not just asteroids. The only catch would be to extend system culture far enough to get the resources, plus an appropriate building on the planet (mine, usually).

I'd also like a land forces tech tree to give promotions to Invasion ships, with maybe a Rock-Paper-Scissors system inherent in it.
A rock-paper-scissors promotions for ship to ship combat (a la Gal Civ2) would be cool to. Like laser vs. missiles vs. torpedoes, etc...

I would definitely like the Great Commanders and Heroes of FFH2 in FF. Great Commanders could include ship's officers that could attach/detach to specific ships to give bonuses; Great People could somehow do the same thing; Effect would be various temporary bonuses to different traits of a ship---first strikes, repair rate, experience rate, etc.. Heroes could be adventurers that autogain experience (might be cool if they arise spontaneously from combat, like GGs and/or a great person could be transformed into a hero); Heros could have special missions---spy, sabotage a system, steal a ship, negotiate a truce, etc... Force powers/psionics would be ridiculously cool if you could tolerate having magic in the game system.

Asteroids might be remodeled so plain ones give a hammer bonus to the nearest starbase (e.g. like Gal Civ2) to build missiles, or a carvan transport that gives a set number of hammers to the bulding queu of the system it moves to (destroying itself in the process).

Of course this is dreaming, but aim high, mod small.

 

[Ajidica]

I replaced 'Values' from the default game with religions, so the Values civics I have reflect more what the empire values, like Veneria would value wealth, Gaians would value Enviromentalism, and so on.

As to the spice and movement, the default movement of ships is 2, going up to 5 with ARM warships and Zenetian Raiders. I will likely have the spice be a requirement for a 'airlift' building, but here the advanced form of travel will be wormholes. I may include a promo 'Spice Navigator' or something like that.

 

[Agent327]

Do you have any experiance map making with MOO2Civ?

I kind of put it on low priority when I found out how much time would be needed to manually edit a space map...

Apparently editing systems is alot easier now that Jon Shaefer moved the data from a python array to the wbs.

What? where? When did he do that? (I really want to know, because when I tried making a scenario via WBS editing, none of my changes resulted in a playable map.)

EDIT: Also played a bit, noticing that discovering "Hostile Pirates" has no result (no Pirates appear; happened twice - while they are present on the map).

 

[Ajidica]

@GoodGame: The religions are actualy going to be preset at beginning of the game. The values system worked for FF, but I feel like doing thinks differently. Just because people have the same value doesn't mean they get along on how to implement it. (As an example, my friend and I agree that the country should be able to remain strong, how we differ (by a lot) is how to implement it.
Also, until I learn python, alot of that stuff will be a problem. The tech Sardaukar will add a couple assault promotions. I am seeing what the game is like without ships like in invasion ships and PDS of FF. It always annoyed me that a 15p ship could defeat a 225p battleship.

@JEELEN: As to the map thing, I read in the 'How to make an FF' map tutorial that Firaxis is adding that in. I havent actualy checked if they have. If they havent, it will just be a random map that I suctomize slightly.
Pirates> Crap, that probably is in python as I set up the effects of the huts right. Another dive into python looking randomly for me seems to be in order. Could you reload with python exceptions on? That might give me a better idea of where to look. At least I'm not getting a python error with the default pirates.

 

[GoodGame]

The tech Sardaukar will add a couple assault promotions. I am seeing what the game is like without ships like in invasion ships and PDS of FF. It always annoyed me that a 15p ship could defeat a 225p battleship.

One idea would be too tone down the strength of the system defense fleets.
On invasion fleets, you could tone down their strength, but give inherent city attacks.

You could potentially take the FF gameplay in a new direction too regarding invasions. For instance, make it so system tiles represents the planetary lands only----space where ships can't go, excepting the invasion fleets. That would require that system defense ships be played more tactically in the well of the solar system.
System tiles could only be defended by land units then, and only invaded by invasion ships.

 

[Ajidica]

I want the mod to be (somewhat) playable by the AI. Despite planetary troops being needed, I'm assuming the ships have small complements of assault troops. Also, I wanter landers to make the assault easier, but not be the assault. IE: They will eventualy have collateral damage, but be really weak, so they serve more as mop up making it easier for other landers to survive after the big ships have destroyed the main defences. I do want the Esteelers to be able to board ships. I won't be able to get much (read: anything) done for the next 5 days due to an exam and a research paper. I will be able to do more after that.

 

[GoodGame]

I won't be able to get much (read: anything) done for the next 5 days due to an exam and a research paper. I will be able to do more after that.

Heh, it's your mod. Just making some friendly suggestions.

 

[Ajidica]

I wasn't trying to be agressive, but most of what I'll be doing for a while will be XML and editing python. (No new coding)

 

[Ajidica]

I've been busy so I've been working on pedia entries, does anyone know what tags to use to make a piece of txt italics?
Also, could a german speaker please translate this for me? Its in a part of a book that is a pedia entry, and I'd like to know what it means:
Wir marschieren weiter wenn alles in Scherben fa(with the double dots)llt.

For the combat style, it will be very Napoleonic feeling, focusing more on broadside and cannon fire than most else. There are designated missile ships, and with the larger capital ships they get default abilities to simulate missiles. No torpedoes, there will be some lasers, although they are mainly used for targeting. Classic scifi 'lasers' are in as pulse weapons. Which while not large or powerful enough for tiered weaponry, they are effective on fighters and repelling them. Primary weapons are based around gauss cannons and variations on them with charged projectiles.

 

[GoodGame]

Civilopedia tags are just XML, right?

In XML, all elements must be properly nested within each other:

<b><i>This text is bold and italic</i></b>

http://www.w3schools.com/Xml/xml_syntax.asp

 

[Ajidica]

Thanks. I'll add that.

 

[Agent327]

@JEELEN: As to the map thing, I read in the 'How to make an FF' map tutorial that Firaxis is adding that in. I havent actualy checked if they have. If they havent, it will just be a random map that I suctomize slightly.
Pirates> Crap, that probably is in python as I set up the effects of the huts right. Another dive into python looking randomly for me seems to be in order. Could you reload with python exceptions on? That might give me a better idea of where to look. At least I'm not getting a python error with the default pirates.

- FF map: Ah, OK. I suppose it'll be in the Civ Complete Edition then (as I haven't heard anything about a patch or something).

- Pirates: I'd love to if I knew how to turn Python exceptions on. (Don't know squat about Python, I'm afraid.)

 

[GoodGame]

-
I'd love to if I knew how to turn Python exceptions on. (Don't know squat about Python, I'm afraid.)

See: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8044380&postcount=248

You have to set some switches in the civ4config.ini file under /BTS/ folder.

 

[bcr1776]

Think Frank Herbert-------Dune! The Spice must flow or all stops. Use of assassins will be very important as all out war is outlawed via kanly.

 

[GoodGame]

Think Frank Herbert-------Dune! The Spice must flow or all stops. Use of assassins will be very important as all out war is outlawed via kanly.

The mod goal appears to be a pastiche, not a strict Dune interpretation.

 

[Ajidica]

I'm just using Dune as part of the inspiration as it (for me) is a cornerstone of sci-fi. Don't worry, I will have Kanly and the Kwisatz Haderach. Also, minor point is that war itself isnt outlawed, but total war is. Remember the First Battle of Arakeen. Everything must be done to prevent civilian casualties.

JEELEN: Apparently the ability to edit systems was added with 3.17. I just tried it out and it worked.

 

[The_J]

Also, could a german speaker please translate this for me? Its in a part of a book that is a pedia entry, and I'd like to know what it means:
Wir marschieren weiter wenn alles in Scherben fa(with the double dots)llt.

"We'll march forward, even if everything breaks into pieces."
It's a word to word translation, could be better.

What book?

ä = ae .

 

[Ajidica]

Thanks. The book is A Canticle for Leibowitz. The majority of the non-english lines are in Latin, the german is a one off. I would reccomend the book, it is post apoc but it is over 600 years from the Diluvium Ignis (Flame Deluge)

If anyone is wondering what the picture is that I added to the first post, it is part of the opening cinematic of the PK wars movie that I would like to have as the opening movie. It is a Peacekeeper Armada attacking a Scarran Warfleet.

 

[Ajidica]

I'm still doing work on this, just not as much as I would like as I have gotten caught up in beta testing the Dune mod and playing Sins of a Solar Empire (If anyone has this game, any tips on playing as the Advent?) I am working on the soundtrack and buildings. I'm *slowly* making the buildings less FF-ish.