World History Mod development thread

[EviltheMonkey]

I'm not sure whether I should bring this idea up here on on the map thread, but I figured that while it is about resources it doesn't deal in specifics so here goes...

Hope fully you will introduce resource quantification and if so I have a suggestion, the removal of luxury goods as a specific type of resource.

Lets say your civ is sitting in the middle of the Indonesian forests and your surronded by spices, more spices than you can possibily use. After the initial novality has worn off I doubt people would consider spicy food a luxury, just the norm; but if they acquire a few cows from a European trader, beef would be a highly prized luxury food. My point is you wouldn't have luxury goods per se. A good would be considered a luxury dependant on its quantity (this not only applies to food stuffs, in ancient Egypt iron was valued as much as gold because of its scarcity).

The numbers would have to be worked out but every good would have an inherent value (health for food, hammers for ores etc) that would increase in a linear fashion irrespective of quantity. They would also have a 'novelty' value (bonus happiness) that would give a large bonus in small quantities but would level off as quantity increases (and could have negative modifiers with very high quantities, canceling out bonuses at lower levels, to represent it becoming a staple of your civ and as such mundane).

Other effects you could intorduce with quantitative resources include subtance abuse for pretty much any product, ie if your civ consumes too much it has negative health effects (tobacco, alcohol, sugar, red meat for example- the levels considered 'excesive' would vary for each of course).

Sorry for the ramble, I get idea bursts instead of a sustained flow

 

[Wessel V1]

You haven't added the Netherlands yet. Not important enough?
I really like your resources btw

 

[kevinman4404]

@Wessel: Glad you like them . Dutch Empire has been added, my bad.

@EvilTheMonkey- some very good points. I plan on removing resource categorization, but I ask, what impact does it have on the game to begin with?

And I definitely agree that if you have 10 silks around one city, for example, it is kind of excessive, and even unbalanacing to be raking in so much gold from multiple luxury resources. (Especially in my mod where commerce values are higher).

I'll let you know my plans as I reach that stage in the mod.

~~~

Done the map.

I just figured out what I was doing with excel. I originally thought I'd have to learn macros, which would have taken me a couple weeks at least. I finished it in about 20 minutes. I am currently tracing out my map, so I can lay down the extent of the civs' empires. This is a lot more frustrating than it sounds. If I am just one tile off, I usually have to redo an entire continent, or more. And considering a lot of times I have to guess distances, that's quite often. I am currently done all of North America, Greenland, Iceland.

When I am done tracing it I will post every single empire map in the map thread, just so I can keep some interest going, despite no map updates.

Kevin

 

[SimonB1er]

For my my part I think that historical/modern flag would be a lot more appropriate than generics one. As for important Revolution I think creating new nation to represent the revolutionary struggle inside the nation would be more historicaly accurate.(ex : French republic start with Paris, and than extend into the rest of the french kingdom, the soviet union from Russia, the Confederecy from the United States, etc) Would be quite easy to implent I think, and very fun to play

 

[EviltheMonkey]

Population Brainstorming:

I think the first point is to consider wht your fundamental unit of population is (the smallest unit you can manipulate at the city level, ie the workers of one tile in the radius). I was toying with the idea of 250,000 given the size of your map (its at least vaguely feasible and will do for my further ideas).

Ok, now on to population for units. My idea is to have 'Manpower' as a resourse that is generated by overall population of your civ, so as civ population increases so does available manpower. I'm gonna use a value of 10% for now, but this can be modified by civics and in the event of a war. So our fundamental unit of population can support 25,000 men in uniform maximum (this is also dependant on financial costs of course). For sake of simplicity we could divide this by 100 as the fundamental unit of military manpower (your unlikely to build a unit that requires less than 100 men and even if you do you might as well call its manpower 0).

Unit production would then consume an amount of manpower based on its historical requirement. For example a Roman Legion is comprised of on average 5000 men so it would require 50 manpower units, a modern Infantry Division however contains around 10,000 men, so that would consume 100 manpower units. At the smallest level we could have Fighter squadrons and submarines with 1 manpower units each. The advantage of this system is that manpower is generated at the civ level so a city with a small population but high industrial production can be used to churn out the tank divisions while your bigger city supplies the manpower, also it would allow small coastal cities to produce large navies without the population disappearing.

 

[kevinman4404]

@EvilTheMonkey: You think along the same lines I do. Interestingly, I have plans to include everything you've said, even if my figures are a little different.

For population, my initial model was:

1-10000
then
2-25000
3-50000
4-75000
5-10000
etc... 10mil. was something a bit over 200 in city size

I realize I've greatly thickened city sizes, but you will only see your city grow, graphically, let's say, every 5 points.

I also had and have plans to include manpower. There will be a cap based on civics, population, demographics and religion. As well, units will cost a small amount of population (1/3 I think, remember, I expanded the number of city sizes).

The one and only problem with what you suggested is the discrepancy between the number of manpower and the actual power of the unit. For example, I think a legion of 5000 Romans would beat a catapult. But in the game, a spearman (rep. of the 5000 Romans) would have a similar or lesser chance of winning. So it doesn't yet match.

Maybe I have to edit the strength of units. That won't work, I think, because the common notion is that a siege weapon is seen as stronger than an infantry unit. Almost like rock paper scissors.

So I really don't know how I'll be able to approach this yet...

 

[EviltheMonkey]

My answer to the Legion/catapult issue is quite simple; remove catapults as an individual unit.

Siege weaponry like that was often produced by a unit as needed on the spot (certainly before the introduction of canons and the requirement of a standing artillery train). We could include 'Siege Engines' as a technology that would allow a unit promotion (the technical skill to produce catapults), and would carry through into the modern era as intergrated division level artillery (and if we have sub-divisional units as trench mortars or light field guns etc). We could still have seperate Artillery units but reduce their direct fire strength and keep them for bombardment.

 

[GrayInvisible]

Sounds very cool. One thing I dislike though is quanititization. Will that be an optional feature, or will it be forced?

 

[kevinman4404]

Depends on how good a job I do on it. Obviously if it doesn't work as well as I want it to, it will either not be used or be an option. If it works ideally, it will be required.

I don't see where you don't like it, it is the ideal system, and is the way it works in real life. I promise you if it is included, you will grow to love it.

~~~

Compiling the SDK. First test will be done tonight. Expect an update

 

[kevinman4404]

A major roadblock. The existence of the mod depends on getting a .dll compiled.

If anyone might be able to help me with the problem, please see

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6528866#post6528866

Thank you
Kevin

 

[SimonB1er]

So anybody help you yet??

 

[kevinman4404]

The problems shifted, so we'll have to wait and see if anyone knows a fix...

On the good side, it appears once we have the dll working we will have the borders over water and dynamic civ names I hoped for

Kevin

 

[SimonB1er]

The problems shifted, so we'll have to wait and see if anyone knows a fix...

On the good side, it appears once we have the dll working we will have the borders over water and dynamic civ names I hoped for

Kevin

Maybe Rhye can help you out since he already made a complex mod like yours

 

[kevinman4404]

@SimonB1er and all: It appears the problem was with codeblocks I have acquired VBnet2003 and it compiled it easily 10x faster. It seems it has worked.

I got a warning, and I'll run it through you C++ers to make sure it's not going to bother me:

Linking...
Creating library Final Release/CvGameCoreDLL.lib and object Final Release/CvGameCoreDLL.exp
LINK : warning LNK4089: all references to 'KERNEL32.dll' discarded by /OPT:REF

I doubt it is, but just making sure...

Also, it places the .DLL file in the assets folder right before it, right?
My question is, what happens if you compile from a random folder where there is no assets folder on the previous level? (ie I make a folder on desktop and just stuff the files into it)

~~~

I should have an update late tommorow, if all the coding went well

Kevin

 

[Shqype]

Kevin, that warning means nothing. Don't pay any attention to it, it always happens. I've gotten that "warning" every single time for every DLL I've used for TAM and other mods and no issues at all.

If you make a folder on the desktop it will make a new folder with an assets folder in it with the DLL in it. It pretty much creates the hierarchy that you should place the DLL in. I keep all my C++ files on folders on my desktop and then after compiling, I just put the DLL in the correct mod folder and that's all there is to it.

 

[SimonB1er]

@SimonB1er and all: It appears the problem was with codeblocks I have acquired VBnet2003 and it compiled it easily 10x faster. It seems it has worked.

I got a warning, and I'll run it through you C++ers to make sure it's not going to bother me:

Linking...
Creating library Final Release/CvGameCoreDLL.lib and object Final Release/CvGameCoreDLL.exp
LINK : warning LNK4089: all references to 'KERNEL32.dll' discarded by /OPT:REF

I doubt it is, but just making sure...

Also, it places the .DLL file in the assets folder right before it, right?
My question is, what happens if you compile from a random folder where there is no assets folder on the previous level? (ie I make a folder on desktop and just stuff the files into it)

~~~

I should have an update late tommorow, if all the coding went well

Kevin

Kevin, that warning means nothing. Don't pay any attention to it, it always happens. I've gotten that "warning" every single time for every DLL I've used for TAM and other mods and no issues at all.

If you make a folder on the desktop it will make a new folder with an assets folder in it with the DLL in it. It pretty much creates the hierarchy that you should place the DLL in. I keep all my C++ files on folders on my desktop and then after compiling, I just put the DLL in the correct mod folder and that's all there is to it.

That is good news!!

 

[kevinman4404]

Thank you guys...

I want to make sure I am applying my code changes to the right sdk.

Does the SDK for the latest patch come with the patch?

And can you get it anywhere else?

Kevin

 

[kevinman4404]

I'd still love to know the answer to the last question- however it seems I have compiled without that knowledge.

So the compile is a success... I am getting a crash at the civ loading screen. Any ideas what this might be? (civilizations and leaderheads xml seem fine, I need to know as many possible scenarios as possible).

I changed the teams and players and options information on the map. Do you think that might be the problem? How do you think I could change the map data and avoid a crash? (I've always found the map very nitpicky about whether to crash or not after I change it)

Kevin

 

[Shqype]

I would suggest trying the game without the modified DLL... see if it still crashes on startup.

 

[Dubhghaill]

What about the Gaels? They are different than the Picts (although the Scots are Gaelic) and they were a major influence on early Europe (bringing down Rome, saving Christianity during the Dark ages, the invention of Pants...). They also stretched from turkey (Gallatians) to Greece (Keltoi) to France and Spain (Gauls) and into Ireland, Man, and Scotland (Gaels). I'd say they should be included (although I am biased, being one myself). If you do decide to include the Celtic/Gaelic civilization I would gladly help with any translations into Irish you would need.