World History Mod development thread

[kevinman4404]

Dunno, but something that doesn't require downloaders to sign into the website!

And you are welcome to use artwork I generate on the African portion to release as many African civs as you want, when I get there!

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As you all know, in BTS there is a "territories" tab in the worldbuilder. I would like to exploit this to completely redo the 'borders' system, before the upcoming release. I will actually need to do it before I do a lot of other stuff. If only in real life you could have a ton of orchestras in a city, and have the largest city in the world! (More job opportunities for me!). But it is not so, so it must be redone. Although cultural borders do work for really ancient civs, which generally are not the subject of this mod

So, I really need ideas, for a simple borders system. I really do not understand how they work in real life, and they seem quite arbitrary/a mix of a lot of things.

Ideas really appreciated!

Kevin

Oh, and a release in the next several weeks is unlikely, well impossible, and in order not to disappoint further, I've given up on the release dates. Instead I will provide a list of what I need to do and what I complete so you can get an accurate picture of where I'm at, at the start of this thread. (and it is/will be current!)

It will be anytime after civ 5 is released, and while that is very vague, I will work on it steadily until the first stretch is ready. I have been very productive this past week and I will continue that

 

[kevinman4404]

Oh, and I did notice your suggestion Grishnash, which I have pasted below:

Spoiler :

Culture boarders no longer hold your empire.
Now, it's up to your nations'.
National Boarders take the place of Culture boarders.
They expend with your cities and no one can build in them but you.
However. Now improvements also expend your boarders by 1 tile. Not only that but you can move your boarders over any space of no other boarders as long as you can see it(No Fog of war)
That means you can take as much land as you want.
And no one can stop you because unlike culture only YOU can remove or push back your national boarders.
However, national boarders cost. The bigger your land the more it cost to keep it, also the bigger your land the longer cities will take to grow and greater chance of a civil war. Also other nations might want to take you out if you rule too much land stopping them from expending. National boarders cannot go over the seas just like culture boarders.
Culture boarders are still there, however anyone can pass through without a right-of-pass or build in them.
Culture boarders no longer give visibility anymore; they just show how far your culture spans, and culture boarders are mostly invisible.
If a city is built within another’s culture boarders the city will use the others style and all units from that city will also use the others style until it's own culture gets strong enough

PROS

I like the idea of invisible cultural borders, which determine the artwork, sense of belonging, etc.

I think improvements need to do something to borders, because food production etc. often is an important part of border decisions

CONS

Borders don't neccessarily cost money. Your whole "borders cost" premise seems weak

I do not think you can just arbitrarily claim land you've never even been on. I'd say you have to at least explore it.

 

[Grishnash]

PROS

I like the idea of invisible cultural borders, which determine the artwork, sense of belonging, etc.

I think improvements need to do something to borders, because food production etc. often is an important part of border decisions

CONS

Borders don't neccessarily cost money. Your whole "borders cost" premise seems weak

I do not think you can just arbitrarily claim land you've never even been on. I'd say you have to at least explore it.

Hey! Awesome to see my idea being thought of … though it was badly written
First, on the border cost. I was thinking like city maintenance, as I think it would cost to maintenance a significant enough presence in the area to lay claim to it (i.e. settlers, soldiers&#8230 That was one of the reasons Russia gave up Alaska, that and the TOTAL lack of far sight

And in my suggestion, I mention that the area must be visible, no FOW, meaning you would need a unit there to reveal the area you are claiming. How exactly you would do this, though, I'm not quite sure. Maybe every unit (except recon) can have a "Claim Land" button that plants a border where they are, if adjoined to another border tile. Or something like that.

New Idea on the topic, have a improvement called 'colony'. It would be like a fort except it can be built outside of your lands and plants it's own 'border', thus establishing your presence on the land, since I don't think the earlier colonies of the new world could really be considered 'cities' until later on… You know, when settlers arrived…



And I will look for a site that doesn't require log-in for my download

Keep up the good works :! ! !



Edit: To add on to that idea, if possible, expanding borders into another civilizations culture can lead to two things; first, it will cause instability as you try to rule over another ethnic group and thus cultural clashes erupt. Second, the peoples of the other culture will be upset that you are approaching on land that is ethnically and (would be the case) historically their land, and they may urge their king (the other civilization) to take action against you. Like that random event when theres a wedding held in a infidel religion, you are asked (at least sometimes) if you would like to start a holy war against them for their massive insult.
An idea...

 

[kevinman4404]

Maybe every unit (except recon) can have a "Claim Land" button that plants a border where they are, if adjoined to another border tile. Or something like that.

Explorer maybe?

New Idea on the topic, have a improvement called 'colony'. It would be like a fort except it can be built outside of your lands and plants it's own 'border', thus establishing your presence on the land, since I don't think the earlier colonies of the new world could really be considered 'cities' until later on… You know, when settlers arrived…

Well, "colonies" are made up of settlers... lol. But it would be more "purposeful" to use colonies instead of just a claim button. And they would cost maintenance, and can harvest resources. But we need to figure how we will do that, ie improvement, reduced-functionality-city, etc.

Edit: To add on to that idea, if possible, expanding borders into another civilizations culture can lead to two things; first, it will cause instability as you try to rule over another ethnic group and thus cultural clashes erupt. Second, the peoples of the other culture will be upset that you are approaching on land that is ethnically and (would be the case) historically their land, and they may urge their king (the other civilization) to take action against you. Like that random event when theres a wedding held in a infidel religion, you are asked (at least sometimes) if you would like to start a holy war against them for their massive insult.
An idea...

Ideally, that will be built right into the culture mechanics



And I have just totally finished both gamefont files! Mod progress updated

 

[kevinman4404]

PROPOSITION A:

You now have actual borders, instead of cultural borders. Culture is now invisible, and artwork would ideally be determined by culture, though unfortunately I am probably incapable of doing that. It also determines a number of things, politically.

For actual borders, I dunno how exactly they would work, as for most of history, they were very loosely defined. IE you wouldn't go around claiming stuff if you're the Aztecs. I don't know how the borders would be generated. Ideas?

Improvements, especially those of population (ie towns), or of strategic resources, provide culture. In addition, you can build improvements on unclaimed land, though it costs a lot of money to support, especially when the distance is long. These can be taken over by force, or when a rival's borders overcome it. However if they stay useful long enough (and are connected by a trade route or something) they will eventually generate a border/culture on that tile.

Culture and borders would also spread more easily along routes (ideally... doubtful of my abilities here).

Explorers have the ability to start a colony on a given tile. This would take many turns, allowing natives/rivals the chance to get rid of you (plus, it can take years for the colonists to arrive). This would require the proper ship technologies, and would maybe cost a bit of population from your capital. Colonies are like cities with smaller borders (1 tile to start) that are very poor at training units. So, to defend a colony, your best chance is bringing in military from your homeland. Eventually, as a result of (hopefully) population growth, a colony will progress into a city, and a genuine part of your empire.

Plantable borders are being considered, but I need a few more ideas to work with. Maybe they cost some initial gold (ie to place some lords)? And they only last as long as you have presence there, and real borders take precedence.

 

[kevinman4404]

PROPOSITION B:

A combination of fixed borders and loose borders (the original civ4 border system, but with minor modifications such as those listed above).

Combinations of civics and government type can lead to gaining fixed borders. Until then, as a less-developped civ, you are stuck with the traditional civ4 cultural borders (+minormods). This means that the borders will go where your culture (people) go.

When you gain the neccessary qualifications, you get to settle down as a nation, and your borders at the time become semi-permanent. You can only lose them via conquest. This becomes your core land. Then you can claim any tile of unclaimed land, or non-core land, with the proper units.

However, if disaster strikes, IE you are on the verge of destruction on the losing side of a war, and you lose your qualifications, you will revert back to traditional borders, and your core land will be there for the taking.

Also, I will use colonies like in Proposition A

The problems:
-should you really be able to just walk on land and claim it?
-should you really have to guard all claimed land with a unit on each tile? Should you really have to guard each tile if you do not have fixed borders?
-what about all the (majority of) civs that in real life were somewhere between fixed (ie France) and cultural (ie Mesoamerica) borders?
-the biggest problem- that culture in real life extends far beyond borders


The great news is that most of the code exists for either of these propositions
And, since I am only doing Mesoamerica/Andes/Natives in this release, I can do much of the work later

EDIT: I also have an obvious modification- no more transporting settlers to different continents in ships! It never worked that way. You have to start a colony, let that develop into a full-fledged city/burgeoning region, and then send out setlers from that city.

 

[Allan79]

Maybe every unit (except recon) can have a "Claim Land" button that plants a border where they are, if adjoined to another border tile. Or something like that.

There is a modmod already, doing what you describe here - and have additional features to it. Dont remember what its called though. Ill get back to you on that one.

 

[Allan79]

The great news is that most of the code exists for either of these propositions

looks like you already now.. Great

 

[kevinman4404]

@Allan79: yep! Fixed Borders modmod (RoM), thanks for looking out for me though! I am guessing you prefer proposition B (not that they're much different)?

~~~

I think we are close to having a good idea for a culture/borders system, but I need some opinions/ideas to make it a success!

Meanwhile, I have finished all the Caribbean (Arawak, Carib) units:

Warrior(wielding macana), spearman, javelineer, dart thrower/atlatl, longbowman, scout, piroga

Sorry, the piroga will be wayyy smaller, forgot to change that

There is also one extant unit that did not make the preview, and that is the Taino Tear Gas Thrower the Arawak UU. It throws conch shells which release tear gas. Obviously I am having more than the usual difficulty with that one

I am dying to make one of those creepy islander blowgunners, but I am still unable, maybe someday I will find a computer that does not have an expired 3dsmax 2008 trial license (for obvious reasons) I use 3dsmax 7 but I need both versions to convert units from AOE3

A note on the caribbean civs: both the Arawak and Carib originated from South America. While the Carib were already powerful when they moved to the Caribbean, the Arawak while in South America were very primitive and later claimed to have originated from sacred caves on Hispaniola. So, the Carib will start at the mouth of the Orinoco (Venezuela) and then invade the Caribbean, while the Arawak will start before that in the Caribbean.

And don't forget to check out the mod progression status on the front page!

 

[kevinman4404]

lol, a funny note, as we can see firaxis has taken a relatively historical approach with the Giant Death Robot

I can bet a lot of people will be happy, but unfortunately, I will always feel unsatisfied with a game that spins off of history but does such a bad job reproducing it.

Their direction to me is really poor, and to me it means there is not one major game willing to dedicate itself to history, rather than trying to get hyper little kids to buy it (not to say that it still can't be fun for many!)

But still sort of looking forward to it I guess, I'm sure that they will at least do a good job on civ5

EDIT: well, ok, maybe I'm overexaggerating about the giant death robot, but it still is a little silly (of all the logical things they could have added); I guess I'll have to wait and play civ5!

 

[God-Emperor]

Civ does cover the future: even plain unmoded Civ 4 goes up to 2050. If you think we won't have Giant Death Robots less than 40 years from now, you haven't been paying attention (we already have Smallish Flying Death Drones). Bipedal is silly, but you know they are going to do soem that way anyway.

Besides which, Civ 4 already has the Giant Death Robot unit - it's called the Assault Mech and can be found in the Next war mod/scenario.

 

[kevinman4404]

ha, you're right, it was a very bad example

still, if only there was a nice big history game

ps. I thought that unit graphic seemed familiar!


EDIT:

Mesoamerican local palace
my work, but not my design

unfortunately, I have a long way to go, considering I have to do a lot of N/S America specific buildings

Tommorow I will try to get borders to stop at coasts, and do more buildings

 

[kevinman4404]

I have (nearly) perfected my citysets. A couple fancy buildings aren't really showing up, but other than that, working as planned. And I have found artwork for all basic buildings in the Andes.

A couple teaser images:

Cuzco, center of the universe

Chan Chan, coastal desert capital of the Chimu, along with Machu Picchu (unrelated)

Borders now only extend only one tile into the water. You can now place improvements outside your own borders.

EDIT: and I'm thinking that the stuff I want to borrow from Fixed Borders Modmod is incompatible with rising and falling civs. At least not without extensive modification. Oh well, don't have to worry about that right now! Just need to get a proper culture system working

Kevin

 

[kevinman4404]

Anyways,

Grishnash, one more thing I'd like to ask of whenever you work on African civs- could you do a city name map for me? I can provide a template, and it is much easier than the settler/war maps. It will be the same for all African civs, so it only requires one map.

I am doing this for Mesoamerican civs, and it's proven to be really time-consuming given that some of the civs are very scarcely known- who knows all the sites for Tiwanaku, for example? And a lot of us know civs like Iroquois and Sioux didn't have proper cities/towns/sites. So for these civs I'm having to either be lazy and let the traditional naming system take over, or use made-up names, or both. (good thing most people won't care! Perhaps I am trying too hard)

Let me know if you can do this, for Africa it shouldn't be bad, and I still have a long while before I will need it

~~~

ETM popped by temporarily on the other forum; unfortunately I didn't have
subscriptions on so I was late replying to it- hopefully he has come back to help!

~~~

lots of work done, nothing to show though

 

[EviltheMonkey]

ETM popped by temporarily on the other forum; unfortunately I didn't have
subscriptions on so I was late replying to it- hopefully he has come back to help!

If I can help I'm always happy to

I'm still not quite sure about this limited tech tree idea for Mesoamerican civs. I do understand the logic behind it and if we can't manipulate the tech system any other way I guess it will have to do.

One suggestion I have would be to make all techs harder to reseach (at least early in the game) and force empires to trade for them far more often than in vanilla. This might remove the need to artifically hamstring native civs as the America's will be naturally seperated from the rest of the world until the 15th century and thus isolated from the learning of Eurasia. This would also better reflect the dispersal of knowledge that occured between Asia and Europe (gunpowder, astronomy and methods of cultivation all come to mind).

Let me know what you think kevin, I'll try and get the standard tech tree finalised this weekend (or at least tidy what I have up a bit )

 

[kevinman4404]

Nice to see you!

That issue is a bit of a semantic... technically, it would be a hybrid (some techs exclusive to people like Mesoamericans/natives, and some are a part of the grand tech tree, which the Mesoamericans could either research, or obtain from a European civ, depending on the circumstances). It does cause them to have to trade for the right techs, it's basically just a more controlling version of what you are suggesting

The only reason I suggested a "Mesoamerican tech tree" was because, for the first release, the only civs in the mod are Mesoamericans, natives. So technically at the moment I don't need anything but techs that are relevant to them, in order to release. (though help with the rest of the tech tree is of course needed- I've always found it incredibly hard to organize a few hundred techs into a polished tech tree, which will be needed sooner than everyone thinks. I am quite proud that I managed to get the tree to where it is right now, and am grateful for any improvements)

But of course, at some point we would have to decide on a way of integrating civs on different continents into the tech tree.

Your idea does work well.

~~~~~~~~~

I've given one last stab at getting GS to come back (or at least post), and hopefully release what he came up with for civics. At this point, I'm willing to take anything provided by the right person. And if he comes back, the mod thread will have all main contributors, and everything will be accounted for

~~~~~~~~~

Thanks!

EDIT: muahhah. So now, you choose your civ from the CHOOSE CIV HERE folder. In it there are icons/scenarios for each civ. The name of the file is obviously the name of the civ. The icon, at it's smallest, is just the civ's flag. Then if you make them bigger ("tiles"), you see the flag and the civ's overall difficulty rating. When you zoom in for large icons you see the flag and ratings for military strength, economy and starting situation. And of course, no waiting (no autoplay).

EDIT: BTW for anyone to whom it concerns, the tech tree editor is now compatible with the latest version of BTS! Much easier for me now!

 

[Krug]

Popping back in, with a new Computer in stow.

It seems huge progress has been made on MesoAmerica since when I last appeared. Still, I could start on European/Middle Eastern concepts if that's alright, also I'll get to work on Civlopedias.

From now on Email me at NathanKronenberg(at)Gmail(dot)com, what ever Emails you may have sent to my old one I have not seen, which is probably why I was unresponsive.

 

[kevinman4404]

@Krug- thanks!

I will go ahead and make a tiny civics system for just north/south america. I will also do a temporary tech tree, with techs just for this part of the mod, until we have a full tech tree ready to go

I have run into a major problem, I am unable to add independents (and presumably any civ) to RFC Europe at this point. I have had no response from 3miro, so I will post in their forum asking for up-to-date add-a-civ instructions (they included some but they are broken/outdated)

However, this has gone on for too long so I will simply edit the civs around a bit, and not include so many. For that reason, Miskito and Tupi will not be included in the upcoming release as playable civs. This is my workaround- it will prevent me from working on African civs until a solution is found, but I'm not at that stage yet anyways

 

[Krug]

I think special care should to given to Nations like Japan or Russia that have existed for hundreds of Years. In my opinion these nations should be split into more specific Nations which would make it easier to create UHVs. This especially applies to Russia which should have been split like China in the first place as each "Phase" of the Russian government had different goals and ideals.

Russia for example would be split into:

Tsarist Russia
Soviet Union
Russian Federation

and Japan could be split into-
Japan
Tokugawan Japan
Imperialistic Japan (Meiji through Hirohito)
Modern Japan

I'm sure there are other Broad nations like these, but I can't think of them at the moment, you get the idea though right?
------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's my suggestion for the Religions list. Be prepared, I have a long argument at the bottom.

Spoiler :

Catholicism
Protestantism
Orthodoxy
Nestorian

Judaism

Sunni
Shiite
Ibadhi

Hinduism

Mahayana
Therevada
Tibetan

Confucianism
Daoism (Daoism is growing to be the more accepted method of saying it)
Legalism
Mohism

Shinto

Zoroastrianism

Teotl
Hellenism
Cannanism/Mesopotamian Pantheon
Aesir
Druidism
Pesedjet
Voodoo
Shamanism
Animism (Shamanism and Animism should cover all other Pagan beliefs)

On the other list you forgot Judaism, which made me not a happy camper. Also I don't feel the need for a "Reform" Christianity. Mostly because I'm not sure what that even is. All forms of Christianity should fall under those four categories (Catholicism, Protestantism, Nestorian, Orthodox), with the exceptions of Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists.

Legalism and Mohism were just as large as Confucianism and Daoism in their day, and at some points were the "State Philosophy" you could say. They deserve inclusion.

Zoroastrianism was a major ancient Religion and still exists today, it deserves inclusion.

The Pagan mythologies will be harder to argue however. In my opinion, if it spread to Two people's or more than it should be included. However, if some of these must be cut just listen to what I have to say about each of these and make your decision based off that.

Teotl and Hellenism: These are the two that should be kept no matter what. Teotl was a Major religion that spread to much more than just two empires, and Hellenism especially should be kept. Its influence is unlike any other, and two of the largest ancient Empires had it as the state religion. These should not be taken out.

Pesedjet, Aesir, Cannanism: These are all important too. Just not as much as the first two. It's hard for me to see a accurate historical mod without them. Aesir had a very wide influence, all the Germanics worshiped some form of it prior to Christianity. Cannanism is essentially the First organized religion, and the Egyptian Faith just strikes me as too unique to be lumped in with all the other Pagan religions as just "Shamanism or Animism." Speaking of which none of these three really fit Shamanism or Animism in the first place. So it would make no sense putting them under that.

Voodoo and Druidism: Really can just be put under Shamanism, though I just thought they had a chance to stand out due to the fairly large influence of both. Especially Voodoo.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Also Kevin, in case you haven't checked your email, the First Batch of Civlopedia articles should have gotten to you now.

 

[kevinman4404]

Judaism and Zoroastrianism were already included; I guess I was just careless in rewriting the information when the old forum disappeared EDIT: fixed

Teotl can be included, for sure, Cannanism also very likely

What seperates a simple pagan religion from a "world religion," the only religions I was planning to include in this mod? As you said, being an organized religion, and one in which the people were conscious of its "officiality." And remember, world religions also have to spread in ways other than through conquest

Shamanism and Animism represents small or decentralized religions in N/S America and Africa, which all tend to fit the appropriate criteria. Paganism will refer to more important religions, that were never really world religions, and were later viewed by Christians as "pagan." Since Egyptian and Greco-Roman were not world religions, I'd say no to individual religions. Teotl is a tough one, but being the only religion in Mesoamerica, and the only religion I can use for this part of the mod other than Shamanism, can stay.

A couple options:
1) Paganism (Aesir, Druidism, Pantheonism)
2) Paganism (Aesir, Druidism), Pantheonism (Pesadjet, Hellenism/early Roman)
3) convince me that Egypt and Rome somehow deserve their own "world" religion. Doing a religion that never spread afaik seems a bit pointless. OK so they're unique, but why would I need a religion to express that? How would an in-game religion express this uniqueness?

Won't say anything about legalism and mohalism, since I know nothing about them; I'll read up on them and let you know!

Reformation refers to a group of nearly identical reformed thinkers that have since become known as "Calvanism" due to the man's fame. It was different from Protestantism (well, sort of), and certainly the people percieved a difference. This would be the religion for Scotland, Netherlands, Switzerland, and possibly parts of Germany and Scandinavia at times. But, I mean, they really are basically the same. But then again this "religion" is a better candidate than some of the others

~~~

Well, the idea behind big nations/dynasties, was that they would have to be conscious of being a seperate, often warring state, with proper political borders. For example the different major dynasties of China will be portrayed as seperate, fighting countries.

Wouldn't it be easier to just change the civics? Maybe throw up a screen for historical relevance?

One exception I made to this was Nazi Germany, which obviously requires a totally different AI, settler/war maps, etc., in order to become the European terrorist and killing machine that it was

I don't really know how you expect me to make these "civ eras" different, in ways that can't be done without a whole new civ. Most stuff I could just do in python

~~~

Civiliopedias updated! thanks! XML is no problem at all so no need to worry bout that

EDIT: polished up the religions thread so that maybe other than what you have suggested be changed, there are no mistakes