Would anyone want the Throne Room / Palace back?

[alexwebb2]

Beta release is out - new thread is here. Leave a reply over there and let me know what you think!

Thank you to everyone who showed interest in this, I probably wouldn't have made it otherwise.

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ORIGINAL POST
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I absolutely loved the throne room in Civ II. Maybe it was the kid in me (I was 10 when I started playing), but it was always one of my favorite parts, and for some reason I've really missed it in the past few iterations of Civ.

A quick search of the forum doesn't turn up any throne room mods. Am I missing something? Has this already been done?

If not, then is anyone else interested in this? It wouldn't be particularly difficult to implement in terms of code - most of the work would be on the art side, and I have absolutely no skill in that. But I'm definitely willing to write the code if other people can supply some awesome art.

In terms of deciding when you get to upgrade, my first thought is that you get an upgrade for every golden age. What do you guys think?

EDIT: Didn't play much Civ I, so I'd forgotten about the palace in that game, and the palace in Civ III totally slipped my mind. Goes to show how much I played Civ II vs Civ III! So I guess another question is, would it be a throne room or a palace?

 

[alexwebb2]

Civ I palace:

Civ II throne room:

Civ III palace:

 

[trystero49]

Throne room, 100%. I was five when I started playing Civ II, and that was definitely my favourite part.

 

[undine]

Its certainly something I enjoyed while playing Civ II.

 

[Nutty]

I vote Palace, but either one would be awesome.

I'm happy to volunteer to help on the art side.

 

[abandag]

Those screenshots really took me back, especially the Civ 1 palace. Started playing that in college. I always took the medieval castle.

I must have turned off the palace option for Civ 3, because I don't remember doing it at all, and I played that game for years (I didn't get Civ 4 until the same day I got Civ 5).

I can't help with art at all, but if my vote counts for anything, I like the palaces better than the throne rooms.

 

[alexwebb2]

Ok, so I think so far that's 3 for throne room and 2 for palace. I suppose we could always do both...

 

[Lord Civius]

I loved the Civ3 palace, I remember the different styles... That definitely brings me back.

 

[alexwebb2]

Ok, so 3-3 now. Definitely sounds like we're going to want to do both.

I've got most of the UI done:

Next steps:

• Decide what we want the actual throne room to look like - exact images ripped from Civ II or totally new imagery?
• Actually get/make the imagery
• Decide what we want the trigger to be - golden ages, birth of great person, etc
• Repeat process for Palace, make it a separate tab, rename to "Palace and Throne Room"

Images will have to be transparent, in DDS format, with 800x600 dimensions.

 

[trystero49]

I say it triggers for each golden age and each completion of a social policy tree. That's my vote.

Also, I think new imagery would be best but maybe it'd be best to start with some placeholder imagery, maybe from Civ II.

 

[TheManFromMars]

I have 2 votes for palace and throne room, so that's not helpful! I think both are good.

My wife loves this - she's been wanting this mod forever really and really misses it from earlier Civs. Like others here it's pure nostalgia as she first played Civ 2 and 3 when she was a kid and has been hooked to the series for decades since. In fact i wouldn't be playing/modding Civ had she not got me geeking out on it in College. As for the mod itself...

I think a free upgrade for entering each Era as standard.
Extra upgrads for Golden Age.
Potential upgrade for Social Policy Completion.

This would mean your casual player will get a good half dozen upgrades just by progressing through the game. The players that care can use Golden Ages to really flesh out their palaces and thrones. Plus it makes Happiness exceeding worth while. I often get enough happiness to get by and trade but rarely enough to go Golden Age on my Citizens. And this gives a greater reason to use Great People for Golden Ages. This is actually good for Gameplay balance too I think.

Either way the emphasis should be on fun and nostalgia so it should be fairly easy to upgrade, or just not super hard to accomplish.

I would also recommend using the original art, providing it still looks on par with the current game.

It can be updated later or changed altogether. But it'd get people more interested if it brought them back and reminded them of the originals, so easier to do and likely to generate more interest with the original artwork from the games.

One other note would be the palace may suit better as we have fully 3D leaders in their settings, some being throne rooms. This might clash a bit but maybe not? Could call it the Royal Court instead of throne room. Just a thought.

That's my (and her) input for what it's worth. My only skill if you can call it that is reskinning, texturing and general artwork. If I can help I will but I'm sure there are more skilled modders out there. Either way I hope this project comes to fruition. And sorry for any typos, using my iPad and it is a pain for typing anything this long.

Anyway if I might be able to help let me know, either way I can provide enthusiasm lol
-Mars

 

[Drawmeus]

Throne Room, but I'd be happy with either. This is one of those things that I'd love to have but would never be at the top of my priorities to do... so someone else doing it is perfect ^_^

 

[alexwebb2]

Everything's coming along quite smoothly. The graphics are in, and (here's the hard part) the mouse target map is complete, so it can dynamically swap out the scene components when you mouse over the various parts of the screen. I have it all hooked up to where I can mouse over any area and see what the next upgrade would bring, and I have all the click handlers set up too (but they're all pointing to a dummy function right now so they don't do anything).

The game logic is the big part of what's left, and I'll be diving into that on Wednesday.

 

[alexwebb2]

And just to reiterate: Throne Room's going in first, then the Palace.

 

[Nutty]

Awesome!

 

[Calavente]

the first palace took me back... I loved it. never knew when it might come (during game), so it was one of the rewards of the game : try a new palace arrangement... and try your luck. (well, I knew it was related to how well I did..but not much)
I always did mix-matches

the throne room I did, but it was messy. the upgrades were less visibles (improvement in quality and not in size... what if I really like the barbarian setup.. and only want golden statues of troll and carouzing scenes and bigger and bogger wolfhounds instead of a lavish middle-east scenery ?

the civIII palace was nice but not as neat as the first one.

well, maybe we are all called by the one which hooked us first to the civ series

 

[deanej]

Nice to see that this was figured out! Throne room mods had been proposed for civ4 in the past (and the game even had unfinished code for it) but people never got over the hurdles necessary.

 

[alexwebb2]

Almost done with the throne room!

Upgrades are in. As it is right now, you have a chance to earn them with each policy upgrade, golden age, or era change. There are a total of 35 available upgrades.

I still have to get notifications working and do a little extra tidying up, and then I'll release this version so you guys can play around with it while I'm working on putting the palace in.

 

[TheManFromMars]

Really good to hear alexwebb2!

Too many projects have great ideas but either take a lifetime to make, it's all idea and no skill or it just fades away into the aether half done. This is a great example of the perfect mod, good scope, ability to execute and good value for effort. There's also plenty of room for expansion.

Just a thought -wouldn't an upgrade per Social Policy be a bit too easy? And it might feel a bit metronomic. Might be better to do as you've mentioned but with completion Of Social Policies being an upgrade trigger along with perhaps certain other 'achievements', for example: discovering Natural Wonder, becoming Allied with a City-State for X turns, certain Wonders granting upgrades too etc.

So a constant regular upgrade - Era entrance
Secondary - Golden Age, Social Policy Tree Completion, Select Wonders

That'd be my suggested setup, play testing will no doubt reveal the best setup. Very excited though keep up the good work.

 

[alexwebb2]

Really good to hear alexwebb2!

Too many projects have great ideas but either take a lifetime to make, it's all idea and no skill or it just fades away into the aether half done. This is a great example of the perfect mod, good scope, ability to execute and good value for effort. There's also plenty of room for expansion.

Thanks! It actually turned out to be a really good learning experience as my first full mod. I'm probably about a quarter of the way through my much larger mod, Power and Consequence, but even that is nowhere near as big as some of the other ones.

Just a thought -wouldn't an upgrade per Social Policy be a bit too easy? And it might feel a bit metronomic. Might be better to do as you've mentioned but with completion Of Social Policies being an upgrade trigger along with perhaps certain other 'achievements', for example: discovering Natural Wonder, becoming Allied with a City-State for X turns, certain Wonders granting upgrades too etc.

So a constant regular upgrade - Era entrance
Secondary - Golden Age, Social Policy Tree Completion, Select Wonders

That'd be my suggested setup, play testing will no doubt reveal the best setup. Very excited though keep up the good work.

There's a chance to upgrade with each policy, era advancement, wonder, or golden age - you may or may not get it. It's set up so that if you're absolutely crushing it, you'll just barely be able to get all of the upgrades.

EDIT: I do really like your ideas for additional factors. Spreading out the bonuses across different potential triggers helps to keep it interesting.