Writing Readme.doc - help requested

Sweet! Does writing in brief about the starting locations of some civs count? :D , can you say what sections are supposed to be in it so we (or at least I) can know?

Thanks Rhye, and finally this mod is going to hit ground real soon, I can't wait for what the mod will be after Warlords :D .
 
Rhye's Catapult should be replaced with Rhye's and Fall of Civilization? Or the mod title should be changed to correspond with the readme, but anyway the name should be decided. :king:
 
My version of the first paragraph:
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Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization is a modpack for Civilization IV that attempts to make Civilization IV historically realistic on an Earth map, without using pre-placed cities.
Rhye's and Fall of Civilization is somewhat of a hybrid between mod, and scenario. The core of the game is heavily modified, the aim of all the changes is a better integration with the static map. This mod is tied in deeply with the map it's played on, and cannot be played without this unique world map.

A brief account of the features of Rhye's and Fall of Civilization:
  • World map: A 124x68 map of the world, with Europe enlarged for better gameplay
  • Dynamic rise and fall of civilizations: Three ancient civilizations start playing when the game begins, and the rest come in at the historically appropriate moment. When a new civilization enters the game, the player may choose, just once, to switch control to the new civilization. When a civilization quickly loses territory to rival civs or to barbarians, it may suddenly collapse and fall, making room for younger civilizations.
  • Dynamic spread of resources
  • Historical cities: The AI is reprogrammed to adapt its behaviour to the Earth map and founds cities in their historical location. When a city is founded or conquered, it receives a historical name according to its location and owner.
  • Script-driven historically realistic barbarians
  • Unique powers: Instead of leader traits, each civilization receives a completely unique power that helps that civilization develop historically.
  • World Congresses: In the late game, the world powers convene periodically to discuss members' claims for ownership of cities that are in foreign hands.
  • Graphics: New flags and new terrain graphics, including a new kind of tile: marshes
  • Feels like RoC: Some rule changes will make players of Rhye's of Civlization for Civilization III feel right at home.
This mod requires Civilization IV patched to 1.61.
If any custom assets are installed, they may interfere with the mod and not allow it to run properly.
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More will come later.
 
Page 2:
"Before starting a new game remember that:" is unnecessary. This section's text should be simply:
"First, go to advanced, then load a mod, select Rhye's and Fall of Civilization. Then single player, play a scenario, and then load Rhye's and Fall of Civilization" (and bold is preferable to caps, imho)
The next two sections can be elegantly united into one (which also happens to be partially rewritten and extensively edited, here):
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==Selecting a Civilization
In Rhye's and Fall of Civilization, each civ has its own starting date. When starting a new game, keep in mind that the AI will play through the game until the point when the civilization you chose is born. If you want to start a game immediately, choose Egypt, India or China.
All the rest of the civilizations will be born later on, so if you choose them you’ll have to await their starting year (which you can see in the selection screen when starting the game). It will take a few minutes for the game to start if you select an early civilization, like Greece or Rome, and can take about half an hour for America, starting in 1605.
If you did not choose one of the first three civilizations, you will find the world around is already somewhat developed, as the AI has played through the game so far. Every time your civilization is born you will find a new world, unlike the ones you've played in before, even if you play the same civilization again and again. Every civilization starts with technology and units appropriate to the historical context.

If you want to play a later civilization but don't want the world to unfold without you, Rhye's and Fall of Civilization has just the option for you: the dynamic switch. Once in every game, when a new civilization is born, you are allowed to relinquish your control of the civilization you started with, and take control of the newly-born civilization. Whenever a new civilization is born - if it's not too close for comfort - you will see a popup like this:
---]]]Popup
If you answer YES, your civilization will be taken over by the AI and you’ll get control of the new one. Once you've agreed to do this once, you won't be given the choice again in that game, so plan wisely.
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More to follow shortly

EDIT: Make that tomorrow. I just wrote a very heated and passionate post against nationalism, in an Israeli forum (in a thread related the war here), and I kind of ran out of writing steam.
 
RISE AND FALL

Like the name phonetically suggests, the central theme to Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization is the simulation of historical civilizations’ own roller coaster ride of power. Although Civilization 4 is generally set up so that civs simply grow more powerful over time (unless conquered), RFC has a new mechanism that allows civilizations to fall into barbaric ruin, given the right circumstances. A variety of events can trigger such a collapse, including foreign invasion. This means that multiple civilizations can fail before all of them even spawn, or none can collapse. Thus in a given game, both China and Rome can succumb to outside invasion and cease to be civilizations at all, or they may survive and thrive into the late game. Triggering these breakdowns can be a key strategy for human players, since only AI civs can collapse.
Just for a start. I'll send you my revised copy of the readme when I'm done, Rhye. It has the added sections and a few spelling errors; I haven't changed Rhye's Catapult to RFC anywhere.

SilverKnight
 
NASTY BARBARIANS

Yes, those pesky barbarians are back again, and with a vengeance! Barbarians have been scripted to appear in strategic locations at historically accurate times for one reason: destruction. Barbarian spawns are common and semi-random, so you’ll have to be careful and on your guard for the arrival of the hordes aiming to take down your civilization! AI civs have this worry, as well; unprepared ones may face destruction and even collapse.

[insert picture of scary barbarian hordes]


MORE WARS

Another new feature of Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization is the addition of territorial wars. This encourages AI-controlled civs to strive for control of certain places on the map, by military force if necessary. Within the theme of RFC, this is to induce historical expansion and clashing of certain civilizations that may be in each other’s way. Rome will lean towards conquest of the Mediterranean, Mongolia will cast an eye over much of Asia, and Spain may viciously defend her colonial rights around the world.
These sections are a little less inspired, but it's something. Any additions/changes welcome.

SilverKnight
 
how about:

"Rome will lean towards conquest of the Mediterranean, Alexander, leader of Greece will likely try out his military might on Persia, Mongolia will cast an eye over much of Asia, and Spain may viciously defend her colonial rights around the world."
 
I really will write more, but not today (and evidently, not yesterday either). I didn't realize how busy I am. Good work, SK.
 
Not really associated with the readme, but a word usage misuse that I noticed. When as America the popup occurs to alert the player of new immigration, it reads better in English to say that our nation has recieve new immigrants or new immigration.

"Our population is growing due to immigrants from the old world" is more correct.
 
Are there any sections you would like me to expand or add to at all? I'm still available, but our power went out for a while there... :sad:

SilverKnight
 
First thing for the v101 readme:
Improved said:
This mod requires Civilization IV patched to 1.61. It is also currently not compatible with the Warlords
expansion (coming soon).
And second thing:
Improved said:
You have yet another option if you want to avoid waiting through long startup times, made especially for America:
on this page: http://rhye.civfanatics.net/index.php?nev=RFCquickstarts.html you will find the link to acollection of savegames, updated to the latest version, provided by other users. This way you get a game that has already been generated, instead of waiting for a new game to be generated! The more savegames available, the more variability you get.
I'll keep going:
DIFFICULTY LEVELS
There are only three levels (Viceroy, Monarch, Emperor), but they are adaptive to each civilization. In other words, India on Monarch level has very different handicaps from Germany on the Monarch level. The handicaps have been tuned based on AI performance in order to balance the advantage / disadvantage of starting on particular terrain, in a particular year.
However, differences still remain, and you should also remember that choosing a Native American or African civ usually means a bigger challenge than choosing a European civ. In this mod the choice of civ is still more important than the choice of difficulty level.
You can get an idea about strengths and weaknesses of each one in the civ selection screen: each parameter is rated 1 to 5 stars.
You will find strategy guides useful as well, to familiarize yourself with a civilization's situation before jumping in to control it.
I'll keep going in a separate post, don't want to lose this stuff.
 
RHYE’S OF CIVILIZATION HERITAGE
Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization is officially follow-up to “Rhye’s Civilization – the fastest loading mod”, which was widely known as one of the most popular modpacks for Civilization III, with more than 25,000 downloads, available in two versions: “basic” and “expanded”.
The basic version aimed at making a realistic and historically correct Civilization III based on an Earth map, without pre-placed cities. The expanded version expanded the game in every sense, correcting any inaccuracy and making a sort of “Civ 3 ½” out of it.
So, Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization is the sequel of the basic Rhye’s of Civ, and this means that its aim is not a whole remake of Civilization IV, but just an adjustment to follow closely the development of civilizations on the Earth. This mod, thanks to the great flexibility of Civ4, is really what we wished Rhye’s of
Civilization would be, given a decent editor.
And the stuff added in the “expanded” version? Fortunately Civ4 is a much better game than Civ3, so it won't need as much rebalancing. But as it offers amazing modability, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it to add new aspects to the game. As a result, some "expanded" features are always in the works at any given time, but they normally have rather low priority.
Rhye’s Civilization was also known as “the fastest loading mod”…is this mod that fast?
The answer is yes, in comparison to other Earth maps.
Generally Earth maps are insanely big to achieve a decent detail, and an increment in map size leads to great increase of area, with huge increase of loading times and allocated memory; some are smaller, but can’t handle many civs because so many of them are concentrated in a small area such as Europe.
So, this map, with (as you will see below) an enlarged Europe, offers the best compromise. Loading times are further reduced by limiting the number of civilizations around at the same time through the dynamic rise and fall
mechanisms (see proper chapter).
Tiny improvements in the following:
Now then, there's no good or bad projection. They're just different representations of a sphere on a plane.
But one can be more suitable than another for the purpose of a Civ map that suffers from enormous sizes and has a lot of civs in a small area (Europe and Middle East).
So, like RoC's Earth, this map is based on Robinson's projection.
Further improvements include connecting Alaska with the eastern tip of Asia (obtained by stretching the 4 corners), shrinking the size of oceans, and enlarging Japan and England for gameplay.
Resource placement, as well as terrain, is 100% accurate.
 
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