Who Wants A Real Civ-like Mod?

FrostyBoy · May 21, 2003, 00:45

I'm planning to make a more civilization style mod. One that takes you a week rather than an hour. (an hour? pft, so unrewarding.

)

of course, I felt it was strange to start with a slightly advanced civ (with the library and village, etc).

I've always liked the idea of starting from a cave and working your way up from there.

The other problem was that RoN is scaled too high to have any earth-like experiences. So I struggled to scale everything downwards - and I finally succeed!

I have scaled down tree's, buildings, units, everything! and the illusion is great, you really feel that there is a lot of land and open space, you don't feel closed in by the edges. In the game I tested, I built the pyramids to see how a large wonder would stand against a tiny citizen, and it looked great, the pyramid dwarfed the citizens - making the pyramid look massive.

Anyway here are two pictures, one with the buildings changed and shrunk, the other showing that even though the units are smaller, you still get the feeling that you have a massive army. (and there are only 150 men in that screenshot!). Also, I had NO problem finding any unit or distinquishing the units from one another.

FrostyBoy · May 21, 2003, 00:47

Note that the images have really poor quality coz the file size was quite big previous

And in this screenshot below, the buildings haven't been shrunk, only the units.

Buckets · May 21, 2003, 01:38

Wow! That looks great! Can't wait to see how it all turns out.

alva · May 21, 2003, 01:49

Very cool idea Snoops

, be sure to keep us updated

PMKeates · May 21, 2003, 06:48

Congratulations, you seem to be doing a good job of it so far

One of the first things I noticed (Other than the infantry being smaller

) was that the infantry seemed more to scale in comparison to some of the other units, namely the aircraft carrier and the battleship. It now looks like you could fit those little bliters into a ship!

Downer · May 21, 2003, 06:56

Wow! That looks very nice Snoopy, and I like your idea!

If the "Big Huge" map is too small for what you're doing I think you can edit the mapsizes in the rules.xml file and make them a lot bigger.

mw5299 · May 21, 2003, 09:47

great job! l hope you can zoom up to see the details of your troops.

Antrine · May 21, 2003, 16:13

How about these modifications: Pop Limit; 300, 350, 375, 400, 525, 650, 775, 800. Commerce Cap: 150, 250, 350, 400, 460, 520, 600, 700. Cost/Time ratio for all research set 3/5. Ramp final value at end 100% instead 50%. Goody Box raised to 100 (from 25). And big huge map size increased to 160 instead 100. Play with against fewer computer players however, to ease the burden on computer resources. Now you are lost on the map and moving in forward through the Ages in turtle time. Also play at the slowest speed setting, use pause often and now this feels like Civilization II all moded out!
Except much better!!
Thanks all for all tips and ideas plastered here all about.

Boris Godunov · May 21, 2003, 16:33

Unbelievable...Sn00py, if you pull this off, you may actually get me to buy the game solely because of your mod!

Inverse Icarus · May 21, 2003, 17:06

couple of questions sn00p:

1. are the borders scaleable? ie, does a city extend the same borders as it did in the original game?

2. what level of zoom are you using for your screen shots? i cant distinguish the unit types

FrostyBoy · May 21, 2003, 20:22

Thanks antrine for the suggestions

uber, i'm still looking at editing the borders, I do want to scale them, I also want to allow for cities outside the border for the first few eras.

the first screenshot is the closest zoom the 2nd screenshot is the furtherest.

Boris Godunov · May 21, 2003, 22:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Sn00py
I also want to allow for cities outside the border for the first few eras.

Wouldn't that severely change the dynamic of the game? Why do you want to do this?

FrostyBoy · May 22, 2003, 00:51

There must be freedom in the beginning, coz that's the way it was.

Of course, building cities too far away are going to probably hurt you more than help you.

One_Dead_Villy · May 22, 2003, 07:56

great job....

combine it with some of the high pop cap...extreme slow research and high cost research mods etc...then it would rock, well more like roll...but u get it

but starting with a town isnt unreasonable for a civ like game. a civilization didnt start with cavemen, it started with the first farmers. we have hundreds of throusands of years of being cavemen, but within 10,000 years of farming, we're here with rockets in space from the 1st seed into the ground on purpose.

Boris Godunov · May 22, 2003, 09:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Sn00py
There must be freedom in the beginning, coz that's the way it was.

Of course, building cities too far away are going to probably hurt you more than help you.

Well, I have to disagree. I'm not sure what you mean by "that's the way it was." Keep in mind early civilization was confined to solitary City-States. People from Ur weren't going to go off and found a city in North Africa.

Even if that were the case, gameplay > realism, and I think allowing the founding of cities far away would be severely unbalancing. I don't agree that it would hurt more, if you think about it. You could access resources that ordinarily you wouldn't have, and you'd have two bases in which to build troops that can explore faster and strategically surround other civs.

FrostyBoy · May 22, 2003, 19:41

Boris, as the game stands now, that is true, but I am not just changing a few things, I am changing a lot of things.

FrustratedPoet · May 23, 2003, 04:36

I'll be very interested to see how this turns out. Good work so far Snoopy!

PTM · May 28, 2003, 04:45

My God, that's awesome! To think, the terms "ocean" and "mountain range" would have meaning!

Oh also I'm wondering if you can edit AI tactics. Like early on they might be very agressive but towards the end, especially with nukes, they are more passive and diplomatic?

- PTM

Adagio · May 28, 2003, 04:59

Quote:

Originally posted by Sn00py
I'm planning to make a more civilization style mod. One that takes you a week rather than an hour. (an hour? pft, so unrewarding.

)

Can't wat, sounds like fun

Quote:

Originally posted by Antrine
How about these modifications: Pop Limit; 300, 350, 375, 400, 525, 650, 775, 800

Noooooo... too many

Antrine · May 28, 2003, 13:24

ADG,

Actually I have been living with those increased pop limits in every game on larger sized maps as well (140 so far). And what I have discovered is economics and time are the real controlling factors to actual pop counts once you raise the game's needless pop damper.

And if you chose to raise the Age costs or tech costs and extend out the timer for each Age change then you are free to explore building massive economies and armies in Age I, II and III (you must likewise raise the commerce limits). Which is very enjoyable for those of us who prefer that early time period.

This game with increasing costs for each unit of like kind and for towers and forts is utterly brilliant!! Balance is preserved, however great is the gratification for pulling off building 4 forts and 9 towers early on. And when on 'Survival of the Fittest'/Toughest AI setting and you find you are fighting on three fronts full on against three civilizitions, not only at once but repeating in waves, it is nice to have large armies

hitting pops of 350 all before Age III.

I commend Big Huge obvious genius

Great Gaming,

Antrine

Adagio · May 28, 2003, 14:57

The reason why I don't want a higher pop, is because it makes the game be another "Get-the-largest-army-ASAP" game

PTM · May 29, 2003, 22:52

Sn00py, I'd be interested in knowing how long you think it would take you to get a working version of this (not necessarily complete, but like v1.0 which you might update on a later date)? I'm extremely anxious to play your mod; it looks incredible!

Oh, and I noticed your post (thread: "Shall we mod?") and I was hoping you might be able to implement your ideas of new artwork to make cities look more like cities/towns/whatever is appropriate for the time frame in this mod. It'd be so cool because your cities could really become sprawling if scaled correctly and you could really portray the idea of a true Nation!

By the way, Age advancing should be insanely difficult to do. It shouldn't necessarily cost too much resources but the time on it should be like several hours.

- PTM

Sirotnikov · May 30, 2003, 21:46

wooohoo

sounds like great fun

I actually hoped that someone would do just that, since currently the game does remind AOE more than it does remind Civ.

If we would only have a mod swapper

then it would be really great.

Then I could install my favourite mods for single play, but could change them at will, and even go back to regular settings, when i want to multiplay.

XBob · May 31, 2003, 09:44

Kool idea Sn00py! Imagaine, taking a whole week to play an RTS game instead of an hour. It would be like having a nine day christmas!

Oh yeah, Sn00py, do you think you could post that pic of the Pyramids you were talking about, you know, compared to the tiny people and all. I'd appreciate it.

BTW-how do you get your CivLike mod to start out in caves?

Chuckles · May 31, 2003, 18:33

Cool. If you get it released I might consider going out with you.

One_Dead_Villy · May 31, 2003, 21:23

i think a mod swapper is in the works from BHG
if u are impatient, i guess u have to make your own

FrostyBoy · May 31, 2003, 22:56

Chuckles, that's a very scary thought and you need to forget the past

XBob: I will get you that Pyramid soon, I'll try and get some other screenshots of other stuff too. How I got the caves, well I just changed the graphics.

PTM: It will take a while, I have other projects on my hands at the same time, but I am anxious to mod RoN.
I will be making the cities more city like, the distance between the ground and you will be more like Civ's distance, but not too much. Age advancing will be very difficult. I've been playing a game on the slowest setting and tech on the slowest and most expensive. It is very slow, but I found myself in the 3rd age quite sooner than I thought, so I will have to make it harder than that.

FrostyBoy · May 31, 2003, 23:49

I used SimCity 4000's graphics to see what it might look like, I'm not so sure on the look, I may go for something else instead.

(I'm going to be making my own graphic work, I am just using others for testing first)

FrostyBoy · May 31, 2003, 23:54

And the Pyramids scaled with the workers

FrostyBoy · May 31, 2003, 23:57

And a distance shot