civ4: BTS mod

[Faille]

I've had this idea for a civ mod poping around in my head for a while and figured I might as well give it a try to implement it, if only to learn how so I can play with modding colonization when it comes out.

Basically what I want to do is give each civ a unique unit for each era, rather then just the single one they have at present. It annoyed me a lot that many civs UUs were mostly useless since they didn't give as big a bonus when you could build them as others. For example, the german panza was pretty powerful, where as the french musketeer seemed pretty weak, at least they way I played (always with lots of arty so the movement bonus was negated).

Technically, it doesn't seem too difficult, which is always good, but design wise it might be a little more challenging. Balancing the units, as well as just coming up with historically accurate names, is going to be a lot trickier.

A further extension might be to also create unique buildings for each era, but I'll worry about that later

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Unzip into your Beyond The Sword/Mods directory. There is a shortcut in the EraUniques directory, but you will probably have to change the path so it matches your install. Otherwise start as you normally would any mod.

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Version .13 - China, Carthage, Celtics implemented
Version .12 - Babylon, Byzantine implemented.
Version .11 - America, Arabs, Aztec implemented

[Faille]

No surprise, this is turning out to be a bigger enterprise then I expected. 34 civs, 6 eras, so there fore 170 new UUs to make.

nearly completed the first step, which was to basically organise the information into a usable form, namely a spreadsheet with all the units sorted by era, as well as sheets for each civ, that will have their base UU in the correct era, then a comparison to its replaced unit to compare the increase it has.

Next will be to work out a scale between the eras to guide how much I should allow for in the creation of the new UUs.

Decision I still need to make is how to choose the new UUs. One option is to try and follow historical units, but that falls down with the civs that don't exist in all eras. The other option is to just cover 1 for each of the unit types(mounted, gunpowder, etc) though again, might not work out as a good match across all eras.

[Zarcath]

What if you had wonders that gave access to civ specific unique units? So say you make the Forbidden Palace, you can make Terracotta warriors? Pyramids enables...Mummies :P I don't know.. could be cool though?

[Letania]

The best way to do this is to find each tech that advances an era (as I recall there are multiple techs which trigger each era), then seed the UUs throughout those techs.

For ideas on UUs, check out Total Realism: Civ4 - Total Realism - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

[Faille]

Interesting idea Zarcath, and I've seen that implemented in a couple of mods I think, but not really what I'm trying to do.

I basically decided to use promotions as unit of measurement since it encompasses almost all the bonuses that UUs get. eg if a UU has +50% v melee, thats basically 2x +25% melee which you can pick as a promotion. I then added on the .5 in view of the fact you couldn't actually pick 2x 25% melee.

Only about halfway through the evaluation of the UUs in comparison to the base units, but it seems almost a rule that the UU is 2.5 promotions more powerful then the base unit. There are some exceptions of course, I think I've seen 1 civ with +4, and a few that are closer to 1, but I think more then likely for the UUs I create I'm going to make them 2 promotions more powerful then the base unit.

[Millie]

Lots of tutorials on CivFanatics forums about modding Civ4. It's a very moddable game, but a lot of the more involved modding requires Python skills (which I don't have). I can hack up an XML document with the best of them, but I can't program in Python to save my life.

At any rate, this isn't all of what you'll need to do, but here are some basic jumping-off points:

Civ4 - Creation & Customization - Civilization Fanatics' Forums
Civ4 - Modding Tutorials & Reference - Civilization Fanatics' Forums
HOW TO: Design a Mod - Civilization Fanatics' Forums
MSMD: How to Create a Mod (video demo) - Civilization Fanatics' Forums
HOW TO: Create a Civilization - Civilization Fanatics' Forums
Getting your units in Civilization IV: A guide for anyone with Max and determination - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

etc.

Also, keep in mind that adding totally new units requires artistic effort. Artistic needs: the bane of every would-be mod designer's existence!

[Faille]

Yeah, one of the main reasons I decided to do this, was the ease with which Civ4 could be modded and the wealth of tutorials and information on how to do it.

As for the artistic side, I'm pretty much going to ignore it and use the base units graphics and just change the name. My purpose is more about the gameplay / balance side of things, so I'm not too worried about re-using graphics. Would definitely be nice, but as you pointed out, way too much work.

[Faille]

First pass i'm going to do will be to add 2 new UUs to each civ and then do some testing. That should take me a while, but at least i'll be halfway to where I want. I'll probably spread the 2 new uus out so that it covers every 2nd era.

[Alfari Keonigin]

Just add a unique tech (which can't be researched) for each civ, make each civ start with the appropriate tech, and tie the unique units to that tech, and various military techs.

There's probably a more elegant way to implement it, but I don't know that much about modding civ4. And yeah, the artistic requirements, and the balancing, are really the hard parts.

[Kais[]]

Make the unit tied to a resource that becomes available during a certain era? Similar to Iron and Aluminum?

[Faille]

Thanks for all the sugguestion, but there's no problem with the technical side of things for implementing this, half the reason I'm doing it. That said, I am having some trouble tracking down how to make it display properly, as well as adding civpodia entry and descriptions.

I should have America fully done sometime today, but whether that includes the display / civpedia side depends on if I can work out how to get those to work.

Coming up with good examples is also tricky. For America their classical era UU will be an extension of the swordsman, but can't think of a historically accurate example to base around. The Renaissance was easier, I chose Cavalry and decided to use Buffalo Soldiers, which would have the shock and cover promotions.

PS: What makes things trickier is that most of the tutes and information were written pre BTS, and BTS had some significant changes to how you setup your mods. Likewise, the information written post BTS is harder to find and usually based on experience with how things worked pre BTS.

[Faille]

ok, America fully done, subject to change of course, but still need to work out how to fix the display problem.

changes as follows:
Ancient: Cohokian scout - replaces scout, starts with guarilla 1 and 2
Classical: American swordsman - replaces swordsman, starts with woodsman 1 and 2
Medieval: Confederate archer - replaces longbow, starts with pinch and flanking 1
Renaissance: Buffalo Soldier - replaces cavalry, starts with shock and cover
Industrial: Aegis Cruiser - replaces destroyer, starts with drill 1 and 2


The scout and swordsman are a little iffy, wouldn't mind replacing them with better options. Mostly I try to use units that I don't normally use, or ones that are pretty powerful already. That means probably won't see too many siege units, or infantry, rifleman etc.

Any feedback welcome.

[Faille]

Version .1 released!

Unzip into your Beyond The Sword/Mods directory. There is a shortcut in the EraUniques directory, but you will probably have to change the path so it matches your install.



All Uniques created for America, so that is the only civ worth playing at the moment. Let me know what you all think.

[Cloud9_]

Wish i had civ4 to play around with this

[Rodyland]

Wish I had time to play civ4 to play this.

As for picking which units to 'upgrade' for a given civ, that does seem like that's the interesting problem. Thing is, it's an easy one - it doesn't really matter... unless you want people to actually play your mod.

I don't know if there are any rules you could apply, but there are a few things you could try:
1. upgrade
all a civ's UUs are units of a certain type (eg infantry, cavalry)
2. military progression
UUs follow the 'normal' progression eg. infantry -> cavalry -> riflemen -> tanks
3. unused units
pick a unit that is relatively unused for whatever reason, and upgrade it so that it becomes compelling
4. themes
Pick a theme for a civilisation and go with that, UUing units that best fit the theme
5. complementary upgrades
Haven't played civ4 for a long time, but don't the various civs have their own strengths and weaknesses? Make the UU for the unit that best portrays the strength.

Sounds to me you were originally hoping to go with #4 (with the theme being somewhat based on historical accuracy). Maybe you could try a mix of strategies across the various civs and get some feedback about which strategies work best and which suck.

Hope this makes sense.