 |
| |
|
|
Locutus
|
|
ACS CTP1/2 Manager & Civ4 Co-Manager
|
 |
Hengelo, The Netherlands
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
|
|
First things first, I would very much like to have an answer to this question:
Can we or can we not add custom CSAs (Agricultural, Seafaring) ourselves (at this time)?
From the setup of the editor it looks like it isn't possible but maybe through the text-files or something? I don't have the game myself so I can't freely experiment, maybe others could shed some light on this...
Next point: I started a new poll that I think people should really vote in here, about what to change about existing civs (round 2).
quote:
Originally posted by Martinus
Good, let's stop juggling the stone tablets. My hands are starting to hurt  |
LOL I couldn't agree more, we could go on for ages about this but it's not gonna accomplish anything...
ranskaldan,
Sure, I'll post it a bit later, the file's a total mess by now, I'll fix it up and convert it to HTML first (hopefully I'll be done tomorrow but I have an exam week coming up so I can't promise anything).
Stefu,
I agree, we should made this as democratic as possible and have a large number of polls. I'm not sure though how well polls would work with city lists, CSAs (contrary to most of the other stuff this can't really be determined civ-by-civ as things need to be balanced out) and perhaps Great Leader lists. But we can at least start by having polls on 'easier' subjects such as civs, UUs, Leaders, etc. and go from there (meanwhile, discussion on other issues can take place in the XPC Explained threads and similar threads for the existing civs). Also, before diving too deeply into civ-specifics, we should figure out the more general issues (What to change? What type/quality of graphics? What is possible at all? etc)
The only problem here is though, that I don't wan't to completely hijack this forum by posting so many polls discussions on non-ExtraCivs Pack subjects becomes impossible. I want to try to not have more than 10 or so threads about this mod on the front forum page, at least not more than 10 threads about the Pack started by me. So we're gonna have to restrain ourselves a little bit in discussing various aspects of this mod. The first batch of polls is pretty much dead now (Zulu, Iroquois, English, American), when the second batch dies out, I'll post more threads again.
All,
I've got a proposal that might solve some of hot issues of which civs to include. Some have suggested to only make 30 civs and leave one slot open for people to fill in for themselves. I don't like this idea because many people don't have the skill to design their own graphics or the historical knowlegde to make high-quality lists of city names/great leaders. I propose we go exactly the other way: make more than 31 civs. More civs means more work of course (esp. for the graphics people) but if we keep the number of extra civs low the amount of extra work will be limited (we could even recycle some of the existing graphics, which is most of the work).
We would make a standard ExtraCivs Pack with the 16 existing civs plus the top 15 of the XPC poll (everything up to Korea and there's a fair gap between Korea and Byzantium/Polynesia so that top 15 is not likely to change anytime soon; we could regard it final for the purpose of this Pack). The extra 'bonuscivs' would be Byzantium, Polynesia, Mali and Khmer (for a total of 35 civs). These civs could be used by people to have some more choice, to remove their least favourite civ(s) and replace them with one or more of these 'prefab' choices (or their own custom choices if they'd like). That way noone has to complain that the Hebrew never did anything to make them great or that the Iroquois or Polynesians aren't really a civ or that we shouldn't remove civs that Firaxis picked out for us, etc; everyone can simple replace the choices they like the least with some other good alternatives, without having to worry about graphics or historical research. That way we also don't have to worry about merging civs to determine the final top 15: the Polynesians, Khmer and Mali are the most obvious candidates for merging (the only other reasonable candidates I could think of are another Native American civ - Inuit - and another Fertile Crescent civ - Assyria - but, unlike the aforementioned bonuscivs, they don't really represent something that isn't already represented). I'm sure over time even more civs would become available to replace the Firaxis's or Apolyton's default set but we'd at least offer people a good starting point without creating too big a workload in terms of graphics.
We should try and make replacing civs as easy as possible for people (a good step-by-step instuction guide to begin with, some tool that provides a level of automation would be even better), so you wouldn't have to be a programming guru to do it. To me this seems like the perfect solution to most of the civ discussions we've been having over the last 2-3 months and still keep (almost) everybody happy; but of course I'd like to know what other people think of this...
Last edited by Locutus on 17-11-2001 at 05:59
|
|
| |
|
|
|
tmarcl
|
 |
Baltimore, MD USA
Feb 2001
time: 00:15
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Locutus
All,
I've got a proposal that might solve some of hot issues of which civs to include. Some have suggested to only make 30 civs and leave one slot open for people to fill in for themselves. I don't like this idea because many people don't have the skill to design their own graphics or the historical knowlegde to make high-quality lists of city names/great leaders. I propose we go exactly the other way: make more than 31 civs. More civs means more work of course (esp. for the graphics people) but if we keep the number of extra civs low the amount of extra work will be limited (we could even recycle some of the existing graphics, which is most of the work).
We would make a standard ExtraCivs Pack with the 16 existing civs plus the top 15 of the XPC poll (everything up to Korea and there's a fair gap between Korea and Byzantium/Polynesia so that top 15 is not likely to change anytime soon; we could regard it final for the purpose of this Pack). The extra 'bonuscivs' would be Byzantium, Polynesia, Mali and Khmer (for a total of 35 civs). These civs could be used by people to have some more choice, to remove their least favourite civ(s) and replace them with one or more of these 'prefab' choices (or their own custom choices if they'd like). That way noone has to complain that the Hebrew never did anything to make them great or that the Iroquois or Polynesians aren't really a civ or that we shouldn't remove civs that Firaxis picked out for us, etc; everyone can simple replace the choices they like the least with some other good alternatives, without having to worry about graphics or historical research. That way we also don't have to worry about merging civs to determine the final top 15: the Polynesians, Khmer and Mali are the most obvious candidates for merging (the only other reasonable candidates I could think of are another Native American civ - Inuit - and another Fertile Crescent civ - Assyria - but, unlike the aforementioned bonuscivs, they don't really represent something that isn't already represented). I'm sure over time even more civs would become available to replace the Firaxis's or Apolyton's default set but we'd at least offer people a good starting point without creating too big a workload in terms of graphics.
We should try and make replacing civs as easy as possible for people (a good step-by-step instuction guide to begin with, some tool that provides a level of automation would be even better), so you wouldn't have to be a programming guru to do it. To me this seems like the perfect solution to most of the civ discussions we've been having over the last 2-3 months and still keep (almost) everybody happy; but of course I'd like to know what other people think of this... |
I like the idea, but here's a thought: Let's start with just the extra 15 civs. After a couple of weeks (or, depending on how many extra we want to add, even a month), release the rest. This'll 1) Give people extra civs *now*, and 2) Let us go at a slower pace. Most of us, I'm sure, have lives outside of Civ, and since non of us are getting paid to do this, it's not worth losing our hair over.
Marc
|
|
| |
|
|
|
ticktock
|
|
Concord, NC
Jan 1970
time: 05:15
|
|
I agree with Wernazuma. I don't think we should remove any of the existing civs. I don't see anything wrong with any of them.
In fact, when I ws looking at Selanne's most excellent world map  with the starting locations, I noted what a good job they did in representing civalizations fairly evenly spread around the globe. Other than England/France/Germany and Greece/Rome being a little close, it looked like a game with all the civs on Selanne's map would be a pretty competative game. Although there were some gaps.
I think that is one of the criteria we should use to determine the civs in the game.
I noticed 4 areas of the globe that were noticeably vacant:
1. South America. The Aztecs are in Central America, so the whole continent is empty. The obvious choice here would be the Incas.
2. Spain. This is one of the civs in a poll, so I assume that it is probably going to be added...'nuff said.
3. Unfortunately, Moscow is really too far West. But there isn't much we can do about it. Because Moscow is no where near the center of Russia, China gets an inaccurate cake walk through northern asia. By the time Russia can get to eastern Asia, China would already be there. The Mongolian civ really would really help fill a vacuum here. Russia still wouldn't get to it's real size, but the Chinese would have competition for all that open land. Mongolia is also in the poll.
4. Australia is vacant. I guess there is also a poll out to determine who should represent that area.
I think those are the four areas that we need to fill out the globe. Any ideas for other areas that are missing?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
romikua
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by ticktock
3. Unfortunately, Moscow is really too far West. But there isn't much we can do about it. Because Moscow is no where near the center of Russia, China gets an inaccurate cake walk through northern asia. By the time Russia can get to eastern Asia, China would already be there. The Mongolian civ really would really help fill a vacuum here. Russia still wouldn't get to it's real size, but the Chinese would have competition for all that open land. Mongolia is also in the poll.
|
That's because Moscow and Russian Empire emerged late in the history of that area. Historically, the most influence on the area you mention had slavic empire Kyiv Rus (most of its territory lies within modern Ukraine), the capital of which was the city of Kyiv - one of the oldest cities in Europe (not mentioning cities of Roman empire of course); and Mongols, which raidedall the way to modern Poland thru the southern part of modern Russia, northern and north-eastern part of Russia was mainly unexplored for a very long time and was almost not populated due to its severe conditions.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Trifna
|
 |
of anchovies
Jul 2001
time: 13:15
|
|
Wanted to point out something: a lot, if not majority, of people are voting here without knowing the subject. They aren't necessarily historically correct, nor culturally correct or else since they do not know the debate nor the civilisations.
The consequence to this is that we have more partisanism, more divisions in civs (Maya, Inca, Turks, Arabs, Byzantines...). This is why I think that anyone who would like to use the poll afterwards should first think to make some cleaning a little, so he really see what works. (like for making a mod, puting the first 16 choices would be little silly in my personal opinion).
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
pithorr
|
 |
Katowice, Poland
Oct 2001
time: 06:15
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Stefu
LoD, I think that you Poles should just use the apparent guiding principle of Firaxis in design of Civ3 and settle for well-known. ie. Warsaw for capital, and, umm, err, eh, (Only Polish Leaders I know are Lech Walesa and that Pilsdsksdiksusksi fellow  ), some guy named Stanislaw (There's at least one Polish leader named Stanislaw, right) as leader. |
Unfortunately all Polish leaders with first name Stanisław were morons...
Cracow for the capital, for sure! Warsaw formally became the capital in 1918...
Leaders: I prefer Bolesław Chrobry (created solid basis for Polish state, gained king's crown, founded Church Metropoly in Gniezno, independent from German ones, succesfully fighted against HRE and Kievian Rus'),
Last edited by pithorr on 29-11-2001 at 12:32
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Locutus
|
|
ACS CTP1/2 Manager & Civ4 Co-Manager
|
|
Hengelo, The Netherlands
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
|
|
Well, my exams are finally over but a new problem popped up: I'm resigning as project leader. My reasons for this decision are explained in this thread. I'm especially sorry to 'have to' say goodbye to this project because it was very fun to do and because I hate letting you guys down. But my reasons for quiting ares stronger than the ones for continuing so, after giving this a lot of thought, I've decided to quit anyway. I hope someone else will take over my position as project leader and save the project, I'd hate to see it die. In any case, I plan on making a similar mod for CtP so it will certainly live forth in some form or another... (since CtP can support up to 64 civs some suggestions on leaders & city names for civs like the Swedes, Tibetans, Ukrainians and Neanderthals would be welcome  )
Anyway, before I leave I think a number of decision can still be made by me that will get the discussion going again, even without project leader (at least temporarily)... Of course, all these points can be changed by a new project leader, I have no control over that (nor would I object to it).
I made a list of all the civ-properties in a big HTML file and put that file on my website. Even though I'm resigning from this project I'll keep the file on my site (and even update it from time to time if you guys want me to) until I run out of room on the server (not likely to happen anytime soon) or until Infogrames sues me You can find it here. I also added some suggestions myself with some of the civs, some may make more sense then others but all (IMHO) make more sense than some of Firaxis's choices. I also added some sort of brief comment to each of the cities/leaders/etc, not sure how useful that is but I found it handy myself (I've been using this file in a different format for quite a while already).
As far as editing the files goes, I think it's safe to edit just about everything about existing civs: the only things to be careful with is with removing or renaming civs and with changing CSAs and personalities (I did some research and asking around and unless I'm very much mistaken new CSAs can't be added at this point). New UU, leaders, generals and city lists are all open for change. However, I do think it might be a good idea to release two version of the mod: one that just adds new civs and one that also changes the existing ones. There are a fair number of people on this forum that don't want to change anything about the existing civs (or make only minor changes) and I'd hate to deny them this pack (an installer tool, VB app or batch file could easily allow for choosing/swithing between versions)...
For clarity: the ExtraCivs pack will include the top 15 civs from the XPC poll (up to Korea) plus (if time and resources and allow it and unless people object to the idea) 4 extra civs: Mali, Khmer, Byzantines, Polynesians. I personally don't see a reason to include Aboriginals/Australians as well: the Polynesians are supposed to represent all Oceanian civs (in the same way as Babylon, Iroquois, Zulu and India represent all civs from their respective areas). If the public demands it, one could argue for renaming the Polynesians to Austrialians, Aboriginals, Austronesians or something else but I wouldn't want to add such civs: more civs means more work and this pack is plenty of work as it is (graphics-wise anyway). Personally I wouldn't even object to reusing some of the UU and leader pics for these bonus civs (FE give the Mali the same UU and leader graphics as the Zulu and/or Ethiopians) to save time but I don't know how others think about this.
I think it's time to really get going with this mod: using my website template, discussions and polls on individual civs can start (I suggest reusing the XPC explained threads for new civs, starting similar threads for the existing civs and use polls whenever decisions need to be made) and graphics people can start working on the UU graphics (LoD: would those Polish graphics designers be willing to help out with all the graphics or just with the Polish ones?). As far as leader graphics go, I'll start a thread to see whether people would prefer 'real portraits' or the current 'animations'. Other than that, I don't think there's a real need for a project leader right now, discussing the options for individual civs can be done quite well without a leader.
If for individual civs/situations (FE Ethiopians) my knowlegde/expertise would be required to make decisions, I don't mind getting giving some advice. I'll also keep an eye on this thread over the next few days but other than that you won't see me here anymore I'm afraid...
PS reminder to whoever's gonna be the new project-leader: you'll probably want to ask permission to Infogrames/Firaxis before actually releasing the mod...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
squeeze truck
|
 |
Dazaifu, Japan
Nov 2001
time: 14:15
|
|
If the basis for adding civs is to be how different they are culturally, this is my short list of civs that I think should be added:
1. Indonesian (Javanese?) - (religious, commercial) Now one of the five most populous nations on earth. They also defeated an attempted Mongol invasion. They (and the Malay) are culturally and linguistically extremely distinct.
2. Khmer (Cambodia) - (religious, ?) Also extremely distinct. The Khmer empire constructed Angkor Wat, which even today is the largest religious structure on earth. (It holds the worlds largest stone pen*s as well.)
3. Turks - (expansionist, militaristic) The Turks represent a whole group of countries and languages. At least one deserves to be included. (Is it possible to make the Greek and Turk civs automatically hate each other??)
4. Ethiopians/Somalis (religious?, commercial) - At least one civ from Arab-influenced East Africa. The Zulus (being bantus) can be said to represent West and South Africa.
5. Tamil (?, ?) - Certainly distinct. I don't know offhand if there was ever any Tamil empire more significant than Sri Lanka.
6. Armenians - (religious, militaristic) (Are these people related to anyone at all?) Earth's first Christian Kingdom, with a 3000+ year history. Maybe too small a group to be included as a civ, like Israel.
7. Celts - (militaristic, commercial?) Bring back the Celts!! Celtic language and culture is like nothing else in Europe, and deserves to be represented.
8. Polynesians - (commercial, expansionist)
9. Anasazi - (scientific, religious)
10. Inca - (militaristic, scientific)
11. Arawak - (commercial, religious)
(The Americas have to have the same density of civs as the rest of the world. Otherwise the lone civ in, for example, South America will have no competition and will dominate too quickly).
Thats all. What do you think, sirs?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
squeeze truck
|
|
Dazaifu, Japan
Nov 2001
time: 14:15
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by ranskaldan
So far all that I can contribute is a rather comprehensive Chinese city-name list (if the final pack includes cityname fixes, that is) the current list with civ3 is horrible, filled with weird cities, irrelevant cities, a strange building-order, and misspellings. I can also whip out a Chinese great-leaders list, since the current civ3 list is equally strange.
ah, so, where are you Locutus? |
Curse Mr. Wade and Mr. Giles and their messed-up romanization.
In CivII, the Cinese had Beijing and the Mongols had Khanbalyk. They're different names for the same city.
CivIII has both Edo and Tokyo right next to each other in the Japanese build list!! Who does Firaxis's historical research, Mrs. Segovias econd grade class?
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:15.
Apolyton Time is 00:15. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
16-11-2001 19:18
Are you crazy?
I hardly have time to sleep, let alone work on this pack. Give me a day or two, things should quiet down again soon...
|