21-11-2001 00:27									#1
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Is there any way to edit or create improvements and/or Wonders so that they can only be built by a specific civ?

	21-11-2001 00:40									#2
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With CtP:2's scripting language support you can... but not with Civ3

	21-11-2001 01:12									#3
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quote: Originally posted by TheDarkside With CtP:2's scripting language support you can... but not with Civ3

hmmm. I had CtP, but never CtP2. How did it play after the patches?

	21-11-2001 01:27									#4
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I didn't have a problem with CtP2 especially after patches. I think you hear the garbage only from hardcore civers who still felt betrayed by activition and their theft campaign. The game made improvements which no one will acknowledge, like public works was a good idea, and especially the combined combat where whole unit stacks engage eachother at once (which was a Master of Magic innovation i believe). But the real reason I liked ctp was the scripting language support... I like making mods and customizing civ games, and ctp had a very powerful set of tools for me to use.

	21-11-2001 09:41									#5
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I bet you could do it with Civ III actually...

IF you can alter the starting advances for each tribe... i.e. the characteristics or such (militaristic, religious, etc...) or even come up with some new, additional ones... you could then start just one tribe with a certain advance.
Then, make that advance such that it can NEVER be researched (like in CivII). Thus, only those who start with it... (or trade for it later) can access the improvements/wonders related to that advance.

-this could work... (I think)

-Zen

	21-11-2001 10:24									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Zen I bet you could do it with Civ III actually... IF you can alter the starting advances for each tribe... i.e. the characteristics or such (militaristic, religious, etc...) or even come up with some new, additional ones... you could then start just one tribe with a certain advance. Then, make that advance such that it can NEVER be researched (like in CivII). Thus, only those who start with it... (or trade for it later) can access the improvements/wonders related to that advance. -this could work... (I think) -Zen

OK. That was an awesome idea! Congrats, man.

As long as you can assign two prereqs to an improvement, so maybe "The Colossus" gets "Bronze Working" and "Greek"

Very clever.

	21-11-2001 10:31									#7
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Yeah it would work except how would you make it so a tech CANT be researched? you can give it a super high cost but still, it will show up in the "what do you want to research next" screen, and what if the AI chooses it? Oh but anyway, Civ3 has a hard-coded 32-turn MAX for researching techs, so anyone else can get this tech in 32 turns.

	21-11-2001 10:51									#8
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Darkside,

just try putting the prereqs for that advance as technology that won't come until... modern times. SO... you give the civ-specific advance to just that civ until after some modern time where communications are far reaching or something... In Civ II, you could "hide" techs from civ's though (would be nice in Civ III)

-Zen

	21-11-2001 11:12									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Zen Darkside, just try putting the prereqs for that advance as technology that won't come until... modern times. SO... you give the civ-specific advance to just that civ until after some modern time where communications are far reaching or something... In Civ II, you could "hide" techs from civ's though (would be nice in Civ III) -Zen

You can't put future-era prereqs for a tech. The editor won't allow it. hmmmm.

Plus, improvements and wonders can only have one tech prereq.

	21-11-2001 16:05									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Ray K You can't put future-era prereqs for a tech. The editor won't allow it. hmmmm. Plus, improvements and wonders can only have one tech prereq.

This might work (I haven't tried it). Give the Civ a Modern Times tech as it's third free tech (each civ can have up to 4, and they are not tied to the civ strengths - Industrious, Militaristic, etc). Make that tech a prerequisite for the improvement that you want to be civ-specific.

Improvements can only have one tech prerequisite, but they can also require a particular government or resources, or that a certain improvement has already been built, all of which have their own tech prerequisites. You could use one of these requirements to force the civ to reasearch a particular tech before building its civ-specific improvement.

	21-11-2001 18:14									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Nero Would This might work (I haven't tried it). Give the Civ a Modern Times tech as it's third free tech (each civ can have up to 4, and they are not tied to the civ strengths - Industrious, Militaristic, etc). Make that tech a prerequisite for the improvement that you want to be civ-specific. Improvements can only have one tech prerequisite, but they can also require a particular government or resources, or that a certain improvement has already been built, all of which have their own tech prerequisites. You could use one of these requirements to force the civ to reasearch a particular tech before building its civ-specific improvement.

The future tech idea is OK, but I'm specifically thinking about restricting certain Wonders to specific civs and creating additional wonders for the civs that don't have any. The idea is to make each civ even more unique beyond their special units. There are plenty of other ancient and modern wonders to flesh out the other civs.

A simple example would be to restrict the Great Wall to China. How could I do that and maintain Construction as a prereq?


I think I am going to hope that Firaxis adds a Civilization prereq to improvements like they did for units.

	21-11-2001 22:19									#12
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Actually, this won't work. If you give a civ a starting tech for which it lacks the prereqs, it does not actually get the tech until it gets the prereqs. So, the civ you want to have it won't get it.

Unlike Civ2, you also can't give an advance a prereq of "no". In Civ2, if it had a prereq of "no" then nobody could research it, and in a scenario you could give it to a civ anyway either at-start or via an event. The only problem was you could not prevent another civ from obtaining it via trade or espionage, unless you prevent the civs from talking via the event editor (or give it only to a human-controlled civ) and eliminated diplomats & spies from the unit mix. I was hoping Civ3 would fix that, but in fact they have made it worse. Instead of being able to restrict an advance with some unfortunate trade-offs, now you can't do it at all.

Hopefully, they will fix it in the editor patch. Also, hopefully they will add the ability to "OR" prereqs. As an example of what I mean, let's say you want Islamic civs to have Mosques instead of Cathedrals (I know, there are no Islamic civs in the game, but IMO the Iroqois & Zulus were not "civilizations" and should be replaced by the Arabs & Turks). So, you replace "Monotheism" with "Christianity" and "Islam" (and a few more for the civs that were "none of the above", but let's keep the example simple). "Christianity" lets you build Cathedrals. Islam lets you build Mosques. Both have the same game effect. So, any advance which currently has "Monotheism" as a prereq you would want to be able to specify "Christianity OR Islam" as the prereq.

	21-11-2001 22:32									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Barnacle Bill Unlike Civ2, you also can't give an advance a prereq of "no". In Civ2, if it had a prereq of "no" then nobody could research it, and in a scenario you could give it to a civ anyway either at-start or via an event. The only problem was you could not prevent another civ from obtaining it via trade or espionage, unless you prevent the civs from talking via the event editor (or give it only to a human-controlled civ) and eliminated diplomats & spies from the unit mix. I was hoping Civ3 would fix that, but in fact they have made it worse. Instead of being able to restrict an advance with some unfortunate trade-offs, now you can't do it at all.

This is a problem. It would very helpful if an advance had a "no trade" flag.

quote: Hopefully, they will fix it in the editor patch. Also, hopefully they will add the ability to "OR" prereqs. As an example of what I mean, let's say you want Islamic civs to have Mosques instead of Cathedrals (I know, there are no Islamic civs in the game, but IMO the Iroqois & Zulus were not "civilizations" and should be replaced by the Arabs & Turks). So, you replace "Monotheism" with "Christianity" and "Islam" (and a few more for the civs that were "none of the above", but let's keep the example simple). "Christianity" lets you build Cathedrals. Islam lets you build Mosques. Both have the same game effect. So, any advance which currently has "Monotheism" as a prereq you would want to be able to specify "Christianity OR Islam" as the prereq.

Actually, you could still do this if Firaxis allowed you to specify with Civs could build an improvement, much like they do for unique units.

All civs would still research Monotheism, which would grant both the Cathedral and Mosque improvements. However, you could then restrict those improvements by the civilization.

I would like to exaggerate the Civ differences by making some Wonders civ-specific, adding more Wonders for some Civs that don't have any. The civs would be a little less balanced, which is not that big of a deal, and you could alter the difficulty of the game by playing Civs that had weak or non-existent ancient wonders.

Also, some real-world civs started later (Zulu, Aztec, Iroquois). I would try to simulate this by starting them with no advances (instead of two). This would also be an opportunity for players that wanted a bigger challenge.

Personally, I love the different characteristics of the civs. Firaxis did not go far enough, in my opinion.

	21-11-2001 22:43									#14
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I'm pretty sure I recall a Firaxis member saying this could be done in a thread sometime before the game was released. Hopefully the ability is in there somewhere, and can be realized with a patch.

	24-11-2001 12:05									#15
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Actually, I was reading through the manual today and it turns out you can set the Era to "none." This makes the tech unresearchable (is that a word??). But, you can assign it to civilizations as default techs. Now, this could easily be put to use for making civ-specific units/improvements. Just add one required tech as the civ specific one, and one as a normal one. That way, you could make a civ-specific improvement in any era... thoughts/comments??

quote: Originally posted by TheDarkside Yeah it would work except how would you make it so a tech CANT be researched? you can give it a super high cost but still, it will show up in the "what do you want to research next" screen, and what if the AI chooses it? Oh but anyway, Civ3 has a hard-coded 32-turn MAX for researching techs, so anyone else can get this tech in 32 turns.

	24-11-2001 20:04									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Rooster Actually, I was reading through the manual today and it turns out you can set the Era to "none." This makes the tech unresearchable (is that a word??). But, you can assign it to civilizations as default techs. Now, this could easily be put to use for making civ-specific units/improvements. Just add one required tech as the civ specific one, and one as a normal one. That way, you could make a civ-specific improvement in any era... thoughts/comments??

If it works, this helps somewhat. However, it's only good for improvements that are allowable at the beginning since you can only set up ONE tech as a prereq for an improvement.

You can't, for example, create a civ-specific improvement that has to wait until Construction. Nor can you create an improvement specific to just two civs (say the Greeks and the Romans).

Restricting improvements to specific civs as with units seems the ideal way to go.

Appreciate the info!

	13-12-2001 02:00									#17
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You are restricted on improvments (and wonders) to requiring only a single tech... but you can also require a resource. Since almost all of the resources become available later in the game, you could tie the improvement or wonder to your "civ tech" such as "Greek" AND to a resource such as iron which would then require iron working. There aren't many resources available to tie these civ-specific improvements/wonders to but its' better than nothing.

	14-12-2001 02:04									#18
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You could give each civ it's own civ-specific tech, setting the age to none, and make an improvement called "Greek Infrastructure" or "American Infrastructure," etc. This improvement would cost only 10 shields, to make it simple and easy to build, and Greek-specific improvements, for example, could require a normal tech, but ALSO require that you have built "Greek Infrastructure."

	14-12-2001 02:40									#19
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quote: Originally posted by skywalker You could give each civ it's own civ-specific tech, setting the age to none, and make an improvement called "Greek Infrastructure" or "American Infrastructure," etc. This improvement would cost only 10 shields, to make it simple and easy to build, and Greek-specific improvements, for example, could require a normal tech, but ALSO require that you have built "Greek Infrastructure."

That's a good idea. How can you keep the Civs from trading techs?

	14-12-2001 15:30									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Ray K If it works, this helps somewhat. However, it's only good for improvements that are allowable at the beginning since you can only set up ONE tech as a prereq for an improvement. You can't, for example, create a civ-specific improvement that has to wait until Construction. Nor can you create an improvement specific to just two civs (say the Greeks and the Romans).

No, you create the one "era - none" civ specific advance which is given to the Chinese at the start, then create a new tech which has Construction as its only prereq and as low a cost as possible, then you make the Great Wall available with that new advance instead of construction.

Or, the method already suggested - create the one "era - none" civ specific advance which is given to the Chinese at the start, and a very cheap building/Small Wonder that doesn't do anything called Chinese Culture or something, and then make it required in order to build the Great Wall. I like small wonder because it would then disappear from your build cue after you build it once, and so your governors wouldn't be trying to build it all over the place.

There remains the problem of keeping the AI's from trading it - but maybe you can't trade such a tech (maybe that is wishful thinking, too).

Also, this technique (either version) requires that you either create new techs (which in turn requires using something more than the stock editor) or that you change the tech tree all around to free up some slots

	15-12-2001 22:29									#21
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Barnacle Bill, I made it an improvement because a) it would be the prerequisite for civ-specific improvement in the city it is built in (the same way a bank requires a marketplace) and b) you could make it generate, say, one culture point per turn. You might even make a small wonder, called perhaps, as you suggested, Chinese Culture, that gives you Chinese Infrastructure in every city. Oh, and you can create new techs if you have downloaded the hacked editor; unfortunately, it is still a little buggy.

	16-12-2001 08:19									#22
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idea: what about using the strageic resources... this would only work with a premade map, but....

say you change iron to the english (as an example), and make all the improvments or units you want only that civ you have, require that resource...

then in the map, place the resource by that races starting position, and away you go...

Problem: (thought of this as i was typing that up.... ) you can't set certain civs starting points...

	17-12-2001 01:36									#23
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The problem with using resources is that you'd have to add them, and adding resources is WAY buggier than adding techs; it will probably never work, because of the way the graphics are stored.

	18-12-2001 02:09									#24
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I'm sure the BIC file can be editied manually or with a hacked editing program to allow more flexible techs.
It might be possible to make a cut off tech tree, that only say one civ can access by making itself as a prerequisite so therefore it can't be researched( probably would make the computer explode though


I'd love to be able to do this.. perhaps we can have a special building which is needed in each city to build certain special cultural improvements.
This special building.. like a English Government Hall , would be built from one of the starting techs(which wouldn't be reserachable for now at least) and then you can use the regular tech tree to build your special buildings, but they just have a requirement for the English Gov Building.
This is easier than mucking around with resources, which would probably confuse the AI anyhow.