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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Progress Report
'k...here's how it's shaping up!
The map is done....I'm not totally happy with it, but that's mostly on account of the no-zoom "feature" of the editor....kinna hard to make it perfect when you can't really see what the heck you're doing....*sigh*
Ah well....no complaints tho....it's coming together pretty well I think. I leave it to other, more talented folks to take the raw materials and dress it up. 
It finally dawned on me how the heck to edit starting positions, so now each of the factions starts where it's supposed to.
As much as possible, I've tried to preserve the unique abilities of each group....so, Fury starts with a GL, Mourngrym starts with a couple gold tiles right close to his capitol that'd make EXCELLENT places to build cities on (hint, hint), Castillar starts near wines (communal wines?), and begins the game as a Theocracy. The Seven begin the game as a Republic, and have more workers (power to the common man) than anybody else, and the Wizards....well....there's no way I can modifiy Pestilence into the game, I fear....but I CAN give them a "Teleportation Matirx"....special wonder that only they can build, which puts airports in all their cities.
Governments:
Anarchy - Same old, same old
Despotism - Same
Aristocratic - Same as Monarchy
Republic - Same as Republic
Theocracy - Immunity to propoganda, elite spies and diplomats, paid hurry, and monsterously motivated workers. Communal corruption tho (tithes).
Upkeep costs for troops are 2g each, and everybody starts with at least 500g in their treasury (sounds like a lot, but trust me, you'll need it in order to have enough time to get all your settlers out.
Settlers can't be built....there are sixty provinces in CB, and each of the five factions starts with 12 settlers. Lose 'em, and you're in a world of pain. Also might make folks think twice about razing cities, cos once they're gone....they're gone. (I might add in a 31st tech that allows them to be built in the end game....dunno).
I expect that colonies will actually see some use in this game. Especially if you wind up not spacing your cities out enough for long term growth in mind, and wind up missing a few juicy resources along the way....and to that end....in my tests, I have found that it's okay to delay, sometimes significantly delay, placing all your settlers. Let your starting army do a bit of scouting for you, and keep your settlers back in some (relatively) safe location.....once you get a feel for the lay of the land, then send your settlers out....least that's what I've been doing.
Technologies....not done yet, but I'm about to start on them...UGH...this is the part that blew up on me last time, so I'm a little leery, but I think I have a new methodology I can use to help me keep everything straight, which should prevent the bic from imploding.
The ONLY thing that doesn't work the way it's supposed to are the city graphics when you build new cities....I can't for the life of me figure out how that changed.....I didn't do anything that woulda changed it, I don't think.... So, a newly founded city looks kinna stoopid....a lil' triangle in the dirt, basically. If anybody has any ideas on that, I'd appreciate hearing them.
Each faction starts near a partial road network....USE THEM! Not only will they help you found your cities faster, but the network is also laid out in the general direction of each group's historical power base.
and btw....BEWARE the Nilrogg. You can't travel through mountains, but they can....and they do. OMG do they ever.....
-=Vel=-
(back to testing)
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Hmm...well, I think I found the problem. The interesting thing (to me) was that I had absolutely everything working in under two days work, except for the units.
In looking back on it, it was my lack of understanding about what I was doing where the units were concerned that ultimately caused the problem. Now that I've spent some time studying up on how to add new units (originally, I was simply replacing existing ones....a big mistake, from a modding perspective, IMO, even if you don't plan to use the units in question for the mod).
Anyway, so after having taken the time to learn how to ADD units to the game, we'll be having 22 new appearances, and they are:
Mercenary
Footsoldier (Infantry - Lvl1)
Heavy Infantry (Infantry - Lvl2)
Legionaire (Infantry - Lvl3)
Man-At-Arms (Infantry - Lvl4)
Light Bowman (Archer - Lvl1)
Heavy Bowman (Archer - Lvl2)
Crossbowman (Archer - Lvl3)
Watchman (Pikeman - Lvl1)
Guardsman (Pikeman - Lvl2)
Halberdier (Pikeman - Lvl3)
Phalanx (Pikeman - Lvl4)
Runner (Skirmisher - Lvl1)
Javlineer (Skirmisher - Lvl2)
Skirmisher (Skirmisher - Lvl3)
Highwayman (Skirmisher - Lvl4)
Duelist (Skirmisher - Lvl5)
Saddleman (Cavalry - Lvl1)
Cavalryman (Cavalry - Lvl2)
Paladin (Cavalry - Lvl3)
Refugee
Nilrogg
Some of the units will be using new art, snagged from the fantabulous collection over at Civ Fanatics, while others will simply recycle existing civ3 art. Little of both, actually.
Will be using Snoopy's terrain set to give the world a different "Look and Feel" than the standard Civ game (tho its a pity there's not more water in CB....it really looks beautiful in with Snoopy's graphics).
I've got some time this week, before flying out to California and doing the cross-country drive thing, and so will do my best to hammer out the first version before I leave, so you guys can tell me what I didn't do so hot on when I get back....
-=Vel=-
(two false starts, and I really think I understand it now!)
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Good thinkin! Will do! Oh, and if you have any groovy wonders, units, and the like you'd be interested in seeing, now is the time....
Some things I'm planning on doing to give each unit flavor:
1) Wizards - Getting a wonder that puts an airport in every city, serving as their teleportation matrix
2) Seven - Getting access to pikemen early - Praetorian unit (souped up defense)
3) Gain access to Saddlemen (a Fury specific cav unit that does not require horses connected), also begin the game with a GL!  (I'm thinking about giving EVERYBODY A GL (representing the faction leader), and giving Fury two).
4) Temple Guardians (Castillar special unit) - A specially constructed (stone) Golem (no idea what sort of graphic to use here) that is immobile, has a heinous bombard and ROF, but relatively little defense and HP (thus, the first unit into the city is gonna get turned to mulch...and in fact, one per guardian, but once you survive the barrage, you're okay).
5) Might create a smallish resource patch of some resource I'm not using at all (oil?) and flood Mourngrym's starting area with it....would look funky, but OMG would it simulate his greater money....
Some others as well...but post your ideas!
-=Vel=-
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Overall, the goals of the mod are the same as the goals of the game....thought I'd put that out there for anybody reading this section. The idea is to create much more of a guns or butter proposition than currently exists in...well, pretty much every 4x game out there. The fundamental problem is that the game gets bogged down by too much focus on one of the X's in particular....eXtermination.
And let's face it...Civ is a really, REALLY terrible war game. How and why the warfare aspect of civ (which is one of its consistently weakest points) ever became the most dominant is beyond me, but that's where people's attention seems focused.
So...sure, we'll play that game. CB Mod is a war game, using a game engine that's not designed for detailed handling of war.
The difference though, is in the approach.
Classic civ game, there is no choice. Go for weapons techs every time, and beat everything else out of the opposition.
CB mod...ahhh, now that's interesting. Tech ain't cheap...nobody has anything worth taking at game start, and everybody's got the capability to arm themselves to the teeth....but troops are expensive and require a lot of maintenance...you could try to hoard gold for a big push, but one Nilrogg uprising in your area at the wrong moment, and kiss your treasury g'bye.
So what'll it be? Take a chance on building a smaller, but more capable army by focusing on the military techs? (knowing that this will mean hurting your long term native research capability, by delaying in building Libraries and such). Or perhaps you'll maintain a small standing force, say to hell with the military, 'cept the basics, and really lay the foundations of Empire. Or...another path...the route of subterfuge....a little thin, but I'm fleshing it out with special units (invisible spy units with no attack that can keep tabs on you....assassin units (also invisible, sneak attack workers and ambush your guys!), and eventually stealing your proprietary research and/or forging alliances against you.
All of that happens so quickly, and in such a mad rush in civ that there's no time to exploit any temporary gain in the ancient age.
Not so any longer....and I think it'll be pretty cool...gonna spend a bit more time on it this evening....finish adding the units in and test that part of it. The rest will be easy...I've already done the other stuff once, and had it work....should be a snap to re-create....
-=Vel=-
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Hmmm...that's an interesting idea... If I can do it, then an ICBM could be an equivalent to pestilence, and in any case, one of the things I did was to increase worker job times by 50%. That, plus the 2 moves along roads should really slow things up, making a "pestilence" attack a pretty big deal! Me LIKEY! I actually think I like that even better than the whole teleportation matrix for them.
In fact, yes! I shall give them their pestilence spell back (outstanding idea, good sir!), and will give the teleportation thing to....Mourngrym? Castillar? Someone should get it, cos it really is kinna cool, and those two are not as distinct as I'd like them to be. I can't really see it as being an ability of The Seven, but I could see Castillar having something like that....make it sound more "churchy" and he's good to go with it, methinks!
-=Vel=-
(shuddering at the thought of playing my Furies against the Pesti-boys!)
PS: When the scenario is ready, if you don't mind mucking around in the editor a bit, you can easily switch from one default player to another, meaning that although Fury is the default human player, you'll be able to switch that around pretty easily so you can play 'em all.
-V.
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Ahhh, and just so you guys know....I used the down time at work today to edit in the entries for the pediaicon and civilopedia files (admittedly, the civilopedia entries are ummm....sketchy at best), so that part's done. All I gotta do, unit-wise when I get home is make 22 new unit folders, copy graphics and sound files into them and those are all done.
Next step...tech tree. That only took me about an hour to rough out, and now I know exactly what I'm doing, so should be about the same timeframe, but for a much more completed tech tree (with no 'splosions!)
Then, I'll focus on the combat tree, assigning all unit stats and upgrae paths....then it's time for some serious testing.
Once I see that I now know how to do that part (which is by far the toughest, btw) without blowing up my machine, I'll sweep in the rest of the changes, whip up a rough map and test again to make sure everything still works. After that, post the zip file and while I'm driving across country, have you guys tell me what I missed....
-=Vel=-
Last edited by Velociryx on 09-07-2002 at 02:47
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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General Update:
Unit testing of all level one units, and the Nilrogg was completed last evening....WOW!!! Everything works like a charm! Tech tree tested thru level two techs. No crashes. So far, so good.
Was not happy with one unit's sound effects, so will go back in and tweak that, but I anticipate no particular difficulty.
Found out that you can give special techs to certain factions, and have them marked as era "none." If you do this, no one else can research the tech....so, if I give the wizards "Pestilence" as a tech, valued at 1000, they'll be loathe to trade it away for any reason, and I can use that to give them access to ICBMs.....
Did some test battles between the armies of Candle'Bre and the Nilrogg...OUCH...dayum but those guys are tough! Our poor CB regulars got utterly trounced by the bad guys!
Tonight, the main goal is to build the map. I printed out one of the versions posted on the net, along with my own descriptions of each province. I am literally constructing it one tile at a time (began last night with a map composed entirely of mountains, and I'm pulling out everything that doesn't look like Candle'Bre), based on the province descriptions I wrote way back when.
For the historically minded, I'm also putting LOTS of saltpeter on the map....not that the resource itself has any particular significance, but anywhere you see saltpeter is the location of the main population center of each province. Thus, consistently building ON saltpeter will see you with a version of Candle'Bre that's as historically accurate as we can make it without going there.....
Only got three provinces done last night (it's hard work, juggling between the editor, the paper copy of the map, the description, and fretting over the positioning of each stand of trees and such, but....it's getting there!
-=Vel=-
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Coolio! I'm trying like HELL to get everything ready before I leave....map's about two thirds done, and I'm heading to bed for the night. Tomorrow's goal: Finish the map, grab Snoop's graphics pack and see what CB looks like with its new digs (I'll prolly run a test game where my starting 12 settlers are 99 moves and ATV, so I can uncover the map quickly....I know I could use Gramphos' tool to nix FOW, but there's something kinna fun about zipping all around the map with a settler on speed.
After that....assuming I'm pretty happy with the map, it'll be time to add in the various faction specific specials, do one more round of level one and two testing (will make the assumption that, since everything else was done the same way that L1 and L2 was, if those work, everything else should work too).
Then, wrap the whole thing up into a zip file, and pray it doesn't go over the size limit (might leave snoopy's graphics out to keep the size down, and just ask that players who wanna see it as designed, to grab those graphics themselves).
So far, so good tho...smooth sailing for the most part!
-=Vel=-
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Structural changes to the mod:
Been thinking of ways to make the civ3 mod even closer to our vision of CB, and to that end, have made the following changes to the overall design:
* Units once more cost a point of pop to build. This should be okay, given that nobody can build settlers.
* Reduced the number of starting settlers each faction gets from 12 to five (mirroring the five provinces each player starts with in our game). To get us to CB's 60 territories, I created 3 NPC factions (detailed below) and gave the "extra" settlers to those groups. Collectively, they represent the "neutral" provinces
While it is technically possible to play any of the neurtal groups by going into the editor and setting them as the default player, there's no real advantage to doing so, if the goal is to create a CB gaming experience. Still, I leave that to each person to experiment with. As to the groups themselves, and what they get at game start:
The Argenians--NPC #1 (fringe folk who advocate no government) 13 Settlers, 6 workers, 6 mercenaries, 700g
Argavale Loyalists--NPC #2 (those who militantly support Perrin as First King) 14 Settlers, 7 workers, 7 mercenaries, 1000g
Free Dales Colonists--NPC #3 (those who wish to see CB broken up into numerous self governing city states) 13 Settlers, 6 workers, 6 mercenaries, 700g.
Furies: Starts with Saddleman tech. Gets 5 settlers, 2 GLs, 1 Scout, 1 Saddleman, 250g
Castillar: 5 settlers, 1 GL, 2 Scouts, 2 Mercenaries, 2 Footmen, 1 Archer, 2 workers, 250g. Begins the game as a Theocracy. Has religious and industrious traits.
Mourngrym: 5 settlers, 1 GL, 3 Scouts, 3 Mercenaries, 3 Archers, 550g, and 3 Workers. Starts with Basic Intelligence Gathering.
Council of Seven: 5 settlers, 1 GL, 2 Scouts, 2 Mercenaries, 1 Archer, 3 Footsoldiers, 3 Workers. Begins the game as a Republic, with 300g. Has Militaristic and Scientific traits.
Order of Mystics: Starts with Pestilence tech (allows Wizard’s Tower to be constructed – City improvement that costs 40 to build, and carries a 4gpt upkeep). Wizard’s Tower allows the Sorcerer unit….overly zealous mages who sacrifice themselves in battle to rain down pestilence on their enemies (nuke). Unit cost is 15 (most expensive unit in the whole game), A ? D 5 M 6 – all terrain as roads (giving them a “reach” of 12 tiles). They begin with 5 Settlers, 250g, 1 Mercenary, 1 Footsoldiers, 1 Scout, and 1 GL.
Each AI civ will get 1 free unit per city founding (footmen), which should give them instant defenses, enabling them to hurry up and cause trouble.
That'll be it for this iteration. I have some ideas for stuff to add to bulk up some of the other factions (ie - in light of pestilence, the wizards are likely overpowered --attempted to balance that out by giving them really skimpy starting stuff--relative to the rest), but will leave it as it is till I get back. Should make for some interesting tests tho. Let me know if the wizards pestilence everybody to death or no...
-=Vel=-
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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'k folks....well, I was not able to get as much done as I'd have liked to, before having to get ready to head out for the ol' cross country trip, but I gotta start getting ready, so I'll give you what I've got.
Strongly recommended that you grab Snoopy's terrain graphics, btw....they look tremendously good, and are what I used when drawing the map.
A word about the map....LOL...I know, I know, it doesn't really look all that much like Candle'Bre....that's on purpose. Given that CB is a province based system, and Civ is city based, I had to kinna abstract our tiny kingdom to make it work with the paradigm of 1 city = 1 province, but the "look and feel" of the kingdom....the isolated nature, hemmed in on all sides by mountains....that's there, and I hope you enjoy!
This first zip file contains all the new unit information that's specific to CB....just copy these files into your civ3, art, units folder. Note that this will not overwrite anything....all this does is add 22 new folders to your directory. If I've done it right, when you unzip the file, it should remember the subfolders they all go in, and thus be fairly automatic.
-=Vel=-
EDIT: OOPS...file was too big...will break it into segments and try that again....
Second EDIT: Let's try this instead: http://www.angelfire.com/sc2/hartpe...bremodunits.zip
Last edited by Velociryx on 11-07-2002 at 23:38
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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And here's the bic file, pediaicons, and civilopedia text files.
Note that the civilopedia and pediaicons.txt files WILL overwrite your original civ3 files bearing those names (save them into the civ3/text folder). Also note that they're not terribly fleshed out just yet, but were included so that if you accidentally hit the civilopedia icon in the game, it won't crash out on you.
Save the bic file anyplace you want....I recommend either the civ3 root, or scenarios folder....just so you can find it.
Loading the game:
Start civ3, click scenarios, and look for the candlebremod.bic....choose it, and you're all set.
Note that the default human player is Fury....you can change this in the editor if you want to play one of the other groups.
Known problems:
1) Historical starting positions are NOT in place! I followed Gramphos' instructions on that, and could not make it work. Anybody wanting to experiment with that, here are what the starting positions should be:
Order of Mystics (Wizards) 95,31
Argenian Confederation (one of the Neutrals) 15,35
Free Dales Colonists (another of the Neutrals) 42,32
Argavale Loyalists (last of the neutrals ) 76,26
Furies (32,20)
Castillar (40,70)
Mourngrym (62,44)
Council of Seven (89,45)
2) City icons aren't displaying right. They look kinna funky...can't really 'splain it beyond that, but you'll know what I mean when you build your second city and beyond. 
Stuff I didn't get to:
The wizards use a tactical nuke icon to represent their pestilence spell. I want to change that to a sorcerer icon, and will do so when I get back. Sorta breaks the suspension of disbelief thing, but I ran outta time.
Want to add in some more faction specific wonders, so if you have any ideas on that as you play, make note of them, and I'll do it when I get back.
Want to also flesh out the civilopedia text files, but will have to wait on that as well.
Anyway, I tested it thru tech level 1-2 across the board and nothing crashed on me, so it LOOKS fairly stable....if I screwed up somewhere tho, just let me know where!
-=Vel=-
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Nope...dat's the problem....just caught this note in time! Was on my way to the airport...but, hold on just a second...will break the units down into smaller chunks! Here's the first!
of...I dunno...a few...
 Attachment: units1.zip
This has been downloaded 2 time(s).
Last edited by Velociryx on 12-07-2002 at 17:11
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07-07-2002 03:02
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