new civ:ToT scenario

Daftpanzer · October 12, 2003, 10:08

Anyone still play Civ:ToT?
i dunno if anyone will be interested in yet another mod/scenario. if anyone would be willing to try it for a few turns or just take a look at it, id appriciate any feedback. The scenario is fully playable, but there is not much civlopedia yet, and there will be some balacning issues with units at the end of the game.

download main files : 1.58mb

download sound files : 2.23mb

download saved games showing each main age : 288kb

This is my own version of civ that ive been working on, on-off, since civ2 scenario pack came out years ago. Ive now made uses of civ:ToT with all tech and unit slots used and four linked maps.

The idea is supposed to be like an alternate earth world, which evolves quite similar to earths history but in different ways and with similar but different units, not the historic ones like crusaders etc. The planet was colonised by humans from earth long ago, but after the great disaster the all advanced tech was lost and people began to think they originated on this world. You have to rediscover all the advanced tech, and in the end go into space to look for the truth about the origins.

So the game goes from warriors to futuristic units in like hovertanks and big robots. Ive changed the tech tree quite a lot, only about 1/3 of the techs are unchanged.

This is basically how I think civ2 should be. Thanks for reading this, Id apprieciate any response. If other people enjoy it, it might be worth 'professionalising'

thanks for any reply

techumseh · October 12, 2003, 12:27

Yes, there is a ToT underground. We're stealthy, but cool.

I'll be glad to try out your new scenario over the next week or so. Thanks.

Daftpanzer · October 13, 2003, 07:12

Thanks, techumseh

PS there is one bug in the game, ive turned fanatics into cheap and cheerful genetic soldiers, and made the fundamentalism government appear late in the game. However ive noticed the computer occasionally likes throwing in barbarian units using the fanatic slot in the middle ages, so you have your pikemen guys fighting genome soldiers that just appear from the wilderness, kinda wierd (and difficult!). Maybe theres a work around this somehow, if theres a tech that triggers this then maybe i can do some tech list swapping.

techumseh · October 13, 2003, 11:12

Fanatics appear as barbarians with the discovery of Guerilla Warfare by any civ. You can prevent this by making Gue unavailable.

Take a look at William Keenan's Barbarian Paper on the Cradle of Civilization site, here: http://coc.apolyton.net/guides/barbtechs.shtml It shows how you can control every aspect of barbarian apearance by controlling the availability of various techs . Also look at his Advanced Slot Properties tip. These two are my bible when I work on ToT scenarios.

Daftpanzer · October 13, 2003, 17:09

cool, thanks for the info

Lots of useful stuff there.

Hmm... if guerilla warfare is made unavailable, wont that also disable partisans when a city is captured?

techumseh · October 13, 2003, 18:24

You bet. You could move the unit to another slot as an alternative.

techumseh · October 14, 2003, 03:34

Very interesting. I've only played a few turns, but it does seem addictive, so that's a good sign.

I like the graphics, esp. the flags and health bars. The Alpha Cent. terrain is wild, and the asteroid map is fabulous!

Can I make some suggestions? <- rhetorical question.

Look for alternatives to the default city names. Made up ones are more interesting. There was some City Txt. file around at one time with a bunch of interesting fictional names. I'll see if I have on my HD.

Name the maps. It's under @TRANSPORTOPTIONS right near the end of the Game Txt.

Include a Readme. This should be a priority, IMHO.

Looks good. I'll give more feedback as I play through it this week.

Daftpanzer · October 14, 2003, 14:24

thanks for the feedback

thanks also for the info on game.txt. Looks like i could change some other things in there as well.

I will make some custom city names. I have some credits but not a proper readme file, i will make sure to include one.

PS the flag graphics were modified by me from medieval : Total war. So it might be illegal to look at them if you dont have the game. or something!

Boco · October 14, 2003, 18:34

[Hijack]Do you like MTW? I bought a copy but haven't installed it. [/Hijack]

Daftpanzer · October 14, 2003, 20:46

Yes i liked medieval TW, its a great game, although i always seem to get bogged down in epic wars when i play the main campaign, fighting to keep my super empire across almost all of europe. I havent completed a main campaign yet after about three months of owning the game. It always ends up totally non-historic, but its quite fun. I usually try to keep the byzantines in the game, launching raids against the arabs and the mongols who appear later. And once the byzantines are strong again they usually thank me by attacking my trade boats and starting another huge war

In general is good fun, but it can get a bit too epic at times, playing 2 or more important battles at the end of each turn can get a bit stressful for a causual game session. The computer can resolve the battles for you instantly, but usually gets your guys killed (the computer seems to do castle assaults much better than i can manage tho, loosing hardly any men).

Daftpanzer · October 20, 2003, 08:07

Techumseh, did you happen to play any further? is there anything else you think needs fixed?

Daftpanzer · October 24, 2003, 00:02

guess not

the death of another project...

techumseh · October 28, 2003, 22:39

Nooooo! I was keeping an eye out for ToT threads (I thought), but I somehow missed your post. Sorry.

I just checked back 'cause I was going to copy the thread id for Curt Sibbling, who's doing a multi-map version of Bitterfrost. I think he should have a look at yours.

I've been busy with my own civ stuff, so I still haven't got very far, but I returned to my save game on the weekend, so I'll have more to say this week.

How did you do the shield/health bar? Can I steal it for my Martian scenario?

Keep slugging, this scenario is definitely worth the effort.

curtsibling · October 30, 2003, 15:19

@Daftpanzer!

Don't you give up on this one, it rocks!

Daftpanzer · October 30, 2003, 22:14

Curtsibling, hey thanks

techmuseh you know i wont be offended actually if you dont want to play anymore. Sounds like your busy enough! Thanks very much for playing and the feedback you gave already. My scenario at the moment seems to get a bit unbalanaced and wierd in the later parts anyway.

Of course everyone feel free to use anything from my mod, as i have pinched some ideas and graphics from other people to make it.

The health bar can be edited in the units.bmp file. I think there was a thread about this somewhere, tho it was over a year ago IIRC. Basically theres a small rectangular area for the health bar at the top right of the units bmp, with a colour taking up some of this area to represent where there is player colour. I think its nomally a small blob taking up the far left, but you can make it bigger, even flooding the whole rectangle if you want, tho this makes it look a bit wierd IMO. It seems the position and size of the actual health bar cant be changed, so it always appears in the middle.

P.S, where can i find 'Bitterfrost?' sounds interesting...

/edit found +downloaded it, looks very cool. Ill give it a go if i can get MGE civ2 to work.

Catfish · October 30, 2003, 22:38

Keep at it, Daftpanzer. There are a few ToT-ers lurking around the forums, many of them in Civ2-Creation.

The ToT Bitterfrost thread can be found here.

techumseh · October 31, 2003, 00:49

I go back and forth between working on one of my own scenarios and playing someone else's. It's one of the reasons why Sibling has triple my output!

I'm now up to about 1750 in Lost Colony. I really like the special tech awards idea - getting extra money/units for being the first to research. If there was some way to identify them in the tech tree or even the civilopedia, it would improve on the idea.

Other suggestions:

Higher mf's for ships. IMHO they're too low in standard civ, too low here.

Go through the Game and Labels files to make things consistent, eg: Bridge Building has been renamed Engineering, yet when you try to build a road on a river, it still tells you to research Bridge Building.

Some terrain graphics don't match the text. Wine looks like a volcano. Is it overproof Ripple?

What's up with the diplomat graphic?

The black color for Barbs is too dark. If they capture a city, you can't read the info.

Speaking of that, what about adding Barbarian controlled cities at the start, either on the main map or on some of the others?

I'm having fun playing. More later....

Daftpanzer · November 4, 2003, 13:09

thanks for reminding me about the bridge issue. Have to fix that, would it be in game.txt?

hmm i wasnt thinking too much about special resourcs. the volcano graphic came with some graphics i imported. Maybe i can think of some interesting custom resources, anyway i will fix it so that grapihcs match the description. Ive also noticed the asteroid graphics are a bit wierd, especially some of the 'coast' graphics, will fix that too.

hmm, i like black barbarian colour, but yeah i see what you mean about the city names. Maybe a blood red colour...

I think i proably will make ships faster. I was worried about higher tech ships being able to zoom around the whole map destroying every low tech ship in one turn

but i think i will make them slightly faster, especially modern ships.

thanks for your feedback again

/edit the diplomat and spy are currently done in a 'cartoony' style. I found some graphics from chrono trigger and old final fantasy games that somebody made into civ2 graphics, i thought it looked cool a the time. Probably your thinking it looks too inconsistent compared to all the other unit grapihcs? (You know how it is, you try a new thing just for a change and are blind to how good or bad it acutally looks). Still dont know whats the best graphics to use.