THE SEVEN SAGES MOD v1.0

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Introducing the Seven Sages Mod

7Sages is another Mod Pack for the Civilization IV game, v3.19, which basically expands the capacities of the original game, without much altering the original aims of the game. This Mod Pack specifically focuses on playing against more civilizations than in the original gameplay. As an inmediate consequence, there will be more civilizations available, and the maps will be somewhat larger. But a significant effort has been done to keep both game time and size under control.

This mod is only available in english. So make sure,if your default language is something else, to choose the english language before choosing the mod.

You can download it from:

http://www.atomicgamer.com/file.php?id=105981

After download, follow carefully the installation instructions below.

installation instructions
You can unzip the file Seven Sages directly on the destination file:
...\Beyond the Sword\Mods\
After doing that, you must create a new file on:
Documents\My Documents(or whatsoever on your mother tongue)\My Games\Beyond the Sword\
Called "Seven Sages"
then, come back to the file in:
...\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Seven Sages
and cut the files called "Autolog" and "User Settings" and paste them both on your recently create file:
Documents\My Documents(or whatever on your mother tongue)\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Seven Sages
And that's all. Ready to play the mod. Should work fine.

You can find some nice preview snapshots on the 1BC Civ Forums, and many more can be viewed here:

http://imageshack.com/i/nepth6j

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Anyway, as far as there are so many other Mod Packs, why should I test this one?

*prerequisites

The first prerequisite for a good Mod Pack is stability. This mod is really very stable. No known CTD, after thorough testing. I've spent much more time testing (so playing, and enjoying) than designing the Mod.

The second requisite, and relevant vertue, of a good Mod is game balance. The more the game is balanced, the longer it will last and the more competitive it will be. In this mod, there is a varied battery of mechanisms intended to avoid that a player, either human or AI, wins the game easily.

You should be able to finish a game play in a reasonable time. Many other Mod Packs expand the original game, but at the cost of extending the number of turns to thousands, creating endless games.

In the Seven Sages mod, you can play on bigger maps, with up to 49 different civilizations, but without extending the game play to the infinity. And this is because, first of all, the number of turns remains significantly low, nearly as scheduled in the original game.

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Bigger maps, more civics

Beyond the prerequisites come the arguments. The reasons why the game is now more interesting and funnier. So let us see what have we added and why.

7Sages has been developed over a wisely made and well known Mod Pack: Legends of Revolution, shortly LoR, by Phungus420. The version chosen is 0.9.8d+ Light Version, which is not the most recent but is very stable, and you can easily add more civilizations. LoR adds some significant good new stuff and game concepts, preserving the original gameplay aims, so it is an excellent starting point.

The first thing I've added is more civilizations and bigger map sizes. The reason is that the more players, the more realistic, complex and competitive the game becomes. As stated above, now we can play with up to 49 different civilizations in the same game, which means that the maps can be now bigger.

In order to get big enough maps without exhausting the graphic cards resources, I've significantly limited the choices. ¿How? Sacrificing some eye candy choices.

This Mod Pack has been designed to play preferently with the Hemisphere Maps. And now the land part of the map has been increased by default (by modifying the Sea/Land ratio), so as to cope with more civilizations in a same map size. The oceans are somewhat smaller, but big enough, and I feel these proportions are more practical for gaming purposes.

Beyond that, I've added much new stuff, and modified many items, in most categories. For example, there are some new civics, and the rest have been modified, but in this field the most relevant is checking out, through gameplay and testing, that the AI uses most of the proposed civics, so that they are not a theoretical choice from AI's point of view. These new civics rank from Protectionism to Tax Haven, and from Socialism to Globalization.

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Religion in Seven Sages

The Seven Sages Mod includes a series of remarkable modifications in the religious sphere. In this Mod, the religions no longer grant exactly the same benefits. All the contrary, they are somewhat diverse, and so are their buildings.

First of all, a new religion called Paganism is discovered in the very first turns of the game. It will be discovered randomly by one of the initial civilizations of the game. This religion grants many but not all the advantages of a regular religion. For example, there is no Great Wonder Shrine for Paganism. By the time of the Renaissance Era, the buildings of the Paganism expire, end Paganism becomes a residual faith which usually declines by the fire of the other creeds' inquisitions.

Two more religions have been added to emulate the three main branches of christendom: Orthodoxy and Protestantism. In exchange, the two traditional religions of the chinese culture, issued from a common spiritual tradition, have been reduced to one, generically called Taoism, so as to keep the total number of religions somewhat low, 8+1 religions, and therefore keep the religious factor strategically relevant.

The initial civilizations of a game can only research up to 2 different religions, apart from the Paganism. This has been designed this way not only to avoid concentration of power on a single civilization, but also for historical likeliness.

In fact, the two religions that each initial civilization can research are culturally oriented. This means, in short, that western civilizations can research Christianism and Protestantism or Orthodoxy, while far eastern civilization will be able to discover Buddhism and Taoism, and so on.

And the founding of religions is historically oriented. This means that the religions will be discovered aproximately by the time they were effectively founded. Thus, the first religions to be found, much later than the Paganism, will usually be the Hinduism and the Judaism, and the latter will probably be the Protestantism.

Meanwhile, newborn civilizations from barbarian civ sometimes can discover any of the religions not yet discovered, independently from their cultural stock. It is an additional way to help the newborn civilizations to grow and prosper.

Some religious buildings grant experience to spy units. And the Cathedrals of the different religions, except the Paganism, give different religious promotions to some military units.

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Basic Mod Components integrated

The Seven Sages Mod incorporates, conveniently modified, six of the Modular Basic Mod Components for BUG Mod by modifiedA4. This components modify the game play in a way that makes sense:

Basic Barbarian Great General Experience, from an original idea by TheLopez, which grants military experience to units and Great General points to the player when winning battles vs. barbarian units.

Basic Tech Conquest, from an original idea by Bhruic. TechConquest is designed to give a tech boost from conquering enemy cities. When an enemy city is conquered, a list of techs the enemy has that your empire doesn't is created. From that list a random tech is selected. The number of technology points you get is based on the size of the city that is captured.

Basic War Prizes, from an original idea by mechaerik, a mod component that grants some chances to get units as a war prize after a winning battle. The units that can be captured as a war prize belong to one of the following categories: Sailing Ships, Siege Weapons and Mounted Units. When one unit is captured, its health is only 50%.

Basic Forestry Modcomp, which allows a worker, after getting the corresponding technology, to plant a new young forest improvement. A young forest grants some happiness in the corresponding city, and eventually, after some turns, becomes a normal forest over which you can build a lumbermill or a preserve forest facility. This way, the forests will not only be destroyed to build something else, they will also be planted when prefered.

Basic Unit Experience, from an idea by Platyping. Reduces the required XP points to reach the next level, i.e. the next promotion, by 10% since the discovery of the Military Science Techology.

Basic Solar Panels allows to install solar panels on deserts after getting the corresponding technology.

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Units added in The Seven Sages Mod

The units added beyond the ones added by LoR (remember that this mod already adds many units, especially 11 special unique units called Legends) mainly focus on some basic areas and periods.

The early units focus on the survival of early civilizations (e.g. Javelineer, Militia, Mercenary Guard). These units, cheap and good at defending cities, should facilitate the survival of the small civilizations even under heavy barbarian pressure.

The Sailing Ships (eg. War Galley, Galleass, Sailing Corvette, Sloop) largely expand the availability of that sort of units, too scarce on vanilla game and on LoR.

New Medieval Units (eg. Foot Lancer, Heavy Swordsman, Culverin, Arquebusier) reasonably reflects the variety and evolution of military units at such a long period.

The colonial units (eg. Colonial Pikeman, Colonial Swordsman, Cavalry Guard) remind us that, during the Renaissance Era, the melee units coexisted for a long period with the gunpowder units.

Finally, some units such as the Regular Infantry, the Corvette or the Light Cruiser, complete the availability of modest, but cheap and abundant, modern military units.

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Technologies

Civilization IV is not only a deep strategy game. It also permits to learn about human society and its evolution through the eras. In the Seven Sages Mod, a relevant effort has been done to include new significant technologies and to establish a correct technological order. For example, now Writing precedes the Alphabet, unlike in the original game.

Tecnologies do not only deal with scientific or technological advances (Sciencies), but also with social, religious, political and even artistic issues (Arts), provide they had a relevant impact. Let us have a non exhaustive look on some of them

Among the Sciencies, Seven Sages has included technologies either relevant on the military field, such as Turret Design, Gas Turbine and Repeating Rifles, or civil technologies such as Weaving, Parchment, Algebra, Astrolabe, Law of Gravitation, Telecommunications, Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

The social technologies are frequently even more relevant, though sometimes controversial, in human society dynamics. Among them rank Feminine Divinity, Schools of Translators, City Rights, Perspective, Enlightment, Labor Movement or Women's Rights. Some of these technologies allow new civics that change the overall context in which the society evolves.

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Many more things

Many more civilizations, so that you can end playing with up to 49 different foes. And more leaders, at least 2 different leaders for each civilization, although some of them can lead two or more different civs (e.g. Charlemagne, Charles V, Kublai Khan).

New and modified events: especially significant are the events related with the barbarian invasions and the epidemies of the Medieval Age (now much tougher and recurrent)

More Promotions, many more and varied Corporations, and nearly as many Resources, Improvements and types of Routes, as in the largest mods available.

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Limitations

7Sages, despite the above description, is not a Mod Pack of "more of everything", among other things because my programming abilities are limited. Among the limitations, we can count:

This Mod is thought to use the type of Map Hemispheres, as stated in the beginning. Other kind of maps can be used, but then you should replace a file as explained in the splash message that appears in the beginning of the game.

7Sages is only available in english, so if you want to play it, and english is not your default language, you'll have to choose the english language in the options file before selecting the mod.

And in 7Sages there are few new buildings. Adding new buildings to the version of LoR used is difficult, and beyond the technical difficulty comes the fact that new buildings generally mean more turns to build them up. And that's what I try to avoid.

Finally, the modifications included in the mod make some of the explanations of the rules in the Sevopedia obsolete or inaccurate, despite the author's effort to find and correct them. But as any player knows, there are generally enough direct indicators of the true operative parameters of the game within the Sevopedia so as to discern the correct values, and avoid misleading.

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Acknowledgements, credits and mentions

The author would like to mention the authors of the Civilization IV new material used to the development of this Mod Pack. These are, among others:

Phungus420, for the Mod Pack Legends of Revolution (LoR), on which this one is based. Therefore, my gratitude for all those who contributed to LoR. This includes AchillesZero for LoR too, Jdog5000 and Dom Pedro II for Revolutions, Dale for DCM, Moctezuma for IDW, Solver, Dresdon and Jdog5000 for the BTS unofficial patch, Better BTS AI Team and Jdog5000, Bug Mod Team, including EmperorFool, alerum68, and ruff_hi for BUG Mod (BTS Unaltered Gameplay), Trojan Sheep for Super Spies, WoC Mod Team, Better Bug AI Team lead by Fuyu, Lemmy101 for helping to develop and fix multiplayer, OS79 for helping test RevDCM 2.9 when everyone else is partying, Init and Carwyn for helping to debug and test multiplayer, Johny Smith for his woc-lite concept, Faichele for his help with the woc code, Lord Tirian for super spies updates, PieceOfMind for the Advanced Combat Mod!, Smeagolheart for Examine City at Conquest mod, OrionVeteran for some core algorithms in Revolutions Inquisitions, Cephalo for the PerfectWorld map!, Thomas SG for the "Positions of Scores" scrollbar and Trait's code, Minor Annoyance for Global Warming Mod, Kael for Barbarian World game option, DaveMcW for Show Hidden Attitude Mod, Afforess, Duuk for excellent beta testing, Mamba for WoC contributions like java utilities and forum help, ChrisAdams3997 for kick starting the final stage development on RevDCM 2.8, LunarMongoose for unofficial patch fixes;

Among the specific additions for Seven Sages, these are the credits:

ModifiedA4, for the Modular Basic Mod Components for BUG Mod, plus the Basic Solar Panels; Platyping, for the original idea of Basic Unit Experience: TheLopez, for the original idea of Great Generals From Barbarian Combat Mod; mechaerik, for the original idea of War Prizes; Bhruic for the original idea of Basic Tech Conquest; Thehiredgun, for some resources from his Mod Pack Ancient Astronauts; The_J, for his Simple Python Things, and particularly for Invisible dummy techs and StartingPopup; tsentom1 for some mod components; glider1, for RevolutionDCM with WoC and other materials' availability; Johny Smith, once again, for many components, including his RevDCM Resources Compilation, and Extended Y Grid Tech Screen; Chiyu, for some material from its Extra Mod; Avain, for graphical material, including some leaderheads; Ekmek (Curtin, Meiji, Peron, O'Higgins, Jefferson, Putin, Bolivar, Dom Pedro II), Amra, bernie, Refar, C. Roland, NikNaks, The Capo (Charles V, Tamerlane), IgorS, GarretSidzaka (Obama), DWolf, Methyl Orange, PW90 (Akbar, Philip II), cybrxkhan for leaderheads; SaibotLieh, for female units (even though still not implemented) and for Jingu, Lieu-Ye/Soma, Benazir Bhutto and Mangammal leaderheads, plus the Walrus resource; Dumanios, 3Miro, embryodead, Heretic_Cata, for the Soundtrack Mod; Outitch, for Great General Spare Troops; Wyz_sub10 (Project Lead) and Fierabras (3.0, 4.0, 5.0) for Civ Gold V, as well as the rest of participants in the creation of that Mod Pack which gathers hundreds of civs (basically, Sevo (1.0, 2.0), Shqype (1.0, 2.0), Amra (3.0, 4.0), ripple01 (3.0) and purplexus (3.0) for the team, and Aranor, bernie14, esnaz, cybrxkhan, C.Roland, Ekmek, GarretSidzaka, GeoModder, Rabbit, White, woodelf and Mkann as contributors);Kailric, for the Ribauldquin/Culverin cannon unit; FK2006 for graphical resources, esp. buttons; Den and veBear, for civilizations material (Indonesia, ...); zulu9812, especially for the colonial era units;Padjur, for his advices on soundtracks; additional artwork might be credited to hrochland, Kathy, jojoweb, nitram15, Walter Hawkwood, Arian, Civ Fuehrer, Dancing Hoskuld, Darkstyx or TechXltd; Eusebius, Kidinnu for religious concept modifications; snipperrabbitt for buttons.

I'm sure I've unintendedly omitted some other authors and contributors, so if you know of someone who deserves to be here, please let me know!

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The Seven Sages Mod: Summary

The Seven Sages Mod greatly expands the capacities of the original game, without altering its main aims. It allows to play with up to 49 different civilizations, without going to endless gameplays, having more balanced gameplays than in the original Civ4. And 9 religions available, including orthodoxy and protestantism, all with their own unique buildings and bonuses.

Last, but not least, you can play with some of the most relevant recent international leaders, including Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez or Nelson Mandela. And Gorby, Kennedy, Che Guevara, Suharto, Benazir Bhutto, .... Unfortunately, this mod is only available in the english language.

Enjoy. ;-)