mountain passes

[Boris Godunov]

One of the big Civ3 mods--I think it was the Rhyse of Civilization one--made mountains and jungle impassable to all units except workers and explorers. I thought it worked very well, so I'm all for it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I would love, if a very limited number of units could move on mountains. Perhaps guerillas and mountain infantry.

Well, most guerillas and mountain infantry came after the industrial era, and I'd hope that after industrialization we could have some troops be able to go to the mountains.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Thanks for clarifying, however this was not the question. The question was, if I can add an option to the diplomatic/espionage menu about "funding the armed opposition in another country".

yes, you can do that, but you'll have to wade into python for that...

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Windows programming ain't rocket science, so much for the skills, but so far I know only about one DLL that can be added to the game, and that is the customized AI code. DLLs are just that, libraries, and it does nothing good if they exist, if the main application does not call them.

Not this again, we've been over this. The DLL will contain the entire core game that is used to run Civ4, not just header files, not just helper libraries, not just AI code, it will be the full monty. It may not the most orthodox use of a DLL library to basically put your core code in it, but that doesn't make either impossible or untrue (in fact, when you read the GD article and think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense and you start to wonder why not more developers are doing this (even if they don't release the source code) -- but that's what they wrote the article for, to get the word out). This has been confirmed in public a dozen time over by numerous people from Firaxis and 2K Games. The Game Developer article goes into it in detail and is rather specific. Since it's copyrighted, I have to be careful with what I quote from it, but here are some tidbits (bolding mine):

We decided that it would be advantageous to isolate the Civilization IV core game and AI in a DLL. This approach provides at least three benefits. First, the gamecore DLL code can be provided as an SDK to advanced modders who want to customize the intrinsic game code and structures. Second, other game engines, future versions of Civilization, different platforms, and other related applications and tools can easily use the DLL code.

The article goes on to discuss the details of this point, other (less relevant) advantages, and the challenges that this approach posed during development. Every time mention of the DLL is made, the article specifically makes mention of "game and AI code". It explains that the code had to be split in 'game core' code (to be included in the DLL) and engine/application code (e.g. hardware controls, third-party software, etc -- stuff to keep out of the DLL).

This led to problems with game entities such as units and cities, whose classes had both game and engine entity code intermingled. Moving the engine entity code into another class residing outside the DLL seperated the code into logical parts [...]

The article then goes on to discuss the interface between the game core and the engine entity. So unit and city classes and the like will be at least partially represented in the DLL -- only parts dealing with graphics, sound and other engine-related parts won't be in the DLL.


As far as we've been told by Firaxis and 2K Games, you can completely rewrite the game, make a full Civ3, CtP2 or SMAC conversion if you want, you might even be able to able to make Civ4 an RTS game (Though that would depend highly on exactly how the DLL is structured and called by the engine -- I don't think I'd seriously want to do that but I'd be a fun project to see if it was possibe ) At least that's as far as we've been told. How accurate those statements are we won't know until the SDK is actually released, but there's no reason to believe them to be inaccurate. Firaxis is not *that* stupid that they'd build up such high expectations and then fall very far short on delivery... (Hold the Civ3 jokes please, beauty is in the eye of the beholder (said the Civ3-hater))

[molly bloom]

I could see Civ 4 making mountain passes very valuable...

With its important pass routes between central and southern Europe, the Alps have been an area of transit trade since ancient times.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761562121/Alps.html

The Muslims who controlled the mountain passes between France and Italy made the mistake of capturing Majolus, abbot of Cluny, and holding him for ransom. after gaining his freedom, the Burgundian warrior class drove the Muslims from their fortresses and restored secure land communication between France and Italy.

http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/nelson/towns.html

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis


yes, you can do that, but you'll have to wade into python for that...

You're gonna turn us all into programmers, you realise that don't you?


My opinion on that:

[alva]

Meh, that's all I need...more competition.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis
yes, you can do that, but you'll have to wade into python for that...

Wonderful, thanks.

[Harovan]

Oh and Locutus, calm down, rumor has it, that Adrenaline is dangerous in high doses.