MOD: Long Winded Changes Mod: Improvements increasing Balance, Accuracy, and Fun

[Rhuarc]

Are changes and things still being made to this mod? I really like what this mod has done iwth the game, but I am just wondering if it will continue to be updated as new patches come available.

[Wite Rabbit]

I'm not quiet sure where I should post this but since the problem seems to be related to BIC file, I figured I'll try...

My Oil resource only appears in water squares, which means that I can't get it for all the units that need it
Now, I think that I may have come over a MOD that adds Oil as water resource but I don't think I actually installed it. Alhtough I did installed this MOD (LWC).
Either way, I opened the editor and checked Oil, and it is set to show up only on desert squares (maybe something else too) but NOT on water squares (I know there are 3 different types of water squares and it shouldn't appear on any of them).

Does anybody encountered something like that before? Any sudgestions?

If nothing works I'll simply restore to the original, of course, but I would prefer not to do that.

I've been playing my whole last game without oil, me or any other civ on the map. Basically, until the appearance of advanced armor there's no progress in fast land units - it's actually sort of interesting, in a frustrating kind of way

[Honour_Shogun]

Hmm, any news on the new version?

Just wondering, s'all. I am greatly anticipating this new version. Just wanted to know when it may be out.

[Plutarck]

Quick Update

I'm actually still finishing up my christmas card (done within the hour), LOL. Think it's a bit late?


Time really flys I suppose, and I haven't had much chance to do alot of work on the mod. Can't say for certain when I can knock out an alpha early-release version, but I think it can _actually_ be by mid-week this time (now that the paying-work related junk is out of the way).

It won't have the government changes, some of the tech tree updates, only a few of the unit additions, and almost none of the improvement additions. However, most of the changes and alterations will probably be in. The Civilopedia entrys won't be properly updated either, but hey, that's why it's called alpha/early-release


This isn't firm, of course, because I don't want to spend extra time on an early "clearly not done" version when I could be spending it on finishing the full release version.

Also, the mod will be sepperated into two files, at least. One will be the big file, which is all the unit animations, and the other is just the little graphics files (like for the various icons), text files, and the .bic file itself.

Translation: Smaller files to download, and to update you just have to download a file that's less than 1MB (maybe even less than 500KB). Far more user-friendly, and easier for me too.


Just wanted to drop in an update, and I gotta get back to finishing up my work.

[joost1110]

So, do you have an ETA on when v0.8 will be downloadable?

[Honour_Shogun]

Aye, I'd also like to know what the ETA on the update is gonna be? I wait patiently for it, as I am certain many otehrs do as well.

[Plutarck]

Well it's certainly seems like a long time since I last gave an update, eh? Time to fix that!


Here's what's up. I haven't spent a lot of time between the holidays and now playing Civ III (I've been writing, reflecting, meditating, contemplating, working, etc), but I've been tweaking some things in LWC in the mean time. So it hasn't been constant work, but plenty has gotten done

While I'm not done and there's still more I want to do before I call it version 1.0 (which will be the next version ), such as I haven't implemented the government change and there's plenty more tweaking to be done, I think it will take too long to do it while in the meantime there is no playable version available.

Thus I am now in the process of wrapping everything up (such as adding pediaicon entrys so the tech tree doesn't look all screwy, putting little text things on the unit icons so you can tell them apart, etc), and I hope it shall be done _very_ soon! In the next few days, even!

This will be called LWC_ERP1, which stands for: Long Winded Changes, Early Release Preview 1. It's an amazingly small download compared to the other versions because of the improved way Gramphos' CopyTool now does unit .ini's (illiminating duplicate unit animation downloads).

As I finish up what I already know I want done (finish balancing the units out, change the government system) I will release "Release Candidates", such as LWC_RC1, LWC_RC2, et al, until a stable reasonably-bugless version is available. Then a full version will be released, incrementing the version number of the LWC mod.

Thus each version update will be far more reliably stable, and fully worth loosing your old saved games to update to the new version

This way people who want a stable version can just download the 'main' version, while people who don't mind running into a bug in exchange for "the newest thing" can help test out the changes to LWC.



I'll save the complete details till I post it, but here's a teaser of new additions:

Civilization Advances:

Saddle: Yes, it's a Saddle. No, not that kind of Saddle...although...

Anyway, it goes along with a changing of the power of the Horseman units in that I want them available later than they are now. You'll see...muahahaha!

No Stirrup advance needed for now.

Hullmaking: Sailing, sailing, over the bounding Coracle!

...doesn't have quite the right ring to it, does it? Anyhow, a post Map Making advance which allows the first real wars on the water.

Squirearchy: SCHULTZ! SCHUUUULTZ!

...oh, sorry, that's not available till way later. But this is available in the early Middle Ages after Chivarly.

Volunteerism: "Wait a second...you mean, you want me to volunteer to join the Army? Hahaha, hahaha, HAHAHAHA!

...alright."

Advanced Naval Warfare: "Ah, it's just a nice day for a cruise, isn't it honey?

...honey?!"


Buildings:

Coastal Gun Placements: Now take the place of Coastal Fortress.

Coastal Fortress: Modernized version of Coastal Gun Placements (more powerful, doesn't need Saltpeter, more expensive).

Mill: The first "Power Plant", available in the Middle Ages.

Guild Hall: Reduces corruption in the Middle Ages, requires Courthouse be in the city to be built.

FBI Office: Police Station for the Modern Age, requires a Police Station be in the city to be built.

Sewer Sytem: Pollution reducing improvement, available thanks to the wonderful invention that is Sanitation. Can't hurt happiness, either.

City Dump: When oceans and rivers just aren't enough, why not dig a great big hole in the ground and put your toxic waste there? Pollution reducing improvement which isn't a boon for happiness.

National Constitution: Ok, it's not the most logical fit to become available with Scientific Method, but are you really going to complain about having a 2nd Forbidden Palace (more or less)?

Computerized Oversight: Kind of hard to fudge a few mathematical statements in a proposal when you have a supercomputer capable of 250,000,000,000 computations a second evaluating every aspect of it, ya know? The science abusing charalatons won't be happy to be exposed for being the lying bastards that they are, but it'll put a grin on just about everyone else's face, and you can't complain about a 3rd Forbidden Palace in the modern age (more or less).

AI Governing Prototype: "I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave." Gives ya the heebejeebeez, doesn't it? But a 4th Forbidden Palace available at the end of the game isn't all that bad. Besides, this thing is just a small prototype...but, of what?


Units (Name: type, age available):

Land Units

Barbarian: Basic Barbarian unit (rather than Warrior, stronger).
Raider: Advanced Barbarian unit (rather than Horseman, as strong as changed Horseman).
Pioneer: Expansionist only Settler, early-middle Ancient Age (Map Making).
Mounted Scout: Not-as-good Scout for non-expansionists, early Ancient Age.
Man At Arms: Offensive footsoldier, early Middle Age.
Musket Infantry: Offensive footsoldier, late Middle.
Shock Troops (requires population): Offensive footsoldier, early-middle Industrial.
Machine Gunner: Offensive footsoldier, late Industrial.
Modern Infantry: Defensive footsoldier, early Modern.
Assault Troops: Offensive footsoldier, middle Modern.
Special Ops Team: Offensive footsoldier, late Modern.

Naval Units

Coracle: Transport, available from begining.
Warship: Power/Bombard, middle-late Ancient.
Corporate Privateer: Power/Bombard (no national markings), earlyish Industrial.
Steel Warship: Power/Bombard, middle Industrial.
Modern Transport: Transport, early Modern.
Modern Destroyer: Power/Bombard, early Modern.
Nuclear Battleship: Power/Bombard, middle Modern.
Nuclear Carrier: Air Transport, middle Modern.
Diesel Submarine: Power, middle Modern.
Nuclear Attack Sub: Power, middle Modern.

Air Units

Transport Plane: Transport, end of Industrial.
Modern Bomber: Bombard, middle Modern.


And currently over 100 entrys to the changes file, with each entry being a change for a certain entry in the editor. For instance changing the cost, available time, maintananence, and effect of a Wonder counts as 1 change; changing the amount of resources given by forests and the shields required to get 1 gold through wealth count as 2.

Tweaks during the development are not counted, so all 100 have a current effect in the game.



All things subject to change, no guarantee I didn't make an error here, yadda yadda yadda.


Still need to finish balancing of the late-modern naval units, then I can wrap it all up and post it. Hope to have it done by Wednesday, but regardless it should be done before the end of the week, barring only something happening in real life that stops me from doing so.



Enjoy the enticipation, and try not to slobber too much

[MicMc]

Sounds Good

heya,

The update sounds great,

Quick ? though, does a second forbidden palace (or anything doing the decrease corruption flag) do anything in game terms?

I know with the second 'grainery' (halves teh food flag) it doesn't do anything when applied to a second building, I was just wondering about the corruption angle. Thanks in advance.

[Plutarck]

MicMc:

Yup, it sure does.

The way I'm told that it works is that within 15 tiles of the Forbidden Palace (or any small wonder with the "reduces corruption" small wonder effect turned on) citys have their corruption/waste reduced as if it was a Palace. It has a much reduced, if any, effect on citys farther away than that, so ya gotta be careful where you put them so you don't waste their effect.

Wasn't aware that other things with Granary have no effect, which is rather sad


Not sure what cost I'm going to give them to build, or maintain, though. Hmm...

[Honour_Shogun]

Huzzah for Plutarck!

Excellent, simply excellent. Should you require someone to test the mod, I am more than willing to try. As for what you have put down so far, well, most impressive, truly most impressive. I am glad that this has not died, as truly, of all the mods I have used, find the LWC to be perhaps one of the best ones. Huzzah, I say! Huzzah!

[Plutarck]

Former download location.

Version ERP1 removed after 98 downloads.
Version ERP2 removed after 182 downloads.
Version ERP3 removed after 530 downloads.
Version ERP4 removed after 365 downloads.

[Plutarck]

Note: I've changed the unit animation add-on pack (and edited the first post) to include new animations for the Special Ops Team, created by MazterJo.

Since not many people have downloaded it I figured I'd just repack it together. Not that big a download

[Gutz]

Hmmmm,
I dont know if I am doing something wrong, but when I try to download it it saves a file named attachment to my computer - not the filename you specified. It also is not a .zip file.....

[Battleax]

Grrr

Yeah, I've got the same dl prob as Gutz-- a 260kb file called "690465," and it's no .zip.

[JamesJKirk]

For several days, I've been having a similar prob when trying to download something from the forums, it just tries to download it as a file, with no extension called "attachment" but what I soon found out you could do was just rename the file, and add the .zip extension and everything ends up peachy