Civ-specific improvements?

[Ray K]

Is there any way to edit or create improvements and/or Wonders so that they can only be built by a specific civ?

[TheDarkside]

With CtP:2's scripting language support you can... but not with Civ3

[Ray K]

Originally posted by TheDarkside
With CtP:2's scripting language support you can... but not with Civ3

hmmm. I had CtP, but never CtP2. How did it play after the patches?

[TheDarkside]

I didn't have a problem with CtP2 especially after patches. I think you hear the garbage only from hardcore civers who still felt betrayed by activition and their theft campaign. The game made improvements which no one will acknowledge, like public works was a good idea, and especially the combined combat where whole unit stacks engage eachother at once (which was a Master of Magic innovation i believe). But the real reason I liked ctp was the scripting language support... I like making mods and customizing civ games, and ctp had a very powerful set of tools for me to use.

[Zen]

I bet you could do it with Civ III actually...

IF you can alter the starting advances for each tribe... i.e. the characteristics or such (militaristic, religious, etc...) or even come up with some new, additional ones... you could then start just one tribe with a certain advance.
Then, make that advance such that it can NEVER be researched (like in CivII). Thus, only those who start with it... (or trade for it later) can access the improvements/wonders related to that advance.

-this could work... (I think)

-Zen

[Ray K]

Originally posted by Zen
I bet you could do it with Civ III actually...

IF you can alter the starting advances for each tribe... i.e. the characteristics or such (militaristic, religious, etc...) or even come up with some new, additional ones... you could then start just one tribe with a certain advance.
Then, make that advance such that it can NEVER be researched (like in CivII). Thus, only those who start with it... (or trade for it later) can access the improvements/wonders related to that advance.

-this could work... (I think)

-Zen

OK. That was an awesome idea! Congrats, man.

As long as you can assign two prereqs to an improvement, so maybe "The Colossus" gets "Bronze Working" and "Greek"

Very clever.

[TheDarkside]

Yeah it would work except how would you make it so a tech CANT be researched? you can give it a super high cost but still, it will show up in the "what do you want to research next" screen, and what if the AI chooses it? Oh but anyway, Civ3 has a hard-coded 32-turn MAX for researching techs, so anyone else can get this tech in 32 turns.

[Zen]

Darkside,

just try putting the prereqs for that advance as technology that won't come until... modern times. SO... you give the civ-specific advance to just that civ until after some modern time where communications are far reaching or something... In Civ II, you could "hide" techs from civ's though (would be nice in Civ III)

-Zen

[Ray K]

Originally posted by Zen
Darkside,

just try putting the prereqs for that advance as technology that won't come until... modern times. SO... you give the civ-specific advance to just that civ until after some modern time where communications are far reaching or something... In Civ II, you could "hide" techs from civ's though (would be nice in Civ III)

-Zen

You can't put future-era prereqs for a tech. The editor won't allow it. hmmmm.

Plus, improvements and wonders can only have one tech prereq.

[Nero Would]

Originally posted by Ray K

You can't put future-era prereqs for a tech. The editor won't allow it. hmmmm.

Plus, improvements and wonders can only have one tech prereq.

This might work (I haven't tried it). Give the Civ a Modern Times tech as it's third free tech (each civ can have up to 4, and they are not tied to the civ strengths - Industrious, Militaristic, etc). Make that tech a prerequisite for the improvement that you want to be civ-specific.

Improvements can only have one tech prerequisite, but they can also require a particular government or resources, or that a certain improvement has already been built, all of which have their own tech prerequisites. You could use one of these requirements to force the civ to reasearch a particular tech before building its civ-specific improvement.

[Ray K]

Originally posted by Nero Would


This might work (I haven't tried it). Give the Civ a Modern Times tech as it's third free tech (each civ can have up to 4, and they are not tied to the civ strengths - Industrious, Militaristic, etc). Make that tech a prerequisite for the improvement that you want to be civ-specific.

Improvements can only have one tech prerequisite, but they can also require a particular government or resources, or that a certain improvement has already been built, all of which have their own tech prerequisites. You could use one of these requirements to force the civ to reasearch a particular tech before building its civ-specific improvement.

The future tech idea is OK, but I'm specifically thinking about restricting certain Wonders to specific civs and creating additional wonders for the civs that don't have any. The idea is to make each civ even more unique beyond their special units. There are plenty of other ancient and modern wonders to flesh out the other civs.

A simple example would be to restrict the Great Wall to China. How could I do that and maintain Construction as a prereq?


I think I am going to hope that Firaxis adds a Civilization prereq to improvements like they did for units.

[Barnacle Bill]

Actually, this won't work. If you give a civ a starting tech for which it lacks the prereqs, it does not actually get the tech until it gets the prereqs. So, the civ you want to have it won't get it.

Unlike Civ2, you also can't give an advance a prereq of "no". In Civ2, if it had a prereq of "no" then nobody could research it, and in a scenario you could give it to a civ anyway either at-start or via an event. The only problem was you could not prevent another civ from obtaining it via trade or espionage, unless you prevent the civs from talking via the event editor (or give it only to a human-controlled civ) and eliminated diplomats & spies from the unit mix. I was hoping Civ3 would fix that, but in fact they have made it worse. Instead of being able to restrict an advance with some unfortunate trade-offs, now you can't do it at all.

Hopefully, they will fix it in the editor patch. Also, hopefully they will add the ability to "OR" prereqs. As an example of what I mean, let's say you want Islamic civs to have Mosques instead of Cathedrals (I know, there are no Islamic civs in the game, but IMO the Iroqois & Zulus were not "civilizations" and should be replaced by the Arabs & Turks). So, you replace "Monotheism" with "Christianity" and "Islam" (and a few more for the civs that were "none of the above", but let's keep the example simple). "Christianity" lets you build Cathedrals. Islam lets you build Mosques. Both have the same game effect. So, any advance which currently has "Monotheism" as a prereq you would want to be able to specify "Christianity OR Islam" as the prereq.

[Ray K]

Originally posted by Barnacle Bill
Unlike Civ2, you also can't give an advance a prereq of "no". In Civ2, if it had a prereq of "no" then nobody could research it, and in a scenario you could give it to a civ anyway either at-start or via an event. The only problem was you could not prevent another civ from obtaining it via trade or espionage, unless you prevent the civs from talking via the event editor (or give it only to a human-controlled civ) and eliminated diplomats & spies from the unit mix. I was hoping Civ3 would fix that, but in fact they have made it worse. Instead of being able to restrict an advance with some unfortunate trade-offs, now you can't do it at all.

This is a problem. It would very helpful if an advance had a "no trade" flag.

Hopefully, they will fix it in the editor patch. Also, hopefully they will add the ability to "OR" prereqs. As an example of what I mean, let's say you want Islamic civs to have Mosques instead of Cathedrals (I know, there are no Islamic civs in the game, but IMO the Iroqois & Zulus were not "civilizations" and should be replaced by the Arabs & Turks). So, you replace "Monotheism" with "Christianity" and "Islam" (and a few more for the civs that were "none of the above", but let's keep the example simple). "Christianity" lets you build Cathedrals. Islam lets you build Mosques. Both have the same game effect. So, any advance which currently has "Monotheism" as a prereq you would want to be able to specify "Christianity OR Islam" as the prereq.

Actually, you could still do this if Firaxis allowed you to specify with Civs could build an improvement, much like they do for unique units.

All civs would still research Monotheism, which would grant both the Cathedral and Mosque improvements. However, you could then restrict those improvements by the civilization.

I would like to exaggerate the Civ differences by making some Wonders civ-specific, adding more Wonders for some Civs that don't have any. The civs would be a little less balanced, which is not that big of a deal, and you could alter the difficulty of the game by playing Civs that had weak or non-existent ancient wonders.

Also, some real-world civs started later (Zulu, Aztec, Iroquois). I would try to simulate this by starting them with no advances (instead of two). This would also be an opportunity for players that wanted a bigger challenge.

Personally, I love the different characteristics of the civs. Firaxis did not go far enough, in my opinion.

[Slax]

I'm pretty sure I recall a Firaxis member saying this could be done in a thread sometime before the game was released. Hopefully the ability is in there somewhere, and can be realized with a patch.

[Rooster]

Actually, I was reading through the manual today and it turns out you can set the Era to "none." This makes the tech unresearchable (is that a word??). But, you can assign it to civilizations as default techs. Now, this could easily be put to use for making civ-specific units/improvements. Just add one required tech as the civ specific one, and one as a normal one. That way, you could make a civ-specific improvement in any era... thoughts/comments??

Originally posted by TheDarkside
Yeah it would work except how would you make it so a tech CANT be researched? you can give it a super high cost but still, it will show up in the "what do you want to research next" screen, and what if the AI chooses it? Oh but anyway, Civ3 has a hard-coded 32-turn MAX for researching techs, so anyone else can get this tech in 32 turns.