APOLYTON EXTRACIVS PACK.

[Wernazuma III]

Now that I finally got Civ3 ( ): Let's go! Locutus: Post what you got so far (maybe in a new thread), then let's start getting to the next stage.

[Spartan187]

I guess the Merkava would be an option as well for the UU. But I definetly don't think the Hebrews/Jews should be classified as "militaristic" instead of religious. Although today most Jews would consider themselves secular, throughout history it has only been the Jewish faith that has kept the people alive. You can witness today what happen to secular Jews outside Israel-they marry non-Jews, give up their Judaism, and raise their children as non-Jews. (Luckily this isn't true for all Jews.) So, if the Jews were not a religious people, we wouldn't be around to be debated about on ACS. Also, Hebrews/Jews represents the entire Jewish community, not just Israel. While a strong case could be made that Israeli is a militaristic society, (I personally would disagree) you would be very hard pressed to prove the same of diaspora Jews.

[Stefu]

I think we should poll for everything. Let's create a truly democratic Extracivs pack! Granted, this would take a lot of polls, but it'd be worth it. First, we'll need "suggestions" threads. We can probably manage with one "Leaders" thread, where people suggest Civ leaders, with one "Unit" thread with people suggesting special units for Civs not polled for those yet, and so on. Since there are 16 poll options and 15 CSA combinations, polls on CSAs could be started - well, just about now, for example!

[ranskaldan]

Yes...
looking forward to that xpack!!!

[Locutus]

First things first, I would very much like to have an answer to this question:

Can we or can we not add custom CSAs (Agricultural, Seafaring) ourselves (at this time)?

From the setup of the editor it looks like it isn't possible but maybe through the text-files or something? I don't have the game myself so I can't freely experiment, maybe others could shed some light on this...

Next point: I started a new poll that I think people should really vote in here, about what to change about existing civs (round 2).

Originally posted by Martinus
Good, let's stop juggling the stone tablets. My hands are starting to hurt

LOL I couldn't agree more, we could go on for ages about this but it's not gonna accomplish anything...

ranskaldan,
Sure, I'll post it a bit later, the file's a total mess by now, I'll fix it up and convert it to HTML first (hopefully I'll be done tomorrow but I have an exam week coming up so I can't promise anything).

Stefu,
I agree, we should made this as democratic as possible and have a large number of polls. I'm not sure though how well polls would work with city lists, CSAs (contrary to most of the other stuff this can't really be determined civ-by-civ as things need to be balanced out) and perhaps Great Leader lists. But we can at least start by having polls on 'easier' subjects such as civs, UUs, Leaders, etc. and go from there (meanwhile, discussion on other issues can take place in the XPC Explained threads and similar threads for the existing civs). Also, before diving too deeply into civ-specifics, we should figure out the more general issues (What to change? What type/quality of graphics? What is possible at all? etc)

The only problem here is though, that I don't wan't to completely hijack this forum by posting so many polls discussions on non-ExtraCivs Pack subjects becomes impossible. I want to try to not have more than 10 or so threads about this mod on the front forum page, at least not more than 10 threads about the Pack started by me. So we're gonna have to restrain ourselves a little bit in discussing various aspects of this mod. The first batch of polls is pretty much dead now (Zulu, Iroquois, English, American), when the second batch dies out, I'll post more threads again.

All,
I've got a proposal that might solve some of hot issues of which civs to include. Some have suggested to only make 30 civs and leave one slot open for people to fill in for themselves. I don't like this idea because many people don't have the skill to design their own graphics or the historical knowlegde to make high-quality lists of city names/great leaders. I propose we go exactly the other way: make more than 31 civs. More civs means more work of course (esp. for the graphics people) but if we keep the number of extra civs low the amount of extra work will be limited (we could even recycle some of the existing graphics, which is most of the work).

We would make a standard ExtraCivs Pack with the 16 existing civs plus the top 15 of the XPC poll (everything up to Korea and there's a fair gap between Korea and Byzantium/Polynesia so that top 15 is not likely to change anytime soon; we could regard it final for the purpose of this Pack). The extra 'bonuscivs' would be Byzantium, Polynesia, Mali and Khmer (for a total of 35 civs). These civs could be used by people to have some more choice, to remove their least favourite civ(s) and replace them with one or more of these 'prefab' choices (or their own custom choices if they'd like). That way noone has to complain that the Hebrew never did anything to make them great or that the Iroquois or Polynesians aren't really a civ or that we shouldn't remove civs that Firaxis picked out for us, etc; everyone can simple replace the choices they like the least with some other good alternatives, without having to worry about graphics or historical research. That way we also don't have to worry about merging civs to determine the final top 15: the Polynesians, Khmer and Mali are the most obvious candidates for merging (the only other reasonable candidates I could think of are another Native American civ - Inuit - and another Fertile Crescent civ - Assyria - but, unlike the aforementioned bonuscivs, they don't really represent something that isn't already represented). I'm sure over time even more civs would become available to replace the Firaxis's or Apolyton's default set but we'd at least offer people a good starting point without creating too big a workload in terms of graphics.

We should try and make replacing civs as easy as possible for people (a good step-by-step instuction guide to begin with, some tool that provides a level of automation would be even better), so you wouldn't have to be a programming guru to do it. To me this seems like the perfect solution to most of the civ discussions we've been having over the last 2-3 months and still keep (almost) everybody happy; but of course I'd like to know what other people think of this...

[tmarcl]

Originally posted by Locutus


All,
I've got a proposal that might solve some of hot issues of which civs to include. Some have suggested to only make 30 civs and leave one slot open for people to fill in for themselves. I don't like this idea because many people don't have the skill to design their own graphics or the historical knowlegde to make high-quality lists of city names/great leaders. I propose we go exactly the other way: make more than 31 civs. More civs means more work of course (esp. for the graphics people) but if we keep the number of extra civs low the amount of extra work will be limited (we could even recycle some of the existing graphics, which is most of the work).

We would make a standard ExtraCivs Pack with the 16 existing civs plus the top 15 of the XPC poll (everything up to Korea and there's a fair gap between Korea and Byzantium/Polynesia so that top 15 is not likely to change anytime soon; we could regard it final for the purpose of this Pack). The extra 'bonuscivs' would be Byzantium, Polynesia, Mali and Khmer (for a total of 35 civs). These civs could be used by people to have some more choice, to remove their least favourite civ(s) and replace them with one or more of these 'prefab' choices (or their own custom choices if they'd like). That way noone has to complain that the Hebrew never did anything to make them great or that the Iroquois or Polynesians aren't really a civ or that we shouldn't remove civs that Firaxis picked out for us, etc; everyone can simple replace the choices they like the least with some other good alternatives, without having to worry about graphics or historical research. That way we also don't have to worry about merging civs to determine the final top 15: the Polynesians, Khmer and Mali are the most obvious candidates for merging (the only other reasonable candidates I could think of are another Native American civ - Inuit - and another Fertile Crescent civ - Assyria - but, unlike the aforementioned bonuscivs, they don't really represent something that isn't already represented). I'm sure over time even more civs would become available to replace the Firaxis's or Apolyton's default set but we'd at least offer people a good starting point without creating too big a workload in terms of graphics.

We should try and make replacing civs as easy as possible for people (a good step-by-step instuction guide to begin with, some tool that provides a level of automation would be even better), so you wouldn't have to be a programming guru to do it. To me this seems like the perfect solution to most of the civ discussions we've been having over the last 2-3 months and still keep (almost) everybody happy; but of course I'd like to know what other people think of this...

I like the idea, but here's a thought: Let's start with just the extra 15 civs. After a couple of weeks (or, depending on how many extra we want to add, even a month), release the rest. This'll 1) Give people extra civs *now*, and 2) Let us go at a slower pace. Most of us, I'm sure, have lives outside of Civ, and since non of us are getting paid to do this, it's not worth losing our hair over.


Marc

[LoD]

Originally posted by Locutus
LoD,
As I don't have the game I don't have a full overview of how the file system works either. I'll see if I can somehow manage to get a better idea of how editing the game works in general, as this is important for other reasons as well, but it might be a while before I can get my hands on the right information.

Alright, please keep me informed.

[Wernazuma III]

What I could do right away is changing the Civs for the huge "Earth [Real]"-map made by Selanne and for random maps (in a BIC file).

Locutus: Please clarify some things (maybe definitely).

Do we finally change some specifics of the In-Game civs (like city names, CSA, leaders...)?? I think it would be a good idea. I've made good and long city lists for several (Greeks, Germans, French, English, Aztecs and others).

Do we finally replace In-Game civs? (What I think is no good idea)

Please post a conclusion of the specifics for those extra-civs we already have.
etc. etc.
It's really time to cut the tree!

I think I could make the BIC file within a day (without graphics though)

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Locutus
That way we also don't have to worry about merging civs to determine the final top 15: the Polynesians, Khmer and Mali are the most obvious candidates for merging (the only other reasonable candidates I could think of are another Native American civ - Inuit - and another Fertile Crescent civ - Assyria - but, unlike the aforementioned bonuscivs, they don't really represent something that isn't already represented).

The combined votes for Australians and (Australian) Aboriginies are 1,7% of the total points of your poll or about the same as for Byzantines, Polynesians or Khmer. Also, Australia is not represented by any of the suggested extra/bonuscivs. Therefore, if we really try to make more than 15 additional civs, I suggest to add an 'Australian' civ as no. 20.

[Eli]

Originally posted by IncreduloDriver
Here's something for the Hebrews:

Hebrews:
Leader: Jesus (If Joan can lead France...).

Are you crazy?

[ticktock]

I agree with Wernazuma. I don't think we should remove any of the existing civs. I don't see anything wrong with any of them.

In fact, when I ws looking at Selanne's most excellent world map with the starting locations, I noted what a good job they did in representing civalizations fairly evenly spread around the globe. Other than England/France/Germany and Greece/Rome being a little close, it looked like a game with all the civs on Selanne's map would be a pretty competative game. Although there were some gaps.

I think that is one of the criteria we should use to determine the civs in the game.

I noticed 4 areas of the globe that were noticeably vacant:

1. South America. The Aztecs are in Central America, so the whole continent is empty. The obvious choice here would be the Incas.

2. Spain. This is one of the civs in a poll, so I assume that it is probably going to be added...'nuff said.

3. Unfortunately, Moscow is really too far West. But there isn't much we can do about it. Because Moscow is no where near the center of Russia, China gets an inaccurate cake walk through northern asia. By the time Russia can get to eastern Asia, China would already be there. The Mongolian civ really would really help fill a vacuum here. Russia still wouldn't get to it's real size, but the Chinese would have competition for all that open land. Mongolia is also in the poll.

4. Australia is vacant. I guess there is also a poll out to determine who should represent that area.

I think those are the four areas that we need to fill out the globe. Any ideas for other areas that are missing?

[romikua]

Originally posted by ticktock
3. Unfortunately, Moscow is really too far West. But there isn't much we can do about it. Because Moscow is no where near the center of Russia, China gets an inaccurate cake walk through northern asia. By the time Russia can get to eastern Asia, China would already be there. The Mongolian civ really would really help fill a vacuum here. Russia still wouldn't get to it's real size, but the Chinese would have competition for all that open land. Mongolia is also in the poll.

That's because Moscow and Russian Empire emerged late in the history of that area. Historically, the most influence on the area you mention had slavic empire Kyiv Rus (most of its territory lies within modern Ukraine), the capital of which was the city of Kyiv - one of the oldest cities in Europe (not mentioning cities of Roman empire of course); and Mongols, which raidedall the way to modern Poland thru the southern part of modern Russia, northern and north-eastern part of Russia was mainly unexplored for a very long time and was almost not populated due to its severe conditions.

[Stefu]

So... Locutus? Is there going to be something happening with this project? I'd hate it die.

[Trifna]

About realism of the civ poll

Wanted to point out something: a lot, if not majority, of people are voting here without knowing the subject. They aren't necessarily historically correct, nor culturally correct or else since they do not know the debate nor the civilisations.

The consequence to this is that we have more partisanism, more divisions in civs (Maya, Inca, Turks, Arabs, Byzantines...). This is why I think that anyone who would like to use the poll afterwards should first think to make some cleaning a little, so he really see what works. (like for making a mod, puting the first 16 choices would be little silly in my personal opinion).

[Wernazuma III]

Yes, where are you Locutus? I'd definitely contribute more if we can get this project to work. Lamentably I found out that it's not so easy to make all the changes apply in a mod file...

And when I try to clarify things up (my "exp. civ explained threads starters plz look"-thread) I'm being ignored. That's sad.

We would need:
1. a tech person who apllies the changes to a mod file
2. a graphic guy who designs graphics
3. a history guy who surveys what has been written on the subject and makes a compromise between democratic wish, history, fun and game balance to form the final contence of the mod (I would volunteer ) Of course the final product would still be subject of discussion