Civ 4 is fully moddable: Recreate SMAC?

[Senethro]

Am I right or am I right?
We've got all the formulas and numbers so why not?

SMAC without the bugs.....Mmmmmmm.

Although I have no coding skill I would be willing to give time to such a project.

[Darsnan]

Re: Civ 4 is fully moddable: Recreate SMAC?

Originally posted by Senethro
Civ 4 is fully moddable

Mmmm - be careful what you mean by this (and just what do you mean by this?).

Modding units, graphics, sound, etc. is a relatively large undertaking, even if it is in easier formats to manipulate than the "caviar" graphics package.

Also questions that come up as far as "fully" modable concerned would be:

- could we change the effects of "landmarks" such as Pholus Ridge and the Manifold Nexus?

- Would the CIV4 file equivalent to the alpha.txt file be completely imprinted onto any PBEM's/ Scenarios?

- Would edited script.txt files be imprinted onto PBEM's/ Scenarios?

- If edited script.txt files are imprinted onto PBEM's/ Scenarios, then the downside would be if you get some a-hole who decides to generate a game and they include all sorts of evil comments about player X and player Y, but that the comments don't show up until later in a game - do you abandon the game because of the continued bad langauge/ evil comments, or do you continue regardless of them?


Anyways, you pose a good question Senethro, and once Civ 4 comes out I will probably start prowling the Civ 4 Creation area to see exactly just how moddable it is, and yes, I would be interested in participating in a SMAC mod of Civ 4 if its possible.


D

[girlfight_club]

If there's no SMAC2 in sight, I'm up for contributing graphic and proofreading support for this.

A couple questions, though:

Raise/lower terrain likely in Civ 4?

Aliens/worms/fungus... what would it take to "simulate" these without support from the engine?

I realize these are bridges to cross once we know what we're dealing with, but it's something we should be psychologically prepared for.

A Civ 4 Chiron may feel like a strangely empty place....

GFC

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by girlfight_club
A Civ 4 Chiron may feel like a strangely empty place....

Personally speaking, I am relatively loathe to just go back to Chiron. I think with the horsepower and creativity of the SMAC(X) community (and a "fully modable CIV 4") we can come up with all sorts of new worlds/ different dimensions to explore/ enjoy. From my perspective if we were to come up with a template overlay which then SMAC(X) Creators and CMN can follow to change all sorts of different parameters for a world, then not only could someone create a new version of Chiron, but also an almost infinte number of other worlds as well.

As far as your comments above like raise/ lower terrain - darn good point, especially if Civ 4 only goes to 2100 or someething like that.

As far as the fungus/ MW/ NL are concerned: we will see. These might be closely associated with any "bonus resource pods" (for lack of a better term on my part) that can be found on a Civ 4 map: if the pods divulge both good and bad units, then we've got an in here which we should be able to exploit. As far as fungus is concerned, why there again we may have an in depending on the "terrain choices" available in a "fully modable Civ 4", as there might be a parameter that can be modified to give a look and feel of fungus.


Anyways, I think that first we will need to find out exactly what is meant by the statement "fully modable Civ 4", explore and define the actual boundaries of this statement versus the game itself, and then if the game does lend itself to the ability of really being mod'd, we can start using our online communities vast warehouse of knowledge and creativity to start redesigning Civ 4 with Chiron/ "otherworlds" in mind.


D

[Senethro]

Other aspects of a recreated SMAC that might have to be created from scratch would include the Social engineering and faction properties, Probe Teams, the unit workshop, Planterary Council. EVen worse, how do you get these aspects to function in multiplayer? No gradual evolution from a previous system will be possible as there will be no previous system.

What I know as being fully modable is that nothing in Civ4 is going to be hardcoded. EVerything will be accessible to us, whereas with SMAC we are limited to playing with alpha.txt and factions. We can't even give a faction more than 8 social benefits because its hardcoded for the game to read only the first 8.

As for why SMAC should be made, I think it would be a good first mod project for Civ4. It would have a coherent and comprehensive goal which many people (I would hope) would be interested in achieving. With enough people exploring the modding possibilities of Civ4 as a team I would hope knowledge of how best to mod Civ4 would be acquired and disseminated throughout the community more quickly. If all or many features of SMAC could be implemented then that would provide a much stronger base for future mod projects to build upon. An individual's own project may not require a Planetary Council, but I'm sure they would be glad that they have the feature available to them in an already working form.

[livid imp]

Actually when you think about it, there are less differences in SMAC and Civ than first appear. Worms are just Barbarians, Unity pods are just huts. Rocky and fungus tiles function very much like mountain tiles. The really big differences are Social Engineering, the Design Workshop, satellites, weather effects and 3D landscape. SMAC is much more modable itself as well.

And Civ4 better be very modable as well. The Civ franchise is worth millions of dollars, there is no excuse for a sophomore job any longer. The most professional design breaks things down into their most fundamental elements. In good design, prefab units are a no-no. Instead you take the Design Workshop approach of a generic unit with add-ons (weapons, armor, etc.) So if Civ4 is designed right, it will inevitably be more like SMAC than **chokes down the bile and vomit** Civ3. The most irritating thing about Civ3 is that if it had being made fully modable, they could have made the default game like it is today, while giving the fans the power to nearly recreate SMAC without the 3D landscape.

The problem is money. It costs more (up front) to build modable systems, than hard coded ones and there tend to be more support costs. Unfortunately, higher quality doesn't always equate to higher sales (a la SMAC). What is worse is the game industries current habit of selling dumbed-down computer games to try and capture the a piece of console market (a la Civ3)

So we just have to hope that the makers of Civ4 are more interested in legacy than the safe bet.

And I have to agree with Darsnan on one thing, if Civ4 is fully configurable, then we should not merely constrain ourselves to the recreation of SMAC. We should expand our creative scope to other settings which may in time become as equally well loved as SMAC is to us now.

[binTravkin]

Social Engineering

Without it there is no hope to recreate SMAC on any other moddable game engine.
Its one of the main features of SMAC/X which differs it from other TBS games.

Unfortunately, higher quality doesn't always equate to higher sales (a la SMAC).

How completely true.
The wonder below SMAC/X unsuccessful sales is that it has been made for thinking people, for those who love challenge for their brain not fingers.
There are not much people who can understand (and be interested in) strategical/tactical engine of SMAC/X.

That also explains 2 other things:
1.The superior creativity of SMAC/X community
2.The zealous devotion to this game

Hail, all the SMACers!

I think Half-Life is for draining your anger and SMAC is for sharpening your mind.

[livid imp]

Re: Social Engineering.....

Originally posted by binTravkin
Without it there is no hope to recreate SMAC on any other moddable game engine.
Its one of the main features of SMAC/X which differs it from other TBS games.

Civ3 did offer kind of a grazing hit at Social Engineering with the different types of civs (religious, industrial, explorer, etc.) The biggest prolem with them is that they were not terribly balanced, too simplistic, and unajustable. But the mere fact they had something similar bodes well for Civ4. It will likely have at least that much detail, and hopefully a full SE system.

[binTravkin]

Ive played Civ 3 but the choices (government + factional attributes) are no match for SE system implemented in SMAC/X

[livid imp]

I didn't mean to suggest they were, it just suggests a minium comittment to the idea.

[Illuminatus]

If this project is possible, I offer my help in any area where I could contribute.

[SynthetGod8]

Is it just me, or did Civ 3 have to Wonder videos? I quickly lost interest in playing when I realized that nothing I built had a video. Oh, and that I had no rubber in my entire empire and no one would trade it... so I couldn't make tanks or something. And I hated cities that switched sides because their culture was at 0..... but I won't complain any more about it. I think it's a cool idea to make a SMAC mod for it, if possible.

[binTravkin]

IMO they had a video but not such as the SMAC/X ones - just a simple picture slowly appearing with some generic sound..

I haven't seen SMAX videos so far myself..

[Dis]

Nothing is "fully moddable"

there will be somethings the code will not allow. Like psychic combat with mindworms.

and no way would the economic and political aspects of SMAC be recreatable.

[smacfan]

If this quote (see below) from the thread "bad news" from today in this forum is correct, skilled programmers *should* be able to duplicate *quite* a lot. Whether it can be "all" no one can know until Civ4 is out and any restrictions on the scripting engine become known. Python is a *very* powerful language, very flexible (think Perl and go on from there). If the hooks into the game engine from Python are complete enough, you should be able to write an entire game in the scripting language alone.

quote:
Firaxis seems to be going through considerable lengths to make the game *extremely* moddable: all in-game data will be stored in XML, nothing will be hardcoded! Also, the engine has Python (a very powerful scripting language) integrated in it, opening up things like map generation, combat, triggers/events, etc to fans.