[C4:AC] The indomitable funness of stripping out the Civ4 stuff.

[Blake]

And creative topic naming?

Anyway, I've completed stripping out the Civ4 stuff, the Civ4 Techs, Units, Factions, buildings. leaving just a few in, like settler worker and warrior so the game can still actually start. All the civics and terrain improvements are still in, minus tech requirements. Also, it's using the intial tech tree made by Rubin.

And after the great stripping start it did, with only a couple of XML errors as the game loaded (past the leader select and all that jazz, blasted Civ4FormationsInfos.XML, I'll be having nightmares about that... *shudder*). Once in the game, within a few turns I'd founded Judaism and won the space race. Kickass .
(Okay, so apparentely you win the space race when you have no more spaceship components to build, and when there aren't any to build in the first place...)

Next on the Agenda will be replacing the Civics with all the SE. That will actually put everything in place to make the factions, since factions need starting techs (which I already have thanks to Rubin), and default Civic settings. Ofcourse I'll only be making the extremely barebone framework, basically so the connections can be made. Planetary Networks enabling planned and such.

Civ4FormationsInfos.XML
And it's still scary after it's been pretty-printed.

[binTravkin]

Good work Blake (nicey on the spaceships )!

First faction + simple SE implementation should be the content of the first unofficial release available only for members.

[Blake]

Yep. What I'll do is "make" one faction, all the SE settings, and I think make it use formers and colony pods (changed in name only) rather than workers and settlers, linking what I can into the lowest two levels of the tech tree. The graphics wont be updated for anything, I'll leave that to people far more capable at making things look good.

Next should be some sample units, using modern infantry and marines and tanks and mech inf and stuff. I'll probably have to tackle the formations XML file of DOOOM again. With luck I'll get in the zone and have all this done by Monday. I'll also be seeing what can be done about the religions and the spaceship victory, i think making the AtT should solve the spaceship thing (just make it the only spaceship component and it'll work out).

Side Note: I wont actually be editing the Technologies file itself, this is because stuff references the technologies rather than vice-verca, in any case I wont be stepping on Rubin's toes.

[binTravkin]

You're having problems with XML?
Probably download some validator.
IIRC there's an online one at w3c.org as well..

[Blake]

No... the Formations xml file is just nasty. For a start it needs to be prettified before being human-readable. And it's very complex too. Contains every combat scenario like Bow vs Bow, Bow vs Melee combat etc. What's more it only seems to be parsed when you actually start a game, rather than when loading the game, this makes testing changes to it harder and more time consuming as you're forced to navigate the menus. It's just a cumulation of nastiness.