Topic: Civ4 - C2C Mod

[Yokto]

I should give it a try.

[Hydromancerx]

I should give it a try.

You should.

Also we got our own sub-forum on August 7th.

Civ 4 - Caveman 2 Cosmos
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=449

We asked for it for awhile now. its good to finally get it. Yay! 

[PatMan33]

Since you're online at the moment, can you give me the elevator pitch on your mod, Hydro?

[Hydromancerx]

Ok i will try ...

Caveman to Cosmos is a "Civilization 4 - Beyond the Sword" mod which has the philosophy is "more is more", and we take this to the limit. We have 9 eras, which span from the Prehistoric Era to the Galactic Era. We have tons of techs which cover not only military and scientific techs but cultural and social techs. We have currently 13 different civics ranging from Military and Economy to Education and Language.

We have a very active team of about 5 to 7 modders who each bring a different aspect to the game. Our updates are fast and frequent due to SVN collaboration. Its an ever growing and evolving game that despite having more than any Civ 4 mod out there we have actually improved efficiency thanks to our master modders. They also have a feature that allow compatibility between older versions. This means you can keep playing your game even when you have updated.

Its very hard to list all the things in the mod but here are some new things i think are cool ...

1. Dynamic Culture - Based on your starting civ and terrain you find yourself in determines what type of civ you will become. Just because you picked Rome doesn't mean you will stay as Romans. You could just as esily evolve into the Greeks or Spanish or even bonus civs you cannot start as.

2. Goods System - A huge interlocked systems of goods that are depending upon what resources you have and what you build. For instance Wheat (Grain) -> Wind Mill (Flour) -> Bakery (Bread). There are also bonus resources where if ou have 2 types of resources near your city you can unlock new ones such as Banana + Sugar = Pineapple.

3. Revolutions - You must not only fight outside threats but help kep your empire from splintering into smaller nations. An old but good mod feature.

4. Prehistoric Era - You start out with nothing and work your way up. Resources are hidden until you can reveal them. You can actually hunt animals and either use them for food or to make special buildings. Fight neanderthals or ally them. You can only build one city at first but as you unlock different civics you can build more cities. Or just take over enemy cities yourself and gain not only more cities but assimilate their culture and shape your civilization's identity.

5. Alternate Timeline - If you build the right wonders and research the right techs you can unlock secret units and buildings such as Mammoth Riders or Steampunk themed vehicles. While not every game will have these they are there to give a little special flavor to a game.

I think I rambled on too much. I am sure I forgot like 90% of the features but i hope this wets your appetite for this mod. Let me know if you have any questions.

[PatMan33]

Sounds good! It's like what Spore was supposed to be!

I'll give it a shot. I like having lots of stuff to manage.

[Hydromancerx]

Sounds good! It's like what Spore was supposed to be!

I'll give it a shot. I like having lots of stuff to manage.

Yeah i would say it has some tribal phase, lots of city phase and a bit of space phase (still working on this part). No cell or creature phase. But hey its civ not Spore.

[Raz]

Dynamic Culture would probably infuriate me if it switched me to some crappy civ. If I want to be Rome, I want to be Rome dammit, complete with their Legions (or Praetorians if you haven't fixed that yet), not the Zulu.  Which makes me wonder what kind of conditions you've scripted for each civ.

[Hydromancerx]

Dynamic Culture would probably infuriate me if it switched me to some crappy civ. If I want to be Rome, I want to be Rome dammit, complete with their Legions (or Praetorians if you haven't fixed that yet), not the Zulu.   Which makes me wonder what kind of conditions you've scripted for each civ.

Here is a chart of the current requirements. Right now there are only 2 of the 3 planned culture buildings made.

1. Regional Cultural (aka Native Culture) this spreads a regional cultural to every city. Ex. Culture (European)

2. Local Culture this is what use to be called an "Embassy". This enables specific units and buildings. Ex. Culture (Roman).

3. National Culture this has not been done yet. Once you obtain 3 cities with the same local culture then you can build a wonder that enables that local culture to all cities within your empire. Ex. National Culture (Roman).

This means that cities can have their own individual culture and even have more than one culture in a city. Thus if you start out as Romans you automatically have European culture and can build a specific European culture if you meet the other requirements such as resources, terrain, etc.

You can conquer other cites and gain their culture. For instance if you take over Japan you get Asian culture and thus unlock all the Asian dependent buildings. And since the regional cultures are actually "resources" you can trade them peacefully with other nations. There are 6 "Regional Cultures" ...

- African
- American
- Asian
- European
- Middle Eastern
- Oceanian

Currently we only have 1 playable Oceanian civ which is Australia. However we have 4 local cultures you can obtain which are ...

- Aborigine
- Australian
- Maori
- Polynesian

We have around 50 local cultures so far and plan to add a lot more.

Also some local culture buildings actually help speed up wonders if the wonder is from that culture in real life. For example the Chinese culture helps speed up the Great Wall.

[PatMan33]

Just my own input on your culture system.

In conquering another civ, I don't think you should gain all of their cultural secrets. Otherwise there's no reason to play other cultures because eventually you can accumulate everything. There should be some loss of culture through conquest or what-have-you. It would add to the mod's replayability.

[Raz]

One of the points of ancient conquest back then was to convert the population from them to you anyway, or genocide them, and install your own people. It's the best way to ensure longevity for any ancient empire.

[Hydromancerx]

Just my own input on your culture system.

In conquering another civ, I don't think you should gain all of their cultural secrets. Otherwise there's no reason to play other cultures because eventually you can accumulate everything. There should be some loss of culture through conquest or what-have-you. It would add to the mod's replayability.

Well individual cultures are not that easy to get. And by the time you take over some other, buildings and units are already obsolete. Some early cultures even go obsolete so unless you obtain them early you may not be able to get that culture.

One of the points of ancient conquest back then was to convert the population from them to you anyway, or genocide them, and install your own people. It's the best way to ensure longevity for any ancient empire.

True but many became a mixture of the 2 cultures such as Spain taking over the Aztecs and making a new culture as the Mexicans which has many aspects of the old Aztec traditions mixed with the heavily Catholic Spanish culture.

[PatMan33]

I understand what you're saying.

What I'm speaking of is simply from a gaming point of view and not so much a realism perspective. Though that may apply, too.

[Raz]

I'll probably give it a try later or something. I've been feeling like civ again.

Edit at 3:18 am , To be honest man, it's way too much. It's a nice idea, caveman to cosmos, but it's a bad implementation. I had 13 food coming off a single wheat resource, with a bit of tech invested in farming techniques. Rome was up to city size 9 fairly quickly. I got lucky that my first hut gave me an extra tribe to have two starting cities instead of just one, but still(that hut itself popped with a variant of settlers). Too many buildings and such. I spent most of my time rushing to build buildings, rarely any units. I don't feel like balance is really present, or that the level of progression/yields is very good either.

In short, it just feels like a bunch of haphazardly thrown together stuff that consists of "what else can we add?" rather than "what should we add?" that hasn't really been thought out. Pretty much all of the mod gives me a feeling like when a developer just badly tacks a feature onto a game for no real apparent reason. You probably have a lot of good features, and I can see the potential, but there feels like there's a major lack of polish.

By the way, the Goods(resource) buildings are an ingenious little circumvention of the game's limit on the amount of resources. Unfortunately these don't play by the rules of trade networks though, I don't believe, and the fact you can't trade these Goods to other civs.

[Hydromancerx]

A few questions ...

1. What level of difficulty were you on?

2. What speed were you on?

3. What era did you start as?

Slower speeds, harder difficulty and prehistoric era should help if you did not already.

Also you got to remember its still being developed, so balance and stuff are not worked out yet. There are a LOT of factors and settings so it will be awhile until we get a nice polished game.

[PatMan33]

I also think that is a problem with vanilla Civ of any iteration. There are WAY too many buildings.