Questions for ctp (and other) modmakers.

[primemover]

I am a BIG fan of CTP2. It has been my favorite game for some time thanks to you modmakers. I have some fundamental gripes with the original game... but basically am in love with the idea behind CTP (and Civ of course). Some of those have been addressed by the various mods that have been created... many great works that are greatly appreciated.

I am fairly new to the modmaking community of apolyton and my interests in making "a better ctp" have raised some questions.

I am greatly interested in the evolution of these types of strategy games and I do have an agenda for the following questions... but for now I will just ask them. Where I go from there will depend on the responses I get.

1. First... am I correct in assuming that those of you who have contributed to making mods have at least some programming experience? (either professionally or as a hobby?) If so, how much?

2. I have seen hints of various expertise... or at least a nice range of interests where people have spent time learning various things that add to the variety and fun of learning through these games... (such as hexanonians and others knowledge of the history of the various units and things used in the game and the graphical contributions) What other backgrounds are represented here? What kinds of knowledge to we (you) as a group have?

3. In connection with number 2, what kind of professions/jobs/careers do you have/hold? (I myself am a 9th grade physical science teacher with some amateur programming experience in C, C++, some assembly, and old versions of basic).

4. Is modmaking something that you do in your spare time? If so, how much of it do you have? (Currently I don't have a lot during the year... but I have A LOT during the summers).

5. I have been impressed by the enthusiasm, teamwork, and general ability the "modders" have contributed to making a better game. I am wondering if this is the right place to find people to build a new, "bigger", "better" game from the ground up? A game built by the people who play the games and know what works? Even if it took a somewhat different approach (a more educational approach?)

Your response is appreciated.

[hexagonian]

Welcome...

Originally posted by primemover
1. First... am I correct in assuming that those of you who have contributed to making mods have at least some programming experience? (either professionally or as a hobby?) If so, how much?

No programming experience whatsoever - in fact when I started my Mod, I almost gave up on my first snag. But through trial and error, I found the process very easy (mainly cut and paste, numerical text changes). Most of the foundation of my Mod was laid by discussions here in the Forums. Plus I benefitted from the work of the SLICers here.

Originally posted by primemover
2. I have seen hints of various expertise... or at least a nice range of interests where people have spent time learning various things that add to the variety and fun of learning through these games... (such as hexanonians and others knowledge of the history of the various units and things used in the game and the graphical contributions) What other backgrounds are represented here? What kinds of knowledge to we (you) as a group have?

History is an big interest of mine, though not to the extent of what I have seen with others on the Forums. (Some of the OT stuff is really in-depth.) I'm interested in broad trends more than minutae, though in putting together my Mod, I did do some research.

I had done a series of historical strategy board games from scratch for private use. Since all of my gaming friends are no longer in the area, I found the CTP2 platform easy to work with and it satisfied my craving to tinker with game mechanics.

Originally posted by primemover
3. In connection with number 2, what kind of professions/jobs/careers do you have/hold? (I myself am a 9th grade physical science teacher with some amateur programming experience in C, C++, some assembly, and old versions of basic).

Graphic artist - I work off a Mac. Self taught on the Mac too (my boss bought the computers when they first came out in the 1980s, gave them to us and told us to figure out what to do with them) Thank goodness I learned on a Mac rather than a PC...

Originally posted by primemover
4. Is modmaking something that you do in your spare time? If so, how much of it do you have? (Currently I don't have a lot during the year... but I have A LOT during the summers).

Spare time, as well as down time on a spare PC at work. So in essence, I get paid to Mod

[Pedrunn]

1. First... am I correct in assuming that those of you who have contributed to making mods have at least some programming experience? (either professionally or as a hobby?) If so, how much?

most do have skill like Locutus, IW, Dale, Martin (?), mapfi,.... I have none. And you dont need to have to mod CTP2 all i learned was from intuitivity, question to the community and a few documentations.

What other backgrounds are represented here? What kinds of knowledge to we (you) as a group have?

To mod the text files except of the AI data (inside the aidata folder) you can get things intuitivity but it is nice to read hexagonian mod guide. To mod slic a programming languange is a bit harder it took me 2 days to read the Locutus and IW documentation about slic since i had no skill in programming language but as you may know i am the creator of the City Expansion and dozen of others code like bribery, religion,...
All info you need is compiled in this forum about modding ishere

3. what kind of professions/jobs/careers do you have/hold?

first year medicin student

4. Is modmaking something that you do in your spare time?

Lately my university is killing me.

5. A game built by the people who play the games and know what works? Even if it took a somewhat different approach (a more educational approach?)

Unfortunetly i have no programming skill but i would love to help with a new game. Even if in the late stage, ideas, fixes, balancing, testing...

[Maquiladora]

I dont consider myself overly qualified to call myself a modder around here but here goes.

Originally posted by primemover
1. First... am I correct in assuming that those of you who have contributed to making mods have at least some programming experience? (either professionally or as a hobby?) If so, how much?

I have no programming knowledge (unless html counts) and i havent really modded alot before, i just like open games that allow you to fiddle around and basically mess things up.

2. I have seen hints of various expertise... or at least a nice range of interests where people have spent time learning various things that add to the variety and fun of learning through these games... (such as hexanonians and others knowledge of the history of the various units and things used in the game and the graphical contributions) What other backgrounds are represented here? What kinds of knowledge to we (you) as a group have?

I dont bring any particular expertise, unless my sharp intellect and quick wit counts?

3. In connection with number 2, what kind of professions/jobs/careers do you have/hold? (I myself am a 9th grade physical science teacher with some amateur programming experience in C, C++, some assembly, and old versions of basic).

I have no profession, i prostitute myself into crappy jobs to support my habit.

4. Is modmaking something that you do in your spare time? If so, how much of it do you have? (Currently I don't have a lot during the year... but I have A LOT during the summers).

I have little time to mod, but I do most of the learning stuff reading this forum at work.

5. I have been impressed by the enthusiasm, teamwork, and general ability the "modders" have contributed to making a better game. I am wondering if this is the right place to find people to build a new, "bigger", "better" game from the ground up? A game built by the people who play the games and know what works? Even if it took a somewhat different approach (a more educational approach?)

I guess all game developers/programmers etc have/had an unhealthy obsession with games at some point in their careers. Have you looked in the FreeCiv forum here? They built a game from the ground up, based on Civ1 and 2, they didnt change much.

[J Bytheway]

Well, I don't really mod CTP2, but I did mod CTP and I metamod CTP2, so I thought I'd reply anyway.

Originally posted by primemover
1. First... am I correct in assuming that those of you who have contributed to making mods have at least some programming experience? (either professionally or as a hobby?) If so, how much?

I have done quite a lot of Basic and Visual Basic programming (only as a hobby). It was in VB that I wrote CTPEd, in the hope of aiding the modding community here. I've also dabbled in Java, C, C++ and more obscure languages like Inform and TADS.

2. What other backgrounds are represented here? What kinds of knowledge to we (you) as a group have?

I'm an obsessive game tinkerer (I even wrote a column about it for Apolyton once...) - I've modded everything which I can and I don't really enjoy playing a game unless I can mod it (though of late Baldur's Gate 2 has become an exception to that rule). Doom, Starcraft and CTP have been the ones which took up more time than any other - I've probably spent at least a thousand hours on each (edit: well, maybe not quite that much - but I wouldn't be surprised if it was...).

I've learnt a lot in the process about workarounds (an absolutely crucial skill) and how to use what you have available, rather than abuse what you have in an attempt to get what you want.

3. In connection with number 2, what kind of professions/jobs/careers do you have/hold? (I myself am a 9th grade physical science teacher with some amateur programming experience in C, C++, some assembly, and old versions of basic).

I'm a maths student. This tends to show through in some of my posts .

4. Is modmaking something that you do in your spare time? If so, how much of it do you have? (Currently I don't have a lot during the year... but I have A LOT during the summers).

Yes, although it will be harder now I used to spend my holidays immersed in these projects. My CTP1 Mars Mod was largely put together in one summer holiday in which I did almost nothing else - I just modded about 8 hours a day for weeks. (Well, I'm probably exaggerating, but it seemed that way...).

5. I am wondering if this is the right place to find people to build a new, "bigger", "better" game from the ground up?

I know I would really love to be involved in a project like that. I've tried several times to build my own games from scratch, but my plans were always vastly overambitious, and so I didn't get far enough. I even considered trying to rewrite FreeCiv to introduce more CTP-like concepts, but I couldn't even bring myself to begin.

[Martin the Dane]

To be absolutely honest I only made two mods for CtP ,one of witch got uploaded to apolyton, and have not even considered doing any modding for CtP2 as I to tell the truth don't even have a copy of the game.

most do have skill like ... , Martin (?), ...

As some of the modders are aware, I have programed a couple of tools for CtP-modding. So yes I have some programing experience. Unfortunately I do not have a whole lot of spare-time these days.

btw. Pedrun: Was that me or Martin you meant?

[Amesjustin]

Originally posted by primemover
1. First... am I correct in assuming that those of you who have contributed to making mods have at least some programming experience? (either professionally or as a hobby?) If so, how much?

I am pretty new to modding CTP2, and haven't released any mods on it yet, but am working on one. I have been a Programmer/DBA for almost 2 years now.

Originally posted by primemover
2. I have seen hints of various expertise... or at least a nice range of interests where people have spent time learning various things that add to the variety and fun of learning through these games... (such as hexanonians and others knowledge of the history of the various units and things used in the game and the graphical contributions) What other backgrounds are represented here? What kinds of knowledge to we (you) as a group have?

I know very little about history but love civ-type games. I have Civ2, Civ3, Alpha Centauri, CTP and CTP2. I have worked on Mods for all but CTP1, and released some minor work for Civ2 and Civ3 here on Apolyton (THE BEST site for this stuff in my book bar none). One of the Civ3 files I released was a graphic, but that has been my only venture into that area - I only have MS Paint.

I actually got my BS degree in Psychology (Psychobiology emphasis) before switching to programming. The event editor in Civ2 Gold and this website is what actually clued me into how much I love programming.

Originally posted by primemover
3. In connection with number 2, what kind of professions/jobs/careers do you have/hold? (I myself am a 9th grade physical science teacher with some amateur programming experience in C, C++, some assembly, and old versions of basic).

I am a programmer/dba working primarily with VFP 7 and SQL Server 2000 (tSQL). We are starting to work in C# pretty heavily for some modules. I also have programmed in VB6 and HTML recreationally.

Originally posted by primemover
4. Is modmaking something that you do in your spare time? If so, how much of it do you have? (Currently I don't have a lot during the year... but I have A LOT during the summers).

Used to mod quite a bit. I have almost no free time at all now - the CTP2 mod I started 2 months ago has about 3 hours of work into it with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Originally posted by primemover
5. I have been impressed by the enthusiasm, teamwork, and general ability the "modders" have contributed to making a better game. I am wondering if this is the right place to find people to build a new, "bigger", "better" game from the ground up? A game built by the people who play the games and know what works? Even if it took a somewhat different approach (a more educational approach?)

Don't know how much help I would be, but I would LOVE to contribute what I can. I did write a single-player TicTacToe game in VB6 about 2 years ago. The AI had very simple coding but was pretty damn tough at the hard level. Other than that - the only apps I have built from the ground up have been either business or personal utilities.

I'm in.

I had an idea a while back for a game called Civolution where as the game progressed, a civ would splinter off and form a new Civ, each civ developing its own culture, units, religions, advances based on the local terrain and goods and wether they were peacefull, warlike, religious, scientific, whatever.

[Immortal Wombat]

1. First... am I correct in assuming that those of you who have contributed to making mods have at least some programming experience? (either professionally or as a hobby?) If so, how much?

The very first language I programmed in (other than like 3 lines of Javascript) was in fact SLIC. Since then I've done more JS, and some Python, but nothing else.

2. What other backgrounds are represented here? What kinds of knowledge to we (you) as a group have?

I'm basically a biologist and geographer. Humanity annoys me, and my historical grounding is mostly from documentaries on TV.
As you may be able to tell from my mods. (natural disasters, natural wonders etc. )

3. In connection with number 2, what kind of professions/jobs/careers do you have/hold? (I myself am a 9th grade physical science teacher with some amateur programming experience in C, C++, some assembly, and old versions of basic).

I'm 17, studying biology, chem and maths. My part-time job is oh-so gradually shifting me into a IT admin, but no real basis in programming.
Oh yeah, and I'm phenomenally lazy (as are a high % of people here...) so we specialise in finding efficient ways to do as little as possible. Even devoting lots of time and effort to saving time and effort

4. Is modmaking something that you do in your spare time? If so, how much of it do you have? (Currently I don't have a lot during the year... but I have A LOT during the summers).

Yes. At present, very little. After next June I have a year out, so if I'm in the country, I'll have most evenings free.



Are we being recruited? What game is it you had in mind?

[Pedrunn]

Some more info. The only programming languages I know is SLIC and HTML.

About question 2 which i misunderstood:
All my history come from my high school. But keep in mind that i joint a medical school here in Brasil. So i had to have a high skill in all the subjects (it was 2,000 people to choose 90). And other than the high school since i couldnt join in the first year i tried i did a whole other year of getting deep into the subjects to try again the uni exams.
I also play civ-like games for about some years now. And this gave me interest to get history knolegde. I like history documentaries and often read GL entries

Good Question IW, I am eargely waiting for the answer

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
we specialise in finding efficient ways to do as little as possible. Even devoting lots of time and effort to saving time and effort

That's so true.

[primemover]

Hi everybody,

I appreciate those that have responded thus far... though I am hoping some of the mentioned programmers will respond:

most do have skill like Locutus, IW, Dale, Martin (?), mapfi,.... I have none.

(Pendrunn)

but to be fair and respond to those who have contributed already. Here are some comments and responses to what has been said/asked so far.

A little background on me: (so you know my answers to the questions...)

(questions 1-3) I am a physical science teacher in Houston Texas who started programming when I was about twelve. I have never had any job experience programming, but I took a few classes on it in high school and college. My first love (which ranks only slightly above computers) is science... so I (double) majored in physical science teaching (chemistry emphasis) and earth/space science teaching in college (geology emphasis). I also have a minor in psychology. I do love programming... but only things that I have an interest in. I don't have much formal experience, but I did take a class in software engineering during college.

I have a heavy background in geography, geology, and other earth/atmosphere/space sciences and would love to turn this kind of game into an opportunity to teach these subjects.

Some background info on my "project"
(more to question 3) Ultimately, my career goal is to go into educational software... especially science education software because that way I will get to combine all my major interests into one career.

(question 4). My interest in modding has been only passing because... in reality the changes I have wanted to make to CTP2 are really too big to do with a mod. Every time I am about to make my own mod... I am forced to into the same thoughs along the lines of.... "Why waste my time modding when what I really want to do can't really be done with a mod"

I am hesitant to speak my complete mind until I have heard from everyone who wants to respond... don't want anyone from making too hasty a judgement... I am serious about this... but to ease a little of the questions on your minds... I will introduce the basic idea, address current comments, questions and then the rest is up to your response... I hope to eventually get this off the ground either way.

I had a little trouble with the lack of scientific realism in the game when I first started playing it. Then, the depth of historical enthusiasm over history that you guys have brought to the game in your mods (as much as is in the game itself) inspired me... this game could be a science lesson as much as it is a history lesson.

So for some time now, I have had it in mind to redo the game with a unprecedented touch of realism from as many perspectives as possible in a pc game (i.e. scientific realism, historical realism, graphical realism, experiential realism, etc...)

Have you looked in the FreeCiv forum here? They built a game from the ground up, based on Civ1 and 2, they didnt change much.

What I have in mind doesn't resemble freeciv at all. What I have in mind will change a lot... but not the basic civ game idea. I am not talking about remaking... I am talking about a whole new game (though with some of the same basic objectives and concepts). The only "alternate civ" someone has attempted (I checked them out when Maq suggested freeciv) that remotely resembles what I envision is "Manifest Destiny." But this is a very simplistic statement... manifest destiny is still quite a ways off from what I can tell (it is VERY unfinished).

Amesjustin (in Civolution), Devil of Truth (in his own topic: "A man has to have a little bit of variety"), and many of you who have modded to add interesting features (such as megalopolis' and serious additions to "goods") have touched on what I would like to bring to the civ type game.

Now to answer the rest of...

Are we being recruited? What game is it you had in mind?

That depends on wether or not you want to be... I really would like to get this idea off the ground. I only asked the group here because of your level of enthusiasm, interest in a game like this, and the level of ability that I thought might exist... I thought something along the lines of "it never hurts to ask."

So... if anyone on this forum is interested in hearing more about what I have in mind (and its not for the fainthearted... the reason I am looking for people to help is because as J. Bytheway said...

I've tried several times to build my own games from scratch, but my plans were always vastly overambitious, and so I didn't get far enough. I even considered trying to rewrite FreeCiv to introduce more CTP-like concepts, but I couldn't even bring myself to begin.

... I am trying to clear this hurdle.) So again... if you express enough interest... I can get more of what I have in mind to you all (who are interested)... and we can get this on the drawing board. But first... to let you know of my own commitment as far as time is concened:

(Question 5) I don't have much time during the school year... but this summer I want to make a major breakthrough (basically get a prototype) of the world creation engine (it will NOT be a simple fractal pattern generator...) and farther if possible.

At the time being, I don't expect any more out of you than what I can currently put into it unless you really want to (or unless we DO get this off the drawing board and contracts become part of the picture... do I dare dream?)

Anyway... let me know what you think (and newcomers... please answer the five original questions)

[Locutus]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
That's so true.

Of course it is, that's the very definition of programming On our uni, you're not allowed to participate in some of the programming projects unless you can prove that you're lazy enough for them

To answer the original 5 questions:

1. You will be surprised to find how small the number of programmers in our community actually is. If I'm not mistaken, I'm the only one with a real programming-background. IW, Peter Triggs, J Bytheway and mapfi have a background in/talent for math, which helps a lot when programming, and I think Dale does have an ICT background but isn't necessarily a programmer (but I'm not quite sure about that, you'd have to wait for him to reply here). Not sure about Martin's background (Martin the German, that is ), but I don't think it's programming background. I myself study Computer Science and have been programming for business, education and entertainment since I was 9-10 years old or so (I'm 22 now). I have at least some experience with almost all major programming languages of today and a lot of smaller ones (of all types: functional, imperative, object-oriented, logical, etc). Java is by far my favourite though (that is, after SLIC of course ).

2. I have a 'semi-professional' interest in history, though I'm mostly just screwing around Like probably most people here, I watch a lot of history-documentaries and stuff on Discovery and the BBC and the like, visit a lot of history-related websites on the Internet and enjoy nothing more than traveling all around the globe to check out various historic locations in person. But aside from that I've also followed a few history classes on uni, read some history books, written a few essays, etc.

Similar to Amesjustin's programming interest, my interest in history is a result of modmaking activities, not a cause. Particularly Harlan's impressive work (mainly on the Alexander scenario and the MedMod2 tech tree, but also his Civ2 scenarios) has inspired me to study history.

3. Like I said above, I'm a student in Computer Science, specializing in the field of (Object Oriented) Software Engineering, so my future professional career will probably actually be in designing software. Once I'm done with my study, I'll probably be too expensive to do much programming work but I'm enjoying every minute of it now

4. Well, at the moment I don't have any spare time, which explains why I haven't done much modding work lately, but yes, I mod in my spare time. Oddly enough, I can't seem to find any employers willing to pay me for making CtP2 mods The thing is though, one week I have 0 hours to spend on modding and the next I have 20+ (but I waste most of that on Apolyton these days, rather than modding), so I couldn't tell what I'm doing 2 weeks from now.

5. Most of us probably don't have the time for projects like that but if you check out the Alt-Civ section here on Apolyton you'll see that there have been many such projects over the past few years (including one by our very own Dale), some successful, but most not quite as much. So, although I'm not sure about the CtP2 community, Apolyton in general is definitely a place to look for people enthousiastic for such a project. However, maintaining interest over a period of several years (basically anything above 9 months) turns out to be very difficult if you don't know the people IRL. The only really successful projects so far have been FreeCiv and Clash of Civilizations and I do believe that at least some of the FreeCiv people occassionally meet IRL (and the Clash-guru Mark Everson is just too stubborn to give up ). One of the latest projects, Candle'Bre, might just also turn out to be a success - but there too a very inspirational leader (Velocyrix) and IIRC several people knowing each other IRL will be the main drives behind that success.


As far as your game project goes, it sounds very much like Clash to me, your ideas might fit in with the Clash design quite nicely, although I somehow have the feeling you'd prefer make this your own project rather than joining an existing group.

Designing a game from scratch is a huge undertaking, J Bytheway does indeed describe the dilemma well: usually a group of people enthousiastically starts working on something but after a few months they still haven't made much progress and morale starts to decline. Eventually the sheer scale of designing a revolutionary new game from scratch is just too overwhelming for most people, and the only way to overcome it is by sheer persistence and a refusal to give up (and having IRL meetings to constantly keep track of progress and help each other out when things get rough).

IMHO Clash is a great example of this: they quickly released 4 initial demos (their version of early releases) with very limited functionality, but then they found out that the scale of the game was much, much larger than they ever anticipated and they had to do a complete overhaul of the code to deal with this. The design of demo 5 slowed to a crawl and morale gradually declined and more and more people abandoned the project. Mark Everson is *extremely* stubborn though and after almost 2 years or so he, with the help of only 1 or 2 other active programmers, finally managed to release demo 5. Now the project is gradually picking up pace again and demo 7.1 has already been released with D8 on the way, with more and more functionality actually being added to the game all the time - now it's even almost fun to play But if I'm not mistaken it took them something like 4-5 years to get where they are now and they still have only implemented maybe 10% of what they want to implement. Most commercial games are developed in half that time. Even the most patient and persistent people don't have that much time (IIRC Mark Everson is the only current project member who's been involved since day 1).

To really make a projects like this work you basically need a group of at least 10 enthousiastic and persistent programmers who can afford to spend at least 10-15 hours a week on this and you to have a very, very good idea of what the design of the game should be like and clear planning and procedures on how to get there. Also, ideally everyone should meet at least once a week IRL to discuss progress, evaluate the results and help each other out where needed, experience shows that the Internet is simply not a good medium for this. A clear leader who's calling the shots is also needed, something which most Internet projects also sorely lack (damn egalitarian Internet nerds ). But even all this is no guarantee for success. Keep in mind that something like 75% of all professional software design projects doesn't finish before the original deadline, costs aboust 200% more than it's suppossed to and usually doesn't even yield satisfactory results (I pulled these statistics from my arse but I've seen a lot of statistics on this and I can't be too far off).

The reasons why the CtP1/2 mods are so successful where Alt-Civ games fail:
1) We're not designing a game from scratch, 90% of the (boring and difficult) work has already been done for us: most of the programming, the art, the sounds, the UI, etc. Designing a CtP mod 'from scratch' in your spare time takes maybe 3-6 months, compared to at least 3-6 years for a full game.
2) Most mods have a clear 'leader' who does all the designing and a bunch of volunteers to make art, write SLIC, write GL entries, etc. The actual design, the stuff that can lead to endless discussions that take up weeks without leading to any results, is in the end usually all done by one person (even though plenty of brainstorming is done by the entire community). This significantly reduces the amount of bureaucracy and senseless discussions. When designing a full game from scratch, the sheer scale of the project forces you to work with more than one designer and you end up spending more time discussing than programming. Also, with such a huge project which requires such a large investment of all involved, even the least important project members will want to have a say in what the design is going to look like. In professional programming teams there's usually a clear hierarchy to keep this in check but even here this doesn't always work.
3) We can build on each other's experience. Most mods are incremental, they improve on some earlier version/project rather than taking the original game as starting point. The basic principles of the very first mods of CtP1 (CD's mod and the like) can in some form or another still be seen in the latest version of Cradle. Given enough time, (we've had 2 years for CtP1 and another 2+ for CtP2) this is bound to give results, even if the time and manpower are limited. When designing your own game, you usually start from scratch. But even if you don't, you need to be very familiar with the design and code of a previous project if you want to work off that but the documentation of such project is usually not great. And because people are often just screwing around or change their mind about their objectives after a year or so, Alt-Civ projects usually have to completely throw out everything they had and start all over again at least once.

I hope I didn't scare you too much

[Dale]

Firstly, the questions:

1. In reality, no commercial experience. However, I have written a number of little apps, games and utils in VC++ 6.0, including the little attempt at my own civ game in the Alt-Civs forum (which BTW is only "on hold").

2. I'm one of those people who's sick of the Euro-American centric view of history. As you'll see from my upcoming mod Ages of Man, the tech tree in fact contains a LOT of techs that are based on the time that the middle-east or Asia (predominately China) discovered them. In reality, Europe was slow in discovery. It wasn't till gunpowder that Europe was able to overtake the lead of Asia and Middle-East.

3. I'm in computer desktop support/network administration. Have been since 1997.

4. Yes, in my spare time, but I have hardly any right now. Especially since it's all being eaten by EU2 and AOM.

5. I'm interested, but can't promise anything. Maybe after march next year, but definitely no time till then.

Hope that's answered ya questions.

[LDiCesare]

5. I have been impressed by the enthusiasm, teamwork, and general ability the "modders" have contributed to making a better game. I am wondering if this is the right place to find people to build a new, "bigger", "better" game from the ground up? A game built by the people who play the games and know what works? Even if it took a somewhat different approach (a more educational approach?)

I don't want to threadjack, but...

Hi! I have to direct you to The Clash Of Civilizations project here. There are some people who are trying to make a civ game from scratch, which is not freeciv, and has complete models on economy, military, social, politics, and, of course, geology and such.
Look at the forums in the Alternate Civs section. There are other projects there too, but I honestly think Clash is what you would like most, as we have lots of models which try to simulate something realistic. There is very little random map generation now, and you would find it ugly. Still, developping a game is very time-consuming. Either you can get someone programming full-time (like neonext) or you can get some people working off-work (like me), and these tend to need lots of time to get work done. Check our threads and model. If you have proposals, they would be welcome. One of the limitations of the current random-maps and why we didn't go very far was that the models are not enough described in terms of numbers/stuff programmers want/need. So if you have figures, formulas, whatever to contribute...
Locutus' long diatribe (which I first skipped because it was too long and now repent so I am editing this because all his analysis is excellent) is excellent. Did I say it was excellent? Very good description of the problems one can meet designing a game. You have to realize that getting demos is easy, getting most of functionalities in is hard, that not getting feedback causes despair, and that a talented full-time/almost-full-time programmer can boost a project enormously (most of the progress in Clash D5 to 7 was thanks to the huge involvement of Gary Thomas for instance).

More on-topic, I don't mod much (only for myself as I tend to use my community time on Clash - but I mod Clash too), but I think it doesn't require programming skills. It is more of history/graphics skills, except for slics in CtP2 and in a very limited extent events in civ2.

[Pedrunn]

I dont know if a would want to make the perfect game from the ground. I rather make the perfect mod ever using CTP modding ability. After all, we could have a lot of work for years and still dont come out with a good stuff. This would be real disapointing.
Do you or anyone else wants to make a CTP2 mod with me? This i am sure i can help you a lot and i would love to do it.
I already started a mod but balancing is too hard and time consming. I would love to start from scratch a mod if i could slit this task with someone

Of course there are four things i cant mod in CTP2 to make the game the way i want.

1) TRADE SYSTEM - The least was going to be the possibility to buy goods from another civilizations through the trade screen rather than sell my own goods as it is in the current games (Sometimes i think about getting back to CTP1 because of this feature but i dont know the powers of the CTP1 slic machinery) this way I could mod this trade system to have a good strategic resources system this is one of the reasons i dont feel much like using the ideas for the trade system I posted in this forum. But if i could i would re-do all trade system.

2) REAL COMBAT - Has anyone ever played Caesar 2 (didnt play the 3 though) or Homeworld? I wish i could make battle screen where you could actually control your army formation and attacks groups (with the possibility to disable this kind of control if you dont feel like doing this).

3) POWER TO MOD UI - I wish we could add graphics and values in the screens rather than doing all through messageboxes and only exchange graphics.

4) TERRAIN NAMING - I wish we could name the tiles and these names would show up in the map, Thos gives so much more atmosphere.

Couldnt you hack the source code and add these features? this would be trully great As for all the rest of my ideas, I do believe could be modded or the current way looks good enough.

[Martin the Dane]

Pedrun I hope you realize that what you ask would mean that we would either have to get the source-code from Activision or decompile the whole game. (I guess you do.)
The first is not very likely, while the second, apart from being illegal, is, if not impossible, then extremely difficult.

I'm afraid that it would be both more productive (and a lot less work) to build a new game from scratch. So If we could persuade the Clash people to make everything so costumizeable that it would be possible to make a "CtP3 as it would have been" version. I think that will be the easiest way. But then again Clash is so fundamentally different from CtP that I don't think it's possibel.

Well I have been wrong befor. And never is such a final word.

[primemover]

Great guys... I appreciate the last few posts. To respond to them...

Ultimately... I may decide to work with the clash team... because although their project isn't exactly what I had in mind... it is closer than anything I have seen. And they WANT suggestions. If they want me to work with them and will listen to what I have to say... I may work with them

But meanwhile, to keep the play time going every once in a while...

Do you or anyone else wants to make a CTP2 mod with me? This i am sure i can help you a lot and i would love to do it.

I would not mind creating a new mod... but I have some conditions.

I do NOT have the time to create a mod from the ground up. There are some GREAT mods already in existence... even though I have my complaints about all of them.

What we should do, is analyze the strengths and weaknesses of all the mods, decide which mods have what we want... then we should take all the best things, put them together... and add some code to change some of the things we want...

There is another thread here that is talking about some of the changes/additions I would like to make, were it possible. (specifically the map).

Pendrunn... Martin may be right. Some of your "desires" would be difficult, if not impossible, from a slic point of view except perhaps one or two. I think it might be possible to "label" parts of a map as you suggest. We may try building a "city without effect" to put a label on the map (maybe build costless character that can "claim" territory for our country that builds a "city" that does not give us anything except claim over a territory and a name to go with it.... I have often been annoyed at the fact that I cannot claim a small section of a continent I have conquered just because I do not have a city nearby. If it was that way in real life... half of Nevada and Kansas would not be US territory!)

We may also be able to mod the trade system... depending on what you want to do... but as I am not completely familiar with SLIC (except what I have seen others do), I cannot say this for sure.

Now... for LDiCesare, I have a few questions.

Even before your message, I was strongly considering joining your development team... at least from a suggestions standpoint. I would love to help... especially if you are still open to new ideas or suggestions. I have taken a look at Clash and do like the attempt to incorporate at least scientific realism. I have one major gripe about C;ash though:

Clash is written in JAVA, and I CANNOT STAND JAVA from a game perspective. Java is the IDEAL language for OOP, but it requires an interpreter (i.e. a virtual machine) which is a pain in the a** for games AND does not allow the use of practical graphics interface (IE DirectX or even OpenGL) as far as I know... though I just looked it up at google. It seems there is an OpenGL interface for Java... Is Clash using this at all?

I realize that Java makes the game available regardless of platform... but that platform must use an interface that translates the virtual machine code. This seriously affects the processing speed of the game. What is the reason behind using JAVA for Clash?

How do I "join" or get on the clash team?

NOW BACK TO THE TOPIC OF DISCUSSION...

I think ultimately Martin is right. Those of us who want changes on a grand scale should participate (at least to some degree) in the development of a new game... and uphold the ability to make the game MODDABLE! Right now Clash looks the most promising (though I would like to add some major features... I have some suggestions for a game that uses an actual GLOBE... something I have wanted from the beginning for ALL Civ games...

[Pedrunn]

Primeover and Martin, I can SLIC as you cans see in some of my works like the city expansion, the Religion Code (together with mapfi), the Civ3 Barbarian Encampment, the get advance from city capture code, the Bribe code (in the last post of the thread), the New Updater for Craddle (just like the other but instead of upgrading when dicovering an advance you update when entrech when a army with obsolete units entrench ir do another order to choose inside a city) and others i havent released like the nuclear explosion risk code and the get leaders (units that make all the unit under his stack veteran) from special events code.

Not to mention the ones to go like the trade system i propose in which i do believe everything i wrote in that post is possibe.

All the four things i mentioned is what i dream about and i do know it is impossible unless if in a new game or a change in the source code. As i said all the rest of my dreams is possible thorugh slic or some work around. Prime, As for number 2 the colony as you said was me who come out with the idea but the idea mess up the national screen so i dont think it is such a good one.

I guess you are more interested with the creation of a new game. And i do believe if i had programming ability other than SLIC and free time i probably would like to see my ideas in a new game. Still if you want to you help me with the creation if you want but I can do it on my own what i am really interested is the balancing, editing, fixing and specially ideas even for the basic stuff like units and tech tree (BTW do you have an tech tree already?) or more advanced ones like new concepts.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi All:

Now that I found out from primemover about the existence of this thread, I thought I'd step by and check it out! I hope my comments are welcome here, and just in case they're not, I'll only reply back if spoken to. . .

Thanks Locutus for the detailed post letting everyone here know about the Alt Civs section, and your crude history of the Clash project.

I'm glad that several of you from this thread have already stopped by the Clash forum, and checked out the latest demo! Anyone else that is interested please come by. We need everything from brief comments, to careful analyses, to new artwork, to full committment to the project.

Originally posted by primemover
Now... for LDiCesare, I have a few questions.

Even before your message, I was strongly considering joining your development team... at least from a suggestions standpoint. I would love to help... especially if you are still open to new ideas or suggestions. I have taken a look at Clash and do like the attempt to incorporate at least scientific realism. I have one major gripe about C;ash though:

Clash is written in JAVA, and I CANNOT STAND JAVA from a game perspective. Java is the IDEAL language for OOP, but it requires an interpreter (i.e. a virtual machine) which is a pain in the a** for games AND does not allow the use of practical graphics interface (IE DirectX or even OpenGL) as far as I know... though I just looked it up at google. It seems there is an OpenGL interface for Java... Is Clash using this at all?

I realize that Java makes the game available regardless of platform... but that platform must use an interface that translates the virtual machine code. This seriously affects the processing speed of the game. What is the reason behind using JAVA for Clash?

I think Java has a lot of advantages for games. Only for the most absolute cutting-edge graphics would Java be a bad choice. Clash doesn't, and never will have cutting-edge graphics, but we think that the depth of the rest of the game will make up for that, YMMV. At any rate, we now have tens of thousands of lines of Java code, so that's what we're using. . .

For those interested in more details, this issue comes up frequently. I'll direct you to theJava Game Programming thread over in the Clash forum.

Good luck in creating a killer CTP2 mod, to those of you who want to go in that direction! For those who want something more revolutionary, its a LOT of work, but we'd love to have you in the Clash project. If Clash doesn't sufficiently match your interests, please consider one of the other Alt Civs projects rather than starting something new. The existing projects need a critical mass of committed people to succeed, and every new small project sucks off talent from the limited pool of people willing to really work to bring an Alt Civ game to life!

Regards,

[primemover]

I am interested in helping with a collaborative mod... at least to some extent, because I don't completely like the mods that exist into their entirety.

The thing I really like about CTP2 is to explore the world and to progress to a superpower with a worthy opponent superpower or two. The major mods just don't work like this:

Medieval mod has a really good tech tree and units... but the AI is terrible. (sorry Wes) It is easier to beat the AI in Medieval than in the original game (mainly because the AI is too eager to get into treaties and because the tech tree progresses too fast after the ancient age)

Cradle has a really good government and AI... but the AI is too aggressive in the beginning to allow me to do the exploring I like to do. The other empires are also very unstable. I get into a treaty with them and then they come sack my cities for no apparent reason whatsoever. (I can't trust anyone). I constantly have to watch my back. And all those dang natural disasters don't help (Plagues shouldn't always affect a majority of your empire... especially in the beginning because of the lack of traveling far that existed in the ancient days) The game also progresses way to slow for my taste. I like the speed of the original game... (thats about the only thing I like about the original game other than the idea). Basically, when I first start cradle, I get bored… and then as soon as things start to happen, I get frustrated because as soon as I can do something, I am stabbed in the back by my friendly neighbor for no apparent reason, and I have already been at war for years with the unfriendly one.

I like to explore and establish my goal in the game first... then I like to duke it up with an aggressive opponent who gets in the way of those goals. Basically Medieval Mod makes my goals to easy, and Cradle makes my goals too slow (and to unpredictably difficult) to achieve with satisfaction.

What I would like to do is modify cradle so that it has a more interesting tech (and unit) tree, so that it moves a bit quicker (and has a good long future age span), has all the bells and whistles of the other nice mods, and delays its aggressive tendancies until the late medieval age. And of course we can implement some of these new (Pendrunn's) ideas as well.

But in the end, I must be careful with my time and commitments... school is very demanding of my time.

[primemover]

Hi mark... read your response on clash. Posted an update with general goals for what I had in mind. Thanks for the visit.