Civilization 4 (and Beyond the Sword) Catch-All

That's right. It's been two and a half four years and I'm making a catch-all thread. I figure with the recent Steam sales and the 2 massive pitboss games going on, we need a thread for the game! Plus at least one person has recent lamented the lack of one.

So, the main reason I'm starting the thread is to ask: what mods are you guys playing? My main interest is in a mod that introduces some future tech units. Realistic sci-fi units beyond the stealth bomber, mech infantry, and modern armor. (Watching Avatar, I kept thinking "Why can't I have scorpion gunships and mechs in Civ4?") Anyone know a mod that adds units like these and is actually any good?

Links:
GWJ Civ4 Group

It's not installed on my system now, because Civ 4 and the expansions are the gaming equivalent of hazardous materials. A Civ 4 game will unyieldingly suck away all time into it's gaping maw of entertainment.

Regarding mods, I'm all about Fall from Heaven 2. That mod is the biggest reason I never need to see another 4x turn-based fantasy game for a loooong time.

It's actually more like 4+ years since the game came out (October 2005) and 2.5 since Beyond the Sword (Summer 2007). Which is kind of amazing - the game has aged really well in my opinion. I rebought it on steam a few months back so I'd never have to worry about tracking down the discs. It's a game I can see myself continuing to play for many years still, unless Civ5 (whenever that comes out) completely blows it out of the water.

I don't play with too many mods, but I do know that Beyond the Sword launched with a few space scenarios included.

Civilization . . . ? What's that?

The only mod I have for this game, like Budo mentions, is Fall From Heaven 2. It's a spectacular achievement, sort of like Magna Mundi for EU3 ... which just got it's own game.

Scaphism wrote:

It's actually more like 4+ years since the game came out (October 2005) and 2.5 since Beyond the Sword (Summer 2007).

Whoops, I was looking at the date for the latest patch.

Which is kind of amazing - the game has aged really well in my opinion. I rebought it on steam a few months back so I'd never have to worry about tracking down the discs. It's a game I can see myself continuing to play for many years still, unless Civ5 (whenever that comes out) completely blows it out of the water.

I don't play with too many mods, but I do know that Beyond the Sword launched with a few space scenarios included.

From what I remember, most of the packaged mods do much more than simply add more units, they make some big changes to gameplay. Final Frontier, for example, is entirely in space and I didn't like it very much at all. Next War, as I recall, only added a couple of new futuristic units. Afterworld is built to turn the game into a tactical turn-based squad combat game.

I'm looking into "Next War Advanced".

Err, okay. Just tried my first game of Next War Advanced:

IMAGE(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2781/4298816017_38bb0672a5_o.jpg)

Is there an Alpha Centauri mod yet?

Eezy_Bordone wrote:

Is there an Alpha Centauri mod yet?

In fact, there is. I saw this today: Planetfall

Turns out that Next War Advanced isn't compatible with the Scientific Victory, so I just have to turn it off. NWA is a mod compilation and apparently not everything in it works together right.

I've played a bit of Planetfall. Not bad, actually, though when I played it (last Spring, I believe) it felt very unfinished. Missing text, button, etc.

If folks have info on big total conversions or major changes to gameplay, please share. I have a tough time finding info on the big mods.

When Civ4 came out I started working on an Alpha Centauri mod, but, well, running a mod project is a lot of work - more than I could sustain while being full-time employed. I had high ambitions for something that would take SMAC in a new direction with Civ4's new mechanics.

Anyway... I was very, very close to popping the Civ4 disc out of its purposefully hard-to-reach location (all the better to keep me from playing).... why the hell did you start this thread??

Jam3 and I have been playing a lot of this as of late, and managed to get Dax, Gaald and Petrified in a few games. That said, I am always down for some Civ 4, just hit me up on steam.

Anderkoo wrote:

Anyway... I was very, very close to popping the Civ4 disc out of its purposefully hard-to-reach location (all the better to keep me from playing).... why the hell did you start this thread??

[color=red]Because I am evil.[/color]

A great "expansion" type mod for CIV BTS is Legends of Revolution. It adds a revolution concept into the game. Cities and colonies now have all kinds of modifiers attached to a new revolutions number. Cities can revolt and form new civs, conquered civs can form partisan rebels, and barbarian cities can, if left alone, form entirely new civs and cultures (terra maps can, for example, include native civs which are far behind in technology.)

They also throw in some world units which, like world wonders, are limited to one per game. TBH I don't particularly care for them but you may

Another great mod is Rhye's and Fall of Civilization. It was included in BTS but make sure you look here and get the latest version for the best experience. This is easily the best Earth mod for CIV. It places each civ in their geographic location AND historical TIME. US for example, will form around 1770s, Babylon will collapse when Persia spawns and conquers them, etc. Of course there is plenty of room for historical INaccuracy too

RFC RAND for the same idea applied to a random-ish map

In addition to the aforementioned Fall From Heaven mod, these are the only other mods I've had a lot of positive experience with so far. There is a lot of other great mods out there, but I haven't really given them a shot yet.

I played a little bit of Next War Advanced and this compilation is just insane. It adds so much stuff that I'm simply at a loss for what to do. Just at the very start of the game there's at least twice as many beginning techs to research, and an assload of new super-early buildings, units, and even religions. It's overwhelming.

Civ4 is overwhelming for me on its own. Most of the time I just put it on the ultimate wuss difficulty mode and fumble my way through it.

Ok, I'm wondering wether to join the GWJ Civ IV group, is my life destined to be spent playing this game from now on, should I decide to join? Is there hope for peace of mind once you allow the maelstrom that a Civ Multiplayer game surely is to suck you in its swirl? Please reply yes and no respectively

feeank wrote:

Ok, I'm wondering wether to join the GWJ Civ IV group, is my life destined to be spent playing this game from now on, should I decide to join? Is there hope for peace of mind once you allow the maelstrom that a Civ Multiplayer game surely is to suck you in its swirl? Please reply yes and no respectively

To put your mind at ease, there's been no traffic through the GWJ Civ4 group in at least a year. It was originally used to organize the Sunday simultaneous-move games and we haven't had one of those in forever.

If you want a "Rise and Rule" or "Double your Pleasure" (both Civ 3 mods) feel, I highly recommend the Rise of Mankind along with A New Dawn mods.

It has the above mentioned revolution mod (VERY hard!), a lot of the BAT UI mods along with a ton of additional techs, units, religions, civics, buildings and the like. It also has a couple of additional ages going into the future. Yes, it has mechs.

Highly recommended. It's like a whole new civ.

At the very least I'll recommend the BUG mod. It should be multiplayer compatible and adds a lot of nice stuff to the UI -- my favorite being a dot map.*

* Dot maps contain markers for potential city sites.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I played a little bit of Next War Advanced and this compilation is just insane. It adds so much stuff that I'm simply at a loss for what to do. Just at the very start of the game there's at least twice as many beginning techs to research, and an assload of new super-early buildings, units, and even religions. It's overwhelming.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I hope I'm wrong), but the thread on that Next War Advanced implies that you need to run in 1024*768 resolution. I can't play in that resolution anymore; it's just too archaic!

Sota wrote:

At the very least I'll recommend the BUG mod. It should be multiplayer compatible and adds a lot of nice stuff to the UI -- my favorite being a dot map.*

* Dot maps contain markers for potential city sites.

I always just use Alt-S and drop a sign at potential city sites. The BUG mod really does have a lot of great stuff, though!

Farscry wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong (I hope I'm wrong), but the thread on that Next War Advanced implies that you need to run in 1024*768 resolution. I can't play in that resolution anymore; it's just too archaic!

I ran it windowed at 1400x900 and it was fine. I'm not sure what the resolution requirement is all about.

Even better than BUG, a merged BUG, BULL (more interface enhancement) and BetterAI mod.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpo...

By far the best mod I've played is Fall From Heaven II (the full mod, not the scenario that comes in BtS). In fact, it might be the best fantasy turn-based strategy game I've ever played (and yes, I've played Master of Magic, Fantasy General, HoMM, and Age of Wonders).

See also: Tom Chick's Fall From Heaven II game diaries.

Man, I'd like to play Fall From Heaven II now. Sounds most excellent.

Is the Fall From Heaven scenario included in BtS the one where evil Professor Winter sweeps across the land regularly, wiping out your improvements? That was a cool mod, but I found it crazy-difficult to make headway.

I'll echo Mr_Popov and highly recommend Rhye's and Fall of Civilization and Legends of Revolution.

Rhye's is really a masterpiece, especially if you've been able to follow its development since the early days of Rhye's of Civilization for Civ3. It keeps the normal civ flavor intact but adapts it to create a plausible and fun earth experience with a couple of new systems such as stability, historical start dates, and country specific AI. My personal favorite Civilization mod.

I like Legends of Revolution because it is a convenient and polished package of the best (in my view) modifications for a standard random map civ game. Most of the main features are toggleable too, so you can pick and choose what you want without the hassle of downloading and merging them yourself. The highlights in my book are BUG & BULL, BetterAI (which has pretty much become a community standard), RevDCM, and Influence Driven War. It also expands the ethnic unit are selections -- always a plus.

My final recommendation is the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire mod. I haven't gotten to put as much time into the Civ4 version as I'd like, but I've certainly done some and can attest that it is very similar to the superb Civ3 mod of the same name. For the Civ3 version I was fairly involved as a tester for a while and really grew to love that project, so perhaps this recommendation should be taken with a grain of salt

Got my long-distance fiance hooked on this, though I think we've put more time in side by side. Only played Vanilla so far. Still seems to have a lot of replay value. Catherine the Great (creative/financial + Cossacks) is OP.

There's probably a fan patch that addresses this -- I wish wish wish there was an option to turn off the "so-and-so bunch of sh*tbag whining little f*cks wants to rightfully spurn your magnanimous, benevolent rule and defect to those bunch of donkey-raping douchebags" yes/no pop-ups you get any time a distant city even slightly borders another civ.

Because not only is it broken to have a city at 5% foreign culture ask to flip, there's nothing "rightful" about it. In fact, it's their inclusion of the word "rightfully" in that little pop-up dialog that really gets my goat. I always say no. 90% of the time it's a city I rightfully conquered; why would I want to just give them back. The other 10% of the time it just plain makes no sense.

Lord help me I have just installed this via Steam last night and am waiting for it to finish updating to the full set of expansions.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

There's probably a fan patch that addresses this -- I wish wish wish there was an option to turn off the "so-and-so bunch of sh*tbag whining little f*cks wants to rightfully spurn your magnanimous, benevolent rule and defect to those bunch of donkey-raping douchebags" yes/no pop-ups you get any time a distant city even slightly borders another civ.

Because not only is it broken to have a city at 5% foreign culture ask to flip, there's nothing "rightful" about it. In fact, it's their inclusion of the word "rightfully" in that little pop-up dialog that really gets my goat. I always say no. 90% of the time it's a city I rightfully conquered; why would I want to just give them back. The other 10% of the time it just plain makes no sense.

I never, ever, yield to those silly requests...pfftt...I also try to be the intelectual light of the world to avoid this kind of situations.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

There's probably a fan patch that addresses this -- I wish wish wish there was an option to turn off the "so-and-so bunch of sh*tbag whining little f*cks wants to rightfully spurn your magnanimous, benevolent rule and defect to those bunch of donkey-raping douchebags" yes/no pop-ups you get any time a distant city even slightly borders another civ.

Because not only is it broken to have a city at 5% foreign culture ask to flip, there's nothing "rightful" about it. In fact, it's their inclusion of the word "rightfully" in that little pop-up dialog that really gets my goat. I always say no. 90% of the time it's a city I rightfully conquered; why would I want to just give them back. The other 10% of the time it just plain makes no sense.

You can turn off culture flipping in the game options. No mod needed.