Something Occurred to Me

yes check here www.i-mod-productions.com/ in the downloads section I have dozens of mods there plus lots made by other modders.

besides what mod are you looking for???

Yeah, mods are still alive and kicking.  With ToTA at least, there are mod tools available to do some of the tedious XML tasks (look in GalCiv2\Twilight\Tools).

It takes a while sometimes to add new wrinkles to them.  Especially when your hard disk dies and you have to start from almost scratch.

To give you an idea of how active things are, the newest mod that I made (Space Weapons Fix II) was downloaded 32 times in the past ten days.  That's pretty good considering it's not in the library and there's no huge publicity.

As far as actually releasing a mod goes, you will need to find some kind of a file host, upload your mod, and link to the finished or in-progress mod.  Whenever you start a new post here you'll have the option to give an external link for people to click on.  You can also edit your original post in order to provide updates and updated links.

Well, I certainly understand your thinking.  I more or less share your opinion on the first point.  The same could be said of many After Action Reports. They start up with a flare then die off without any notice, never to be finished.  I also understand the underlying cause.  It's easy to get all excited and say "I'm going to make this awesome AAR/story/mod!"  Then you get started and find out that it takes a lot of work.  They your initial enthusiasm wears off and fatigue sets in.  Next thing you know you're burnt out.  You walk away and just never get up the drive to go back.

This isn't something that can be done on a burst of inspiration or an awesome idea.  It takes a certain dedication and a real desire to put out a finished product.  It's also not as easy as it seems.  I've seen a number of posts from people who have tried to make some custom techs "but the AI doesn't research them."  After extensive work aimed entirely at improving the way the AI researches techs, I can say that it's not in any way a trivial matter or a small part of a mod.  Just trying to deal with tech research could be the wall that stops many mods from seeing release.

Then there's playtesting, which is quite time consuming.  Heck, seems like most games are released with little or no playtesting these days.  Of course, they make sure it loads and starts up.  Balance?  Playability?  Maybe not so much . . .

As for the xmls being cluttered and sloppy . . . yeah.  I eventually broke down and spent an entire session just cleaning up the TechTree xml so I wouldn't be wasting so much time searching through scattered techs and unnecessary code.  It's fair to say that plain old sloppiness and poor finishing is the root cause of the TechTree problems in Twilight.  I guess there was a release deadline in there somewhere.  What else can be said?  It takes time and effort to make code pretty and efficient; and these skilled programmers aren't getting paid to make pretty code, are they?  As soon as time concerns trump quality, which is pretty much all the time, you end up with the sloppy rush-jobs that are the cause our gaming woes.

Thanks for the perspectives, all.

@ foxthree - I've actually used your fix mod.  It was what inspired me to take a stab at altering the tech tree myself.  I've also looked through your thread and as Tolmekian pointed out, I'm paying very careful attention to AI values regarding priority and tradability.

@ Marvinkosh - I agree that I've seen lots of them in the library and elsewhere, but so few seem finished and they haven't been touched in more than a year in most cases.  Just very unfortunate when so many of the unfinished ones seemed like they'd have been so much fun.

Also, do you have any suggestions for hosts?  I don't know yet how big this mod will be, but I can't imagine it'll be small with everything I'll have to change because of the way I'm changing the tech tree.

@ Tolmekian - I myself spent a good 3 hours "organizing" the TechTree.xml for the very purpose of not having to hunt everything down.  That alone was almost enough to change my mind about modding.  But I need the practice, I need to accept the requirements of the work, and I refuse to leave it unfinished.

As mentioned above, I'm paying close attention to how much value the AI puts on various techs, so hopefully with a little trial and error I should get them to do what I want.

Deadlines are understandable, but I'm sure the time they could've invested early on to keep things "clean" would've been much less than the time they spent fixing errors later because of sloppiness.  That's pretty much how it always works with all of life.  Do it right the first time and there will be less to correct later, and it'll be easier to do so if necessary.  Ah well.

Well I certainly never came to the modding scene all bright-eyed and eager.  I knew from modding a few other games that it wasn't going to be easy and that some things are not always doable.

It's fair to say that fixing and finishing those aspects of the game which lack is a strong motivation.  When I can play a game against the AI and think 'Hey, those guys gave me a run for my money!' then I may stop and say it's done.  In the early game it seems that the AI can now pose a serious threat, but later in the game they lack the smarts to protect their assets from attack.  I've been seriously thinking about adding more starbase fortification modules, because if an AI bases its economy on the control of resources, it's very easy to wipe that economy out.  Just pop the starbases.

Conversely, if I base my research strategy around making at least one super research planet thronged with starbases, the AI should make a point of wresting control of that planet away from me, because once that's done, all those starbases are doing practically nothing for me, until I take back the planet.

I have a question out of sheer curiosity.

Is it at all possible to alter or create super abilities?  I'm doubtful they can be created any more than whole new base abilities can be created, but can they be altered?  I generally don't like them as-is, and if I can alter them, I will.  If not, I'll just ignore them entirely.

Oh, and one other thing, the "InterestRatesAbility"; what exactly is the relationship?  Do higher values reduce purchase costs or something?

Ok ok, I lied, there's more.

Is it possible to alter or create Government types?

Last thing, I swear.

I took a stab at creating a new tech, and as far as the game is concerned, it doesn't exist.

Here's what I did ...

Inside of (Terran_TechTree.xml)

<Culture ID="PlanetGov">

<Group>None</Group>
<WillingnessToTrade>0</WillingnessToTrade>

</Culture>

Inside of (TechTree.xml)

<Culture ID="PlanetGov">

<Group>None</Group>
<WillingnessToTrade>0</WillingnessToTrade>
<DisplayName>Planetary Government</DisplayName>
<Cost>0</Cost>
<Description>The first step in becoming a Type 1 civilization, increasing overall government efficiency.</Description
<Details>After centuries of political, cultural, and ethnic strife; our people have finally set aside their differences and united in common interests under the banner of a single global government.  This momentously auspicious day will live forever in our history as the first milestone in our journey to the stars.</Details>
<Requires>InterGov</Requires>
<Category>Government</Category>
<Model>stardemoc0</Model>
<DiplomacyAbility>5</DiplomacyAbility>
<SocialProductionAbility>5</SocialProductionAbility>
<MilitaryProductionAbility>5</MilitaryProductionAbility>
<CultureAbility>5</CultureAbility>
<ResearchAbility>5</ResearchAbility>
<MoraleAbility>5</MoraleAbility>
<EconomicsAbility>5</EconomicsAbility>
<TradeAbility>5</TradeAbility>
<AIValue>100</AIValue>

</Culture>

Now, this isn't representative of what I'm trying to accomplish, it's just an attempt to create a new tech.  So all I'm looking for is whatever I may have forgotten or done wrong that would make the game ignore it entirely.  Or am is it simply not possible to create entirely new techs from scratch?

From what I've gathered, you don't necessarily need to add an entry to TechTree.xml to make it work.  Just the specific race tech tree you want to affect.  The tech tree editor does this for you anyway if you edit a particular race's tech tree.

I figured as much, but there will be several cases where I'll have to add completely new techs to TechTree.xml, or my original plan won't work and I'll have to do something else.

For instance, while no race will have access to more than 20 culture techs or so at most, I'll need at least 60 in the base TechTree.xml file, and that's just for the culture category.  This is the general structure I'm intending with ALL branches.

Tech I Mk I  -->  Tech II Mk I  -->  Tech III Mk I  -->  Tech IV Mk I  -->  Tech V Mk I

Tech I Mk II  --> Tech II Mk II  --> Tech III Mk II --> Tech IV Mk II

Tech I Mk III --> Tech II Mk III --> Tech III Mk III

Tech I Mk IV  --> Tech II Mk IV

Tech I Mk V

Races that get all the way up to Mk IV in a given tech group, don't get the higher level techs.  Those that get all five techs, can't get the "improved versions" in any such group.  It highlights the difference between specialization and generalization.  Races that get only two techs can research 4 "upgrades", 3 and 3, and finally 4 and 2.  This creates a pattern where some races will get 5 (1:5, 5:1) research options, some will get 8 (2:4, 4:2), and a few will get 9 (3:3).  Those that get fewer selections will get techs specific to their type of race that provide them some other advantage in that category, 1 for the 8's, 4 for the 5's.  I also plan on expanding greatly on alignment-based techs.  As one can see, the number of techs in TechTree.xml will be increased noticably.  But since I expect to trim down in other places such as weapons and defenses, I don't expect to have more than a 20% increase in the number of techs in the game.

Note, the above structure will be implemented across the board except for things such as the colonization and terraforming techs and possibly the government techs because I just don't think the corresponding features can be changed.  Aside from that, they're all getting remade if possible.  Chaos will be beaten to death until Order stands victoriously panting over its rotten corpse with bloody cudgel in hand.

Hi, in reply to the question about changing Super Abilities, I believe they are hard coded -- I haven't seen anything in the game files on SAs.

Yes you are correct.  In-game, this ability affects Purchase Now Reduction.

Yup to both.  I made 6 new ones for my game.  Have a look at PoliticalParties.xml and have fun!

(Just be sure to back up the original of any files you tinker with.)

I looked at your syntax and I don't see anything wrong.  It should work.

This is an example of one I made for fun as part of a new series of techs on droids/robots:

    <Logistics ID="Droid Ship Crew">
        <DisplayName>Droid Ship Crew</DisplayName>
        <Cost>4500</Cost>
        <Description>Let the droid drive.</Description>
        <Details>When androids or robots are used to support starship crews, crews can rest longer and use less ship resources.  Subsequently, starships can travel farther, and in unexpected emergencies, are better prepared to repair themselves while away from the security of bases.  And, since droids require less space in lieu of an organic-only crew, our ships can hold more... weapons!</Details>
        <Requires>Applied Artificial Intelligence</Requires>
        <Category>Range</Category>
            <LogisticsAbility>2</LogisticsAbility>
            <MiniaturizationAbility>10</MiniaturizationAbility>
            <RangeAbility>20</RangeAbility>
            <RepairAbility>25</RepairAbility>
        <Model>hyper320</Model>
        <WillingnessToTrade>5</WillingnessToTrade>
        <AIValue>10</AIValue>
    </Logistics>

I put the above in at the end of the main TechTree of ToA, and then in certain race tech trees in put in the end the following:

    <Logistics ID="Droid Ship Crew">
        <DisplayName>Droid Ship Crew</DisplayName>
    </Logistics>

And this worked in my game! (There were other new techs along with this.)

Of course in the race tech trees I could tweak things further since they override the main when there's an alteration.

Well, I went over it all again, and it's exactly as I posted...but it still doesn't work.

I still don't know what's wrong.  The category is Government, no group.  Should I make it part of a group?  What else can I possibly change?

Is that supposed to mean that I can make technologies that ONLY exist in a given race's tech tree ... or make different versions for the same take for a given race?

You can make a tech that is race-specific.  Presumably when a tech in a racial tech tree has the same name as one in the main tree, it overrides.

The only way to make different versions of a tech in the same tech tree is to give it an ethical pre-requisite (Good, Neutral or Evil).

Tharios, I noticed that you have Cost set at 0.

Have you tried setting a positive value to Cost?

Is there anywhere else that the ID of the tech (or anything else) needs to be besides the primary tech tree and the racial tech trees it's a part of?

Also, in GC2's tech tree in the game, there are show/hide buttons near the lower right.

Perhaps you are not showing all techs?

New game every time, and started both as the terrans (whose tech tree is the modified one) and as a custom race using the terran tech tree.  All techs in the display are shown.

Tharios, I found an error, it is just a typo.  A missing >  An easy thing to miss when one is focused on many other details, lol.

So:

<Description>The first step in becoming a Type 1 civilization, increasing overall government efficiency.</Description

Should be:

<Description>The first step in becoming a Type 1 civilization, increasing overall government efficiency.</Description>

I have tested your syntax and it works in my game now.

And to your question about new techs:  In ToA the Iconians and the Yor have these 3 weapon techs: Kinetic Streams, Scatter Blasters and Seekers, which are not all listed in the main tech tree.

So, yes, you can do two things:

1 - you can create a new tech that only exists in a particular race's tech tree but of course you'll have to put in the complete info for it to show.  This method is best for something unique that only one racial tech tree is intended to have otherwise it becomes messy to track who has what if one doesn't use the main tech tree as the primary source.

2 - you can alter a default value in a racial tech tree, or even add something a given tech in the main tech tree doesn't offer.  Frex you can add the line <SpeedAbility>10</SpeedAbility> to IonDrive in the Terran tech tree and thus only the Terrans will get this new benefit to that tech.

Testing your complete tech tree in an XML reader/browser is you friend.  If it reads properly then it should read properly in the game itself.

Altarian, that post was a miscopy.  In the file itself, the > is present and the thing still doesn't work.  Did you happen to do anything else?

Also, thanks for the tip on the xml viewer, I'll see about hunting one down.