Age of War/Age of Ascension/Custom start point

from GalCiv3 Forums

I have a mod request. In Civ V, there exists an option to start the game at a later Age (I usually started at the Industrial Age). I have not seen any such option in this game, and I would expect there are some others out there that would also enjoy such a setup, as you could get to the large fleet battles that looked so fun in the dev streams much faster. Back in Beta, I could give myself the requisite techs one by one if I didn't want to unlock all of them all at once, but that was a bit tedious, and it didn't put the computer players on the same level. It's not as fun to have huge hull ships against small ships.

 

I have 3 ideas on start points, if it is actually possible to mod this. First would be a (relatively) simple set where all of the Age of Expansion techs are researched. Second would be a custom start point, my ideal start point would be:

Medium Hulls & second level ship upgrades

3 Terraforming enhancements

Level 2 buildings for Production, Science, and Economy unlocked

Level 2 weapons & defenses for Beam, Missile, and Kinetic weapons and armors

 

The third option would be to have a selection option on the Game Settings screen for which age to start in (like Civ V), but that would probably be more of a Future Idea than a mod.

 

I appreciate any and all feedback on this. I wish I could go into the code and figure this out myself, but I am not a computer savvy person.

13,867 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

this would be cool if the "ages" actually meant something..

 

in Civ the ages change the appearance of troops and buildings and cities and the whole interface...

 

In GCIII the ages represent walls that prevent research....  nothing more

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Taslios, reply 1

this would be cool if the "ages" actually meant something..

 

in Civ the ages change the appearance of troops and buildings and cities and the whole interface...

 

In GCIII the ages represent walls that prevent research....  nothing more
End of Taslios's quote

 

Even if the appearances don't change, it would still be nice have the option to start everyone at a point that is more advanced than the usual start.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I know this is an old post but it remains relevant today. Has anyone made a mod allowing for ALL the factions to start at a later Age, i.e. Age of War, Ascension, etc.?  If such a mod exists please post here!

 

Thanks, MindX

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

considering how the flags for that actually work, the only thing you could do for that is a custom Race Trait based on Intuitive and then give it to everybody. the only way I'm aware of that can give people 'free' research is by giving them a buttload of Research Points to throw around (Intuitive, for example, gives 250, which is enough for any three starting techs) but you'd still have to manually click through the tech tree and the AI may or may not actually do so. honestly, just set your research pace to 'fast' and the AI to the harder difficulties, then use Modcredits to just buy planet improvements and ignore maintenance costs. or play on a larger map- I know I can count on on hand the times I've run into Alterains who didn't have Doom Rays by turn ~200 or so on the map sizes I prefer.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I know this is an old post but it remains relevant today. Has anyone made a mod allowing for ALL the factions to start at a later Age, i.e. Age of War, Ascension, etc.?  If such a mod exists please post here!

 

Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but worth a look.

A tool to modify tech costs with the option to zero costs based on tech age, essentially gifting all techs in the age to the AI.

https://forums.galciv3.com/477559/page/1/#3638116.

 

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

If you want a bit more of a surgical approach, go into a faction tech tree and set the Research Cost for a tech to 0,  That tech will then be automatically learned upon the start of a game.  This lets one custom tailor which techs are learned at startup and not just gift all of the techs that are age specific.

As for each age, in the base game, it takes 12 techs to reach the Age of War, 64 techs to reach the Age of Ascension, and 128 techs to reach the Age of Victory.

Also, one can change the number of techs to reach an age by modifying the file TechAgeDefs.xml which says how many  "tech points" it takes to reach each age.

 

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Editing xml's can be quite tedious at the best of times.

Most people don't want to delve into walls of text to alter their game experience.

I take my hat off to dedicated people who take the time to mod the xml's for the benefit of others.

 

I am currently working on a tech tree viewer / editor tool which  replicates the in game visual tree.

It will allow you to click on a tech in any tree and modify its values directly.

https://forums.galciv3.com/477456/page/1/#3637496

Still in its early stages. Currently moving it to WPF for the interface.

  

 

 

 

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting BuckGodot, reply 6

If you want a bit more of a surgical approach, go into a faction tech tree and set the Research Cost for a tech to 0,  That tech will then be automatically learned upon the start of a game.  This lets one custom tailor which techs are learned at startup and not just gift all of the techs that are age specific.

As for each age, in the base game, it takes 12 techs to reach the Age of War, 64 techs to reach the Age of Ascension, and 128 techs to reach the Age of Victory.

Also, one can change the number of techs to reach an age by modifying the file TechAgeDefs.xml which says how many  "tech points" it takes to reach each age.

 
End of BuckGodot's quote

 

This sounds like a good way to make the custom start point. For this, I would be duplicating the tech tree xml files in the mods folder? Having not yet played the other races much yet I'll have to figure out the equivalent tree specific techs to grant at the start, so that will take some tinkering.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting EazyWin, reply 8


Quoting BuckGodot,
reply 6

If you want a bit more of a surgical approach, go into a faction tech tree and set the Research Cost for a tech to 0,  That tech will then be automatically learned upon the start of a game.  This lets one custom tailor which techs are learned at startup and not just gift all of the techs that are age specific.

As for each age, in the base game, it takes 12 techs to reach the Age of War, 64 techs to reach the Age of Ascension, and 128 techs to reach the Age of Victory.

Also, one can change the number of techs to reach an age by modifying the file TechAgeDefs.xml which says how many  "tech points" it takes to reach each age.

 



 

This sounds like a good way to make the custom start point. For this, I would be duplicating the tech tree xml files in the mods folder? Having not yet played the other races much yet I'll have to figure out the equivalent tree specific techs to grant at the start, so that will take some tinkering.

End of EazyWin's quote

Yes, make a copy of which ever tech tree you want and then put in the right folder. If you don't want to create a brand new mod folder structure from scratch, you should have something called "ExampleMod" already in your mod folder which has a bunch of directories already in it.   Place a copy of an xml in the directory Mods\ExampleMod\Game and then edit THAT xml,  Or just copy the ExampleMod folder and rename it to something else and then put your files in the Game directory of that folder.

The good news is MOST of the tech trees are actually very similar once one gets past the Drengin and the Altarians.  That is, all of the other factions have some differences, but the tech trees themselves have broad similarities.

I would also suggest using something like Notepad++ or any other editor that can compare files side by side and then swap differences from one file to another, as it makes updating mod MUCH MUCH MUCH easier.  I personally use Text Wrangler, but it's an OS X only program, so it probably wouldn't be good for you. ;)

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I my soon to be released beta tech viewer, you will be able to see the trees for all factions displayed as in-game trees. You can then click on individual techs and edit the relevant xml nodes directly.

Change its prerequisite, change tech age etc. and see the results realtime.