Need ideas for a Fantasy/Steampunk mod for Civ3 (non-Civers take a look too)

Cafe Society
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Tomorrow I’m going to try and make a mod for Civilization 3 with a twist. I’m going to make new unique units for each of the 16 civilizations that are extremely powerful and become available in the Industrial Age. They are going to be a combination of fantasy and steampunk-themed and hopefully will lead to a cataclysmic and interesting war.

I know a lot of Civ3 players post here and I’d like some suggestions complete with game mechanics, but even if you don’t play the game you can help with ideas. I’ve already got a few ideas.

For France, I’m probably going to go with the Nautilus, inspired by 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea but souped up considerably. I will use the icon for the nuclear sub that comes much later in the game, and will make it very fast, able to take out any naval unit available at this stage of the game easily, and able to bombard with a range of 2 or 3 so it can be very important in land wars. This will probably be one of the cheaper superunits as France will need a lot of them to protect itself from the other civs at this stage of the game.

For Egypt, I’m going to make an Undead Mage unit (inspired by The Mummy). It will basically be a very strong infantry unit with a powerful short-range bombard attack (to simulate it summoning plagues on cities and fortifications).

For England I was going to continue their naval theme by making a flying ghost ship, but I don’t know if I will be able to make it work with the game mechanics - I’d like it to be able to travel over land or sea but I don’t know if the editor allows that.

For the Persians I’m going to have the Immortal, a unit of almost unkillable swordsmen (it will use the graphic of the normal Immortal unit that is normally the Persian’s special unit, a strong infantry unit available in the early game). It will have an ungodly defense, but be not particularly fast, no special bombard abilities or zone of control.

I need ideas for the other 12 civilizations in the game. The other civilizations are the Zulu, Russians, Iroquois, Aztecs, Americans, Babylonians, Germans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Romans, and the Greeks. For those unfamiliar with the game, military units in the game are categorized by offense, defense, and speed, and there are a number of special abilities they can have, like the ability to attack more than once in a turn, the ability to bombard cities and units from afar, or the ability to automatically attack other units that move past them. They can be restricted to certain types of terrain as well (i.e. wheeled units can’t travel on mountains unless there are roads).

I have a post here on the Apolyton Civ3 forums, nobody has responded yet but you might want to check or contribute ideas there as well.

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Japanese: A big, clunky mech. Slow movement, but high offense and maybe bombard. Sort of like a tank, but cooler.

Russian: Tesla coil. Move of 1 (can get hauled around on a wagon), huge defense and can strike at passing units.

Indians: Dervishes. Good speed and offense, crappy defense. They make good raiders.

Germans: Gigantic artillery. Ridiculous bombard ability, but no defense.

For the ghost ship, you could try making it an air unit with long range. It wouldn’t be able to go very far from your cities, but it would ignore terrain.

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Great ideas - I was thinking about doing some kind of tank for the Germans but the Big Gun is a much better idea. I think I’ll use the Radar Artillery icon for the Tesla Device, the Artillery icon for the Big Gun, maybe the Samurai icon for the mecha…not sure what to use for the Dervish…

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I’d also like to use the War Elephant figure for one of the special units - it looks really neat and it’s not going to be used for anything else in-game as I’m taking out the earlier civ-specific units. I jsut can’t figure out what civ should get it if I use the Dervish idea. If I go that route I’ll also have the Jaguar Warrior, Impi, Hoplite, Bowman, and Musketeer icons free to use…hmm…

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I have some tentative stats over at the thread I linked to in the OP if you’re interested. I have them so that if a civilization can survive to get modern weapons the superweapons will still be very powerful, but manageable - a Nautilus will still beat a Battleship most of the time, and entrenched Mechanized Infantry will stand up to most of them.

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I’d be interested to know how well it turns out. I tried doing a space mod for Civ II, but it didn’t go the way I wanted. I tried to use ocean squares for empty space, and 1-square islands for planets, but the AI didn’t know what to do with that. I did produce some nice graphics, but I got frustrated and deleted them. One of the scenarios in the Multiplayer edition was a MOO mod that used land to represent space, but that negated the possibility of having carriers and cloaked ships (submarines). I’ll have to play with the Civ III editor now and see what it can do…

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I’ll post a link to the .bic file when I finish it, which will probably be by tomorrow night if I get the unit ideas - I’m not doing anything fancy, just modifying the name, stats and requirements on some units. An airship and a dreadnought were suggested, which sounds kinda good to me - so far we have an even balance between magic and technology, with one air unit and one sea unit. The airship could be a mechanical air unit, maybe some kind of Chinese super-junk could be the other naval unit.

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Hmmm…If it’s not too late, can this old Civ IIer make a couple of suggestions?

For Greece…how about Children/Soldiers of the Hydra
s/Dragon’s teeth? A la “Jason and the Argonauts”? (i.e.: Skeleton soldiers) Maybe you could even use the classic “Skeleton Scream” sound effect from the movie for an attack sound effect. Maybe as a technology prerequisite, you could add “Necromancery” as a discovery to the game?

For the English…how about Dragon Riders? Either land or air based, you choice. Maybe a “Martian Machine”, a la “War of the Worlds”?

For China…maybe Golem-like Terra Cotta soldiers?

For the Americans…Steam powered “Land-Ironclad”, perhaps?

Perhaps some sort of “Berserker” unit for a Scandinavian or Celtic country?

Some sort of prehistoric sea creature might be interesting…as I remember, in the Civ II unit graphic file, one apparently unused unit graphic was two tentacles and an eye stalk poking out of a body of water. :eek:

And if I may pose a couple of questions…

  1. Does Civ III still allow Slavery, and later Abolition? Call to Power did, and it seemed like an interesting (If creepy) feature.

  2. I understand Civ III uses some units (Like cannons) as “Equipment” that is assigned to another troop unit…is this true?
    Well, sorry to bother everyone,
    Ranchoth

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For Japan—Godzilla. Nuff said.

Germany–The Great Zepplin. Based on the Jules Verne novel “The Master Of The Air”. Like your English ghost ship, but it can bomb cities.

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  1. Sid Meyer had nothing to do with Call to Power. Activision, MicroProse, and Avalon Hill all got embroiled in a legal battle over the use of the name “Civilization”. Activision was on top for a while, so the first game was Civilization: Call to Power. By the time the second game came out, Activision had lost the rights to the name, so the game was Call to Power II. Civ III has neither Slavery nor Abolition.

  2. No, but artillery-type units and a few others have a defense of zero, which means enemy units have the option to capture them.

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Sorry that I haven’t got around to making this yet. I ended up playing Clive Barker’s Undying all day, and then I finally talked my wife into trying Civ3 and now she’s addicted, and I can’t get a chance to play. I still plan on doing this eventually, though.

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Damn. I just got the game and I can’t even find the editor, much less make a modpack. If you really want to talk Civ III tho, I suggest you go here.

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It’s on my Programs menu in the same folder as the game itself. You can also just doubleclick on civ3mod.bic (I believe that’s the name) and it will open it up with the editor. There’s a bug (to be fixed in the upcoming patch) that causes the Science Advisor screen to be non-functional if you play a scenario with modified rules, so you will want to backup the original civ3mod.bic and modify the one in the main directory, then when you choose New Game it will use your new rules.

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I’d say Germany ought to have the “Super Zeppelin”. It’s a very neat-o concept.

England: “Land Battleships” - huge, clunky proto-tanks with loads of armour and big guns, but hardly able to move. (Ought to be vulnerable to close-in infantry assault, if that’s possible.) Perhaps something like the “self-entrenching” tank prototype produced at the start of WWII by The Old Gang (“TOG”)? Digs itself in as it moves cross-country.

America fights on the wide open plains: High-mobility, lightly armoured units, bristling with Gatling guns. Call’m “Mobile cavalry forts” or someting.

The Russians were early starters on heavier-than-air flight and paratroopers. Some mean, lumbering doubledecker bombers with airlift capability ?

The Japanese MUST have the technoninjas. Stealthy special-forces, especially efficient at disrupting communications, power plants etc. - and, of course, they’ll assisinate anyone anytime. Moving on foot, so you have to insert them well ahead of time. And suicidal, so they have one attempt and then the unit’s lost (or auto-damaged or less stealthy or something.)

Hey, this is fun! (I have NO idea whether it can fit into the game engine, though…)

S. Norman

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The Greeks: The Trojan Horse: wheeled, holds up to six warriors/hoplites/swordsmen (and no other kinds of units), no defense, must be left unescorted and adjacent to town/city at end of turn. Probability of being destroyed: 1 in 2. If accepted, is taken into town/city, which falls provided that both the number of defending military units is fewer than number of soldiers smuggled in and the population size is not more than number smuggled in; otherwise, T-Horse will fail. Will not work against metropolises.

The Americans: The Recruiter [a.k.a., “The Brain-Drainer”]. Infiltrates like a spy, steals away with all of the (any size)city’s scientists and entertainers – which could be anything from zero to the-sky’s-the-limit – who are immediately transported to the nearest American city. May be used against neutral or allied countries without sparking a war, but if used against an enemy, is a pretext for war. Inspired from examples ranging from the post-WWII defection of Nazi German nuclear scientists, British actors and directors working in Hollywood, Russian-Jewish doctors and engineers emigrating to NYC under the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, Indian computer programmers moving to Silicon Valley in the 1980’s, etc. etc. etc.

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The Greeks: The Trojan Horse: wheeled, holds up to six warriors/hoplites/swordsmen (and no other kinds of units), no defense, must be left unescorted and adjacent to town/city at end of turn. Probability of being destroyed: 1 in 2. If accepted, is taken into town/city, which falls provided that both the number of defending military units is fewer than number of soldiers smuggled in and the population size is not more than number smuggled in; otherwise, T-Horse will fail. Will not work against metropolises.

The Americans: The Recruiter [a.k.a., “The Brain-Drainer”]. Infiltrates like a spy, steals away with all of the (any size)city’s scientists and entertainers – which could be anything from zero to the-sky’s-the-limit – who are immediately transported to the nearest American city. May be used against neutral or allied countries without sparking a war, but if used against an enemy, is a pretext for war. Inspired from countless real-life examples ranging from European writers, actors and directors working in Hollywood, the post-WWII defection of German rocket scientists, Russian-Jewish doctors and engineers emigrating to (primarily) New York and Israel under the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, Indian computer programmers moving to Silicon Valley in the 1980’s, etc. etc. etc.

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Sorry about that. Got a message of a firewall problem.

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Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor sez:

<< For Japan—Godzilla. Nuff said. >>

That’s great! I love it. I’d kill for a game with those mods. Of course, the drawback is Godzilla will help Japan, but also destroy it in the process.

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sturmhauke sez:

<< Japanese: A big, clunky mech. Slow movement, but high offense and maybe bombard. Sort of like a tank, but cooler.>>

This harks to a PlayStation2 war strategy game called, “Ring of Red”. An alternative historical take “WHAT IF…” Japan didn’t surrender at WWII…and kept their military. The result is Ring of Red’s steampunk theme of diesel driven AFWs (Amored Fighting Walkers). Basically clunky tanks/mechs, just as Sturmhauke suggests…slower, but cool looking and great movements. It was a brilliant game. I couldn’t get enough of it! I demand a sequel…or put it on PeeCee and add mods like in Civ…(But I digress)

Jet Black

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Americans: a phantom ship like the Flying Dutchman. Similar to the British ghost ship above but is confined to water. This would be based on the Frigate but because it’s insubstantial it would be unable to carry anything. Defense would be huge.

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Some neat ideas, but many beyond what is capable through the editor. A unit has to be broken down to Attack/Defense/Movement and choices from a list of special abilities used by units in the game - bombardment, the ability to attack more than once, the ability to treat all terrain as roads, whether it’s an air unit, sea unit, or land unit…no way of making a unit that steals population, or changes affiliation of a city without killing all it’s defenders, etc. Basically you can give it any numerical value as far as attack, defense, movement, and bombard ability, and give it any special ability that is available to the existing historical units.