Mystara in Civ3Conquests

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

zombiegleemax

Jun 26, 2005 8:51:14
Well I finally got a mostly finished playable version of Mystara for Civilization III Conquests. Just figured I'd point it out to any interested here. It's not cannon so much and currently there is no Mystara map. It's mostly just material based off Mystara. There are some other guys and myself that are working to make the playble maps for scenarios to go with the mod. Anyway, here's the link to Evo-Games where the mod is previewed and can be downloaded.

Warning: This is no good to you if you don't have the pc game CivilizationIII Conquests v1.22 or CivilationIII Complete v1.22. In which case you can look a the previews and see the artwork involved if you want.

Dungeons & Dragons: Mystara
#2

Hugin

Jun 26, 2005 18:11:13
Downloading right now! I sure I can get it to work! I've been waiting for this for a long time!!!
#3

spellweaver

Jun 27, 2005 4:13:59
Haven't got the game, but if people recommend it here, I might just buy it to play the Mystara mod.

:-) Jesper
#4

zombiegleemax

Jun 27, 2005 6:54:01
It's a turnbased strategy game about building an empire. There are several ways to win the game and it's multiplayer as well. I'll try to type more about it when I get back form work.
#5

dave_l

Jun 27, 2005 7:42:31
Good grief!

581mb - that's what I call an add-on! ;)
#6

zombiegleemax

Jun 27, 2005 18:22:58
Well actually it's a redo plus add on, so a lot of the original game isn't used except for the windows and a small handful of units. Even the music was changed to be more fitting for Mystara. The terrain is totally redone and about 50 units were made specifically for this mod. Most others were taken from other mods that had similiar races. The Frosthaven leader screen was made to be specific for Mystara, can you tell he's a Frost Giant? Others are in the works for an update later this summer.

EDIT: There is about 600 different units in the mod.
#7

Hugin

Jul 01, 2005 1:06:17
I just finished about 3 hours of playing your mod, tjedge1, and all I can say is :OMG!

It is fantastic!!! I absolutely love it! I just have to be disciplined enough to make sure I don't use up any of my time for working on MC, or my other Mystara projects. Again, WOW!!!
#8

zombiegleemax

Jul 01, 2005 6:49:04
Thank you. Now I feel it is rightfully accepted. I wasn't sure if the non-cannon stuff was a bother to the true Mystara fan. I had designed a lot of my own world of Mystara before stumbling onto the Mystara Vaults and such and mostly I just looked at maps with no idea what I was really looking at. Since I morphed a lot of the 2 together. I really like my Draconian king Xargass. He was one of my favorite villians because oif his uniqueness and he gets his own nation in the mod. Some of my testers helped with names for some things. I still left a lot of it generic though, for flexibility. Some Mystara maps are going to be available soon. Just wait till then, if you think it has Mystara flavor. The 2 guys who designed these maps I have spent a lot of time and the last one which is gigantic is well done took Arghis over 6 months and he still tweeked it here and there after that. I can't wait to finish setting that one up. Then I have a Wrath of the Immortals war scenario planned. As well as someone is working on Manscorpions and new graphix for the Lycon Infantry (which may have more variety besides the wolfman) and the gnome engineer. I'm so excited I can This thing will be ongoing for the next 6 months I fear.
#9

Hugin

Jul 01, 2005 9:49:01
I noticed there is a map for download. Is it a Mystaran map or something else?
#10

dave_l

Jul 02, 2005 9:48:10
Oops, I got into trouble last night - stayed up too late playing as Rockhome!

Everything was going well until that war-monger Stefan Karameikos decided to attack. Then it got even better - hillside city sites rock for defence! :D
#11

Hugin

Jul 02, 2005 10:23:58
I know exactly what you mean there, Dave L! My first game as the Karameikians ended in defeat to the hands of the Ethengars, aided by Glantri of all nations, and Darokin, and Orclands. I don't know why they didn't like me ?

I started a new game last night as the Hin of the Five Shires. Things are going much better this time. tjedge1 put an incredible amount of work into this. Truely great work! I doubt I'll ever play the 'regular' game again!
#12

dave_l

Jul 02, 2005 18:25:24
Truly great work! I doubt I'll ever play the 'regular' game again!

I agree - I've just captured Luln and I'm eyeing up Threshold, it really adds a new dimension to the game.

Although I am a bit worried - when the Hin start threatening the Dwarves I think I might need to look to my defences!
#13

zombiegleemax

Jul 03, 2005 15:13:31
I'm glad you guys are enjoying it. Watch out for those Hin. They have the ability to ignore defense units when there are offense stacked with them. It makes it difficult to invade the Shires. One of my testers mastered a technique he calle dthe 1-2. He lined up his defense units and marched them out first to just setup around their cities while the Hin pounded on them, then he sent out his mounted offense a space behind the defense and then would attack using the higher movement rates and then try to retreat back to a space beyond the defenders. Sounded tedious to me, but he never had problems with them after that. Unless you buid lcompletly massive armies sometimes you have to use different techniques to defeat different civilizations. I love strategy games.
#14

Hugin

Jul 03, 2005 15:23:31
Cool strategy! Btw, I downloaded the random (giga?) map, and WOW!!!! that makes for wickedly huge maps!
#15

dave_l

Jul 03, 2005 16:19:19
Cool strategy! Btw, I downloaded the random (giga?) map, and WOW!!!! that makes for wickedly huge maps!

I downloaded it too, but haven't tried it yet. I think I will soon, though - I need room to breathe! With about 30 civilisations, you run out of elbow room pretty quickly. I like a fairly isolationist early growth period - it was a bit of a shock to find 4 or 5 nations so close to me at the start of the game!
#16

Hugin

Jul 03, 2005 23:12:47
... I like a fairly isolationist early growth period - it was a bit of a shock to find 4 or 5 nations so close to me at the start of the game!

I'm the same way. From the sounds of it, you're really going to love these massive maps!
#17

zombiegleemax

Jul 04, 2005 12:49:59
I play on the 250x250 map myself. I too like elbow room and the ability to build armies with around 2000 units, before I get to the last age and conquer half the world. The game just seems so much more complex when you start getting that big and the wonder produced special units become that much more special.

EDIT- You guys know the tricks to speed up the game when tthe turns begin taking too long? of course I don't mind it I have 2 pc's and I've played games that have turns that take so long to process I go workout for 30 minutes come back play my turn, end it and go finish my workout. ;) Sometimes I just have 2 games going at once. Or I work on setting up my campaign. I need to post an update too as my players started their first adventure yesterday.
#18

Hugin

Jul 04, 2005 16:42:49
EDIT- You guys know the tricks to speed up the game when tthe turns begin taking too long?

If you know, *please* let me in on them! My turns are taking 5 - 6 minutes, and I find that long. But like you, I find something else to do in the meantime (tonight will be finishing off prep for tomorrow's D&D game , while yesterday it was cleaning up the house ).
#19

dave_l

Jul 05, 2005 18:57:53
If you know, *please* let me in on them! My turns are taking 5 - 6 minutes, and I find that long. But like you, I find something else to do in the meantime (tonight will be finishing off prep for tomorrow's D&D game , while yesterday it was cleaning up the house ).

I don't know either!

I've been playing on the 300 x 300 map today, and it's been taking TEN minutes a turn!

It's VERY cool, but I just don't have that much time, so it's starting to get too long to continue on that size map. How can I cut the time down?
#20

zombiegleemax

Jul 05, 2005 21:13:40
1) The risky way is to start the game, not the mod itself yet. Then open the task manager using whatever method you want (I use Ctrl+Alt+Delete). Go to Processes and find the one for Conquests.exe then right click and choose Set Priority. Then choose something above normal. I use High, but I als run nothing inthe background. If you leave a IM program or media program on, this trick may interfere with those. Turns will still take a lot of time on the really gigantic maps but you will notice the speed of the game increase.

2) Before you hit begin to hit the end turn button, turn on your caps lock. This makes the game skip all animations. It will do it during your turn to, so if your in a hurry, just leave it on all the time and your playing will speed up as well. I only use it to end a turn.

These 2 methods combined can really speed things up, but on those 300 sized maps it still slows down the later the game gets, unless you conquer most of your enemies. The AI is slow.

Oh almost forgot. There is a 100x100 map available now.
#21

Hugin

Jul 05, 2005 21:44:13
Thanks for the tips, tjedge! I've found that the time really depends on how many civs there are in the game, not the map size. As tjedge said, the AI is slow.
#22

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2005 6:54:30
Yup. For some reason the AI feels it needs to move virtually every unit that isn't guarding something. Especially if some barbarians pop up, then they send their entire army after them.
With these tricks or less civs then there is less of this:
#23

zombiegleemax

Jul 09, 2005 0:59:21
For those of you playing this mod, I made a map that is standard sized so the Known World is too crowded. Somebody reported on another board that it crashes so I'm going to be looking into that when I get a chance. I'll post an update on that situation as soon as I figure out if there is a problem or a bad download.
#24

dave_l

Jul 09, 2005 4:46:08
I've reduced the number of civs, and there's hardly any waiting now, so I doubt I'll be using the standard map size very much.

I did get a problem on the Civilopedia entry for iron though - there's a problem with the hypertext, and it causes an error box to pop up. The only way to sort it out is to save the game, exit and reload.

Not a big problem, I know, but I thought your beta testers might have spotted it.

My wife was complaining again last night - so I reckon the mod counts as a winner! :D
#25

zombiegleemax

Jul 09, 2005 8:37:42
Actually the hypertext was caught in beta testing. The only way to get rid of it was to remove requirements and that would just bring the mod down a notch, so I refused to (I had already thrown out half my plans for themod because of limits to the game engine ). There is another way to get through the hypertest if it happens. Just keep clicking ok and it will eventually stop. Apperently there is a limit to the number of things that can require a resource. If you go over that (and with 256 buildings and over 600 units) it causes the hypertext for each item over the limit. It eventually stops and you can continue playing. This only happens with the resources, and there are some others that do it too, like horses and possibly saltpeter. It's one of the many weaknesses to the game engine. I had to just push it through anyway to keep the games flavor.

I'm seriously thinking of redoing this mod when Civ 4 comes out. It's is going to be much more flexible for modding and I can do far more to make a D&D mod feel like...D&D. ;) The only real problem then is editing graphix. I'm going to have to learn to do more 3-dwork.
#26

Hugin

Jul 09, 2005 9:08:39
Actually the hypertext was caught in beta testing. The only way to get rid of it was to remove requirements and that would just bring the mod down a notch, so I refused to (I had already thrown out half my plans for themod because of limits to the game engine ). There is another way to get through the hypertest if it happens. Just keep clicking ok and it will eventually stop.

I can confirm what you've said here, tjedge1. Just keep pressing ok and it will go away. My brother is playing the mod as well, and to give people an idea of how cool it is, he just purchased Battlefield 2 that he's been anticipating for quite some time but he still plays the mod as much as it!
#27

dave_l

Jul 09, 2005 11:07:45
Ah - if you knew about it, it's not a bug then, it's a "feature"! :D
#28

zombiegleemax

Jul 09, 2005 20:38:36
Update: The 100x100 map is now working properly. I'm almost done with the 2 160x160 maps as well. One with cities and one without.

I'm glad you guys are enjoying the mod. It makes it feel worth the last 2 years building the thing.

And Dave L, tell your wife I'm sorry. ;)
#29

zombiegleemax

Jul 12, 2005 6:54:20
Ok, there is now a huge (160x160) map of mystara up with no cities. I'm working on the one with cities at the moment.
#30

thorf

Jul 12, 2005 23:24:20
I've been wanting to have a look at your mod for a while now, and last night I finally found some free time. It's been years since I played Civ III, so I bought a download version of Civ III Complete to get the two expansions (my original CD seems to have gone walkabout), and I just installed it now.

All I can say is wow! It seems you've really been busy!

I'm a bit behind when it comes to all the expansions and stuff. It seems that there are three versions of the game, and three different editors. Are they at all compatible or what? Things have changed a lot since Civ III came out, it seems. It's all a bit confusing.

Unfortunately I have to go to work, so I don't have any time to start a game, but I had a look at the maps. The terrain looks impressive, and the maps aren't bad. I'd really like to see a very accurate map too, though. (All this cartography has made me very picky it seems! :P ) It seems to me that it would be better to make a Known World-only map, or a map encompassing the Known World, the Isle of Dawn and at least part of Alphatia, to cover the problem of lack of space in southwestern Brun. The full world map could then be made more accurate, and you'd have to pick and choose which civilisations to put there.

Of course, that's just how I would do things. ;)

I haven't ruled out the possibility of making a map myself, although it would take a lot of time away from my other mapmaking. And I'm not sure whether it would turn out to be that good...

I can't wait to get home from work and play around with this more!
#31

lonewolf

Jul 13, 2005 1:53:17
Hi
beeing a fan of CivIII and Mystara I just had to try this out, but unfortunately I dont get it to run. The problem is that I have the german version of the game and thus the directories are all named german so I guess your links to directories dont work.
Is there an easy fix for that, or do I have to get the english version?
#32

zombiegleemax

Jul 13, 2005 13:28:26
I've been wanting to have a look at your mod for a while now, and last night I finally found some free time. It's been years since I played Civ III, so I bought a download version of Civ III Complete to get the two expansions (my original CD seems to have gone walkabout), and I just installed it now.

All I can say is wow! It seems you've really been busy!

I'm a bit behind when it comes to all the expansions and stuff. It seems that there are three versions of the game, and three different editors. Are they at all compatible or what? Things have changed a lot since Civ III came out, it seems. It's all a bit confusing.

Unfortunately I have to go to work, so I don't have any time to start a game, but I had a look at the maps. The terrain looks impressive, and the maps aren't bad. I'd really like to see a very accurate map too, though. (All this cartography has made me very picky it seems! :P ) It seems to me that it would be better to make a Known World-only map, or a map encompassing the Known World, the Isle of Dawn and at least part of Alphatia, to cover the problem of lack of space in southwestern Brun. The full world map could then be made more accurate, and you'd have to pick and choose which civilisations to put there.

Of course, that's just how I would do things. ;)

I haven't ruled out the possibility of making a map myself, although it would take a lot of time away from my other mapmaking. And I'm not sure whether it would turn out to be that good...

I can't wait to get home from work and play around with this more!

I actually plan to do something like what you describe for the Wrath of Immortals scenario I was planning. It won't be exact to the books due to the lack of events editing, but the war itself is quite possible. I can lock the alliances and see a fight to the death. I'm going to replace some of the civs with others that were left out of the total mod, like Graakhalia, Ulimwengu, Soderfjord Jarldoms, Ylaruam, Thothia, Ochelea, Aengmor and the Hinterlands. Then I would make a map of the Known World, Great Waste, Alphatia and the tips of Skothar and Davania and everything in between on up to Frosthaven. I figure for this map to be accurate will be really big (like 200x200) or more and Alphatia and the Isle of Dawn will be scaled down so Thyatis and Alphatia are not so overwhelmingly powerful. If you want to try this map you can, so far nobody has succeeded. At civfanatics.com they have a board with utilities that help in making maps easier, including one that converts bmp's to biq. Biq is the Conquests map file extension. THere is another World map version that is goingto be far more accurate and detailed than the previous ones, but it is really huge. That one might be released after a while, it will take some time to set it up. THe guy who designed it made everything exact in scale, but the KNown world is so small that the civs that belong there just don't fit, so I have debated wether or not to expand it myself and ruins a lot of what he has done just for gameplay. I think I will since it is a game and it will still have the Mystara feel when I'm done, just the rest of Brun might be cramped. Not that there is much more of it as far as the mod goes.

As far as the editors go, just use the Conquests one. It can open all the older ones and is more up to date with newer and easier options, like enslavement and ground stealth attacks. ;) Conquests is the last expansion and Complete is the same thing basically. Play the World and Civ III can not use the Conquest material at all. But Conquests can use theirs. I hope that made sense.

Hi
beeing a fan of CivIII and Mystara I just had to try this out, but unfortunately I dont get it to run. The problem is that I have the german version of the game and thus the directories are all named german so I guess your links to directories dont work.
Is there an easy fix for that, or do I have to get the english version?

The only way to make it work would be to rename all the directories to what they are named in the text files in the mod. That would be severely time consuming. Sorry. If you have the cash, it might be easier just to get the Civ3Complete in English. Other than that, you could just go through and rename all the directories in English, but then the regular game would no longer work. I wish I could do more, sorry.
#33

zombiegleemax

Jul 13, 2005 20:08:12
Hey lonewolf. I just stumbled on this at Civ Fantaics. Maybe this can help you.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=73272
#34

lonewolf

Jul 14, 2005 11:12:09
That was exactly what I was looking for!
thank you!

#35

graywolf-elm

Jul 14, 2005 14:22:49
I found a link to

Civilization Fanatics some time ago, and every once in a while would go back and visit to see how progress was coming. It has been a while since I checked indeed. I'll need to download, and/or buy a copy myself to try this out.

Thorf, do you have a link for where you downloaded your copy?

Thanks,
GW
#36

thorf

Jul 14, 2005 21:56:12
I downloaded and bought it from Trygames.com.

It all went pretty smoothly, and it was my first experience downloading a game like that.
#37

graywolf-elm

Jul 15, 2005 9:23:49
Great, thanks for the link. I'm looking forward to trying this out. I've played FreeCiv on Linux and Windows, and I'm really looking forward to this Mod.

GW
#38

zombiegleemax

Jul 15, 2005 18:42:20
oops double post.
#39

zombiegleemax

Jul 15, 2005 18:43:25
Glad you're interested. Let me know how you like it.

There is an expansion patch in the making right now, as soon as some of the missing graphics are finished. It was planned for July, but none of the artists working on the units have gotten back to me. I think I'll have to send them some pm's by the end of the month. So basically, if you see anything you want changed, let me know you're opinion. It might actually affect my decisions in the patch.
#40

lonewolf

Jul 15, 2005 19:24:33
after playing the mod for some time Im really suprised how much work you must have put into it and I really like it.

There are however 2 things that I noticed and personally dont like so please take this as constructive critic.

- the movement speed. Is it really necessary that youve doubled the speed of the units relatively to the normal game(infantery moves 2 squares, cavalry 4 swquares, ...) That leads to suprisingly fast sneak attacks, that the AIs can settle around you, without giving you a chance to react and makes combats very difficult to predict.

- mining/farming. I dont think its a good idea to restrict civilizations in doing these IMHO very fundamental things, even if its explainable for flavor reasons. A rockhome civilization will never be able to produce really large cities because of the lack of farming, and thus could be VERY restricted in a game where it is not possible to expand much.

Overall a big from me!
#41

zombiegleemax

Jul 17, 2005 9:55:53
These are the 2 complaints I get the most. I understand the frustration with them. I like the new sneak attacks from the AI, you are able to return the favor as well. It makes it more realistic to not always know what is coming at you. Also the reason for increased movement was mostly done to add higher terrain costs and have many non-human races be able to ignore certain terrains, giving them advantages in those terrains that other races don't have.

Not being able to build big cities for Rockhome actually does balance against the huge cities of the humans. Most human civs can't mine so they get big cities with less production. It really does balance out in the end and the civs that can mine are the only ones that get the Mushroom resource which is very good for food. So in effect the smaller dwarf city can build just as fast as the bigger human or elf city. Sometimes better, since they can mine forests which have a lot of food, and farming civs cut down the forests to get more food and then lose the production the forest also gives.

These are 2 things that I spent a lot of time working as best I could into the game during the 6 months of testing. The Civ3 hard code is very restrictive unfortunately. Although it restricts and causing the AI to more aggresive with sneak attacks, I felt these would add a level of challenge to the game that other mods didn't. :evillaugh

I am happy you enjoy it otherwise and there are ways of working around this in Civ 4 that I will be working out, when it is released. ;)