Modding questions

from GalCiv2 Forums
I just read CariElf's Modding Guide and quickly looked through the Example Mod in 1.2b. Now I would like to ask few questions.

1) According to CariElf the Model tag in Techs ' is the name of a Bink file to represent the tech.' Unfortunately I have no idea of what is a Bink file. So is it possible to get a more verbose explanation of the Model tag?

2) Does the AIValue tag in Techs also affect the amount of stuff (Techs and money) AI is willing to give for a Tech, or is it only AI's willingness to share the Tech with others?

3) With Events the Guide says 'If you want to affect the civilization's ability, use 100 for the attribute' but it doesn't specify which of the civilization's abilities is affected (or should I be aware of THE civilization's ability). So to make Event affect a whole civilization do I use values of 100 + [attribute value for a planet], or something completely different?

4) How exactly do RaceSpecific Techs work? I noticed the AllHullsModTech.xml in the example mod, but the explanation is missing from the Modding Guide. The following questions all concern the RaceSpecific Techs:

a) Is it allowed to use RaceSpecific tags in TechTree.xml or is it required that RaceSpecific Techs are in a separate file(s)?

b) Concerning separate file(s), which of the following are correct: I) each RaceSpecific Tech can be defined in a separate file; II) all RaceSpecific Techs for any single race can be defined in a single file; III) all RaceSpecific Techs can be defined in a single file?

c) Can RaceSpecific Techs be part of a branch in a Tech Tree? For example can I define RaceSpecific equivalents for Galactic Warfare that act as a beginnings of Weapons branches for corresponding races? Or do I first have to make RaceSpecific Techs that don't belong to any branch and then put 9 Techs belonging to Weapons branch to TechTree so that each of them requires one of the RaceSpecific Techs?

d) Generalizing the 'c' above, to create a separate Tech Trees for each race, is it possible to use only RaceSpecific Techs with Category tags, or is the above method of 'mimicking' the RaceSpecific beginnings of branches the correct way to go?

e) Technology Victory is based on what? To be more exact, if all races have unique Tech Trees, what is required of the Tech that is supposed to give them the Technology Victory?

That's it for now. Keep up the great work
modding
5,588 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
After some testing I'd like to rephrase the first question to...

1) Model tag ' is the name of a Bink file to represent the tech', but where are these Bink files and is it possible to include new Bink files in Mods?

I'd also like to add couple more questions:

5) What are the actual effects of different Alignment values? Terms like 'Evil' or 'Chaotic Good' are just too vague when trying to create a new race with certain kind of behaviour in mind.

6) Continuing with the subject of question number 2. Is it possible to get a table of AIValues where different values are given a verbal desciption? It would make it easier to figure out the values where AI is practically giving away the Tech, trading it more or less according to its value, asking for too much and practically refusing to trade it away at all.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For the moment, racial tech are not allowed. I don't know why (Stardock never answer this question).


- By example, for my Skunkies race, i create a "Skunkies loving rules" tech.

- I give this tech to the Skunkies. This tech have 60000 in AIvalue, and 60000 in cost (Skunkies don't like the idea to trade itn and others races think it's too costly).

- I create others Skunkies racials techs and gibe them "Skunkies loving rules" in prequisite.


Problems :

- If i don't give a big Aivalue to theses tech, Skunkies think its a good idea to trade them away.
- But if i give them a big Aivalue, Skunkies research always them without think at the "non racial" techs.
- Nothing stop other races to spy it (and the game don't allow the player to have spy defense).
- Nothing stop other races to stole it after invasion.


Cry with me : We NEED a "no stole/no trade" tag for techs.



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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1) Model tag ' is the name of a Bink file to represent the tech', but where are these Bink files and is it possible to include new Bink files in Mods?


They are in GalCiv2/Movies/techs. You can add more in the same path off the Mods folder, though I'm not sure of teh specifics. You'd have to get the Bink Tools and check out the existing ones.

4) How exactly do RaceSpecific Techs work? I noticed the AllHullsModTech.xml in the example mod, but the explanation is missing from the Modding Guide. The following questions all concern the RaceSpecific Techs:


It appears that encasing tag of a the tech (in this case, RaceSpecific) simply determines the color of the background tile on the tech tree. Giving it ImpossibleTech as a prerequisite makes it unresearchable (and places it on a new path at the very bottom of the tech tree screen), so Cari simply added it as a starting tech on her custom race.

The only problem is that the tech can still be traded off to other races. So really, it just determines how it appears on the tech tree. I'm not sure if the tech tree colors are hardcoded, if they are, then no matter what you put there it'll just be invisible-backgrounded if it's not one of the normal ones.

The rest of #4 is moot since unfortunately it doesn't work as you seem to have believed. And since you cannot prevent races from simply trading techs off without disabling tech trades entirely, you really can't have truly race-specific techs.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
And since you cannot prevent races from simply trading techs off without disabling tech trades entirely, you really can't have truly race-specific techs.


I don't see tech trading per se as an obstacle for race specific techs. Unfortunately when it's combined with a certain limitation that appears to be hard coded into game, the race specific techs become easily available to all races. The limitation I'm referring to is usage of Requires tag - to me it appears that 1) it only accepts internal names of other Techs as values (as well as ImpossibleTech) and 2) each Tech is restricted to only one Requires tag. If both of these restrictions could be removed, it would be possible to have skills that require, for example, a specific race and a specific prior tech. Alas, that could be too difficult to implement at this point