Is it possible to... ?

from GalCiv2 Forums

Hi everyone!

I'm a little new around modding GC2 and have several "Is it possible to ... ? If yes, how?" type of of questions. I hope you can answer me.

1) Is it possible to add new type of space resources to mine?

2) Is it possible to have race dependant political parties with unique names and different bonuses, and also different in numbers?
For example:
-Terrans: Republican Party, Democrate Party, Globalist P, ... maybe 6 parties alltogether
-Drengin: Konar Clan, Qw'erosh Clan, Shorall Clan, etc. ... 9 clans alltogether
-Yor: Yor collective, only one party
etc.
It would make races more unique
 
3) Is it possible to make race dependant diffrent starbases? For excamle have a Zerg/Tyranid/Xenomorph organic looking SB.
 
4) Is it possible to modify the minor races to colonise and expand? With a slower rate ofcourse. Maybe it is enough to change their AI to one of the major races? I haven't tried it jet.
 
5) Is it possible to change the starting ships of races. I think Korx should start with a freighter rather than a space miner, Terrans could start with 4 Surwey ships, and no col.ship and spaceminer (since by the story terrans are explorers at the start of the game)
 
6) Is it possible to add more type of tile bonuses, like pop.groth bonus, planet quality level bonus, add multy-bonus tiles (e.g. +100food and/or +100%morale, witch is great for the yor stalks), and even some negative tiles (you can use this tile, but at the cost of some penalties.
 
7) One more thing: I haven't figured it out yet if the AI is dessigning its own ships, or it's using only hte pre-defined ship set. I think it's the second, but not sure.
 
8) Is it possible to set cerain races to start as NOT members of the United Planets counsil? Like: Why would the yor join it? (I know trading is possible this way only, but if I want to cancel that as well?)
 
9) When there are pirates, you can not make diplomatic connection with them. Is it possible, to set other races unable to communicate as well?
modding
9,166 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

1, 3, 6. Don't know, but doubtful.

2. Probably not, although you can create tech trees with no advanced governments. Both the Yor and Iconians in TOA cannot advance beyond Imperial governments.

4. Absolutely! I've done some work on this subject and in my current test game two minors have developed into full-fledged (if small) powers with several planets. For more information, see this thread: Sucessfully modded minor races to colonize.

5. This would require a custom map (and is in fact done on the Milky Way map).

7. The AI chooses hull designs from those set for its ship style, but designs the functional elements (weapons etc.) itself.

8. You can achieve something similiar by creating minor race versions of a major race, which I did here: https://forums.galciv2.com/397714. It might be possible to do this another way, but as far as I know it isn't.

9. Possibly. I've tried experimenting with the Pirate and Dread Lords raceconfig files, but I haven't had a lot of success. I'm considering making them both into minor races by changing their CivType to 4 (minor) instead of 5 (special) to see what happens. You can also create other races with type 5, but the problem is that, since random events can't be modded, they'll never actually show up.

 

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

yes all but number 5 is possible I done most of that stuff already will look into it to see if a race can star with cargo ship also you can create advanced governments its just editing the XML. 

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

foxthree: I know it's possible to create new political parties, but AFAIK it's not possible to create political parties unique to a specific race - for example, his idea of having Drengin political parties be different Drengin clans (actually, that is how I think of parties when I play as the Drengin).

BTW, could you provide some information on how to do #9 (giving races the same "unable to communicate" properties as pirates & so forth)? I've never really pulled it off.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Number 6 is definitely not possible; you can't alter the tiles themselves to give them the results you want, because the possible bonus values and attributes are hardcoded.

I'm fairly possible number 8 is impossible as well, but I've never attempted it.

If the AI is NOT designing its own ships, raise the difficulty level, and optionally enable the option to force it to use max CPU.  At the higher difficulty levels, it does design, and re-design, and somewhat frequently.  Tough ought to be enough to see that.

Some of the others sound questionable, but I'm not completely sure either way.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

At the higher difficulty levels, it does design, and re-design, and somewhat frequently. Tough ought to be enough to see that.
End of quote

Not that its designs are always a success - my recent encounter with a Krynn dreadnought with 110 defense and 1 attack is proof of that.

#8 can be quasi-achieved, as I said, by creating major-minor races - see the link above - but I don't think it's possible otherwise.

Actually, I think I've seen ship packs with new starbase designs - so it might be possible to achieve #3. I'm almost positive #1 and #2 are impossible.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

My knowledge is a bit old, but from what I remember I'll try to help. I've made my own personal mods for this game and have delved into most of the xml files to make it more enjoyable for myself. Just take my answers with a grain of salt, because it's been awhile.

 

1) You can change the names of existing resources, and change the bonuses given I believe, but you can't add new ones.

2) Again, you can change the names of them, but not make them specifically for each race. I've had trouble adding more than the default amount, but that may be possible if you play with it more.
 
3) It's possible to change the starbase models, but all of the races share the same starbase structures. I'm 99% sure that you can't make them race-specific.
 
4) You can alter them to use Major-Race AI, but you're limited to how many Major-Races can be on the map at any one time. As far as I know there isn't a way to have a new pop up race use a Major Race AI pattern that can be controlled.
 
5) The starting ships are hard-coded. You can change the styles of the ships fairly easily, but not their names. I never tried, but you may be able to cheat them in with the modules that you want, but it will probably confuse the AI when it tries to produce a mining ship that has a survey module.
 
6) You can edit the bonuses of a saved game map with a hex editor, but that's the only way to play with them. It's fairly involved and would need to be done on a per-map basis.
 
7) The AI uses pre-designed blueprints, but adds it's own modules to those designs. There are numerous problems with how it does this, including impossible ship designs or horribly nonviable types, but there isn't a way to alter it so it's as good as it gets.
8) Minor races aren't part of the council, but it'd be a pain to have a major race as a minor race, but using a major race ID. It might not even be possible, I never tried it.
 
9) I never tried this, so I'm unsure. I would doubt it though.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

#9 is definitely impossible.

8) Minor races aren't part of the council, but it'd be a pain to have a major race as a minor race, but using a major race ID. It might not even be possible, I never tried it.
End of quote

You misunderstand my idea, and this is possible. What I did was copy a major race's (the Yor, and I also did the Thalans) xml file and paste it in place of a minor, but keep the minor's RaceID number (for instance, the Dark Yor, who were replaced by the Yor, are race number 19 or 20). The original major race Yor are still there, but I simply don't use them when playing with this mod. It works pretty well, with two main problems: the "major-minor" is not affected by influence, and they don't count for victory conditions. There's nothing you can do about the latter, but I feel that the former is actually sort of appropriate for the races in question.



4) You can alter them to use Major-Race AI, but you're limited to how many Major-Races can be on the map at any one time. As far as I know there isn't a way to have a new pop up race use a Major Race AI pattern that can be controlled.
End of quote

There's no way to mod the pop-up races (I-League, JK, Fundamentalists, Vegans, etc.) but the default 8 minors can be modded and used without any bearing on the major race cap of 10. What you can't do is change them into RaceType 4 (Major Race) and have them still appear as minors. This instead means adding more major races while still having a 10-major per game limit.

7) The AI uses pre-designed blueprints, but adds it's own modules to those designs. There are numerous problems with how it does this, including impossible ship designs or horribly nonviable types, but there isn't a way to alter it so it's as good as it gets.
End of quote

Not sure what you mean... the only real problem is that the AI does not scale the modules to fit and/or points them the wrong way. Maybe you consider that a bigger problem then I do, but I wouldn't say there's "numerous" problems.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Thanks for all your answers! :beer:

It is a great help, that I don't need to test all these things for my self.

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

More questions:

10) Is it possible to creat a ship modul that is giving speed bodus IN OWN INFLUENCE? Like there are att. and def. bunus moduls working this way. I'd like to speed u the Arceans in their onw space.
I was studying the necesary .xml file and it doesn't seem possible :S  but maybe someone knows a solution.

11) Is it possible to increse the frequency of mega events? I'd like to meet more often the the "newborn races" (I-Leage, Vegans, etc). I only read about space monsters but never met one. Do they realy apear in the game? And what about the DreadLords? I read in one of the files about a cult that is trying to unleash them but you can stop them by high enough espoinage. Can it realy happen in a random single player game? Or DL can appear only in custom maps/scenarios?

12) I tried to mod the SB moduls so you can build an influence SBmodul on a resource mining SB, economic modul on Infl.SB, and so on. But it doesn't work! :'( I mean I could build the mdul on them, but they were giving no bouses, only on the identic SB (Infl. modul on Infl.SB, Eco. modul on Eco.SB, etc).
Is there a solution for this or there is a hardcoded part that disables this kind of moding?

What I'd love the most is: TerrorStars fully upgraded with Military + Influence + Economy moduls :erk: However yet I could build no moduls on TS-s. BTW what are they good for??? I mean I know what it does but its to expencive considered to its potential. It's a waste of time and resources IMHO.

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

11) Is it possible to increse the frequency of mega events? I'd like to meet more often the the "newborn races" (I-Leage, Vegans, etc). I only read about space monsters but never met one. Do they realy apear in the game? And what about the DreadLords? I read in one of the files about a cult that is trying to unleash them but you can stop them by high enough espoinage. Can it realy happen in a random single player game? Or DL can appear only in custom maps/scenarios?
End of quote

Let's see here...

TOA offers the option to set event frequency to something like Rare, Uncommon, and Frequent. I'm still not sure whether this affects mega events as well as normal events, though. Otherwise mega/normal events can't be modded in any way.

I tend to get the Vegans all the time, but as they never do anything they're actually one of the least interesting events possible. Effectively, they're a free planet. The I-League is more interesting but I've never seen it appear outside of the original DL.

Space monsters only exist in GalCiv 1. They and a few other events, such as the "Dread Lord cult" you mention, are still in the english.str file but no longer occur in the game. The Dread Lords can still appear as a mega event, however: I've had them four times on DA and once (without crashing) in TOA. Unfortunately there's a bug that causes a crash when they appear on an extreme planet in TOA. They're not usually going to be as challenging as they are in the campaigns, especially if they appear later in the game, but can be interesting anyway.