(tl;dr: Link to the mod is near the bottom of the post )
One of the more persistent gripes regarding GC III from some players seems to be the terraforming system. Currently, there is an incentive to hold off upgrading tiles until the very last terraforming technology is unlocked so one will not accidentally improve a tile that could be used by the Ultra-Terraformer later on. Also, the Altarians do not ever get access to the Ultra-Terraformer and some players consider them to be at a disadvantage to the other factions late-mid game due to this.
Beyond that, some people just want to be able to create Super Planets with dozens of tiles on them.
Well if any of the above has been a concern for you, then this might just be the mod for you.
What this mod does is, eventually, allow for the upgrading of any and all tiles that the Resequencing Station (the best terraforming tile improvement in the base game) can improve. This means that it truly does not matter what order tiles are upgraded in since, eventually, any and all of the ones available to the Resequencing Station can theoretically be upgraded. This removes the guessing game/adjacency angst that accompanies the current improvement system. See a tile you'd like to improve and have the ability to improve it? Fire away, without any concern about "wastage".
There are a couple of catches, naturally.
Before I go into that, a caveat. THIS MOD IS NOT INTENDED TO BE GAME BALANCED. You WILL be able to create absurd planets with this mod that can crank out just about anything you can think of.
However, there are a couple of mitigating factors. First, the AI is more than willing to create "super planets" itself. This means that it will be able to get many Class 30+ planets to crank out death fleets against you, as well as researching techs as fast as it can.
Secondly, by having so many tiles on planets, it might actually be useful to make "mixed" planets, such as a production/research world or a research/wealth world. The costs of buildings means that, after a certain point, it really doesn't matter if one is cranking out 500mps a turn or "only" 300mps. Since more than a few factions are designed to have mixed worlds (say any faction whose improvements boost two different things equally), having more tiles to play with might them more viable. But this is just a guess, and one I haven't checked out.
To help slow down planet tile growth during the early game, a couple of brakes have been introduced.
The biggest, by far, is the fact that it takes the temporary use of strategic resources to upgrade tiles. The neat trick here is, a strategic resource can be used for an improvement, but once the improvement "goes away", the resource is put back into the pool of available resources. Well, an improvement that upgrades a tile is just that. The upshot of this is, a strategic resource is "tied up" in the upgrading of a tile, but released back to the player once it is done.
A nice side benefit, at least as far as I am concerned, is that this gives something else for the player to use strategic resources for in the early game. Perhaps it's just my playstyle, I often find my self with more strategic resources than I know what to do with. Well, I found that I had plenty use for them while testing this mod out.
Inspired by what Sorentoft did for his mod Terraform More, the other two brakes are cost and the amount of land it takes to upgrade a tile. The use of strategic resources is aready a pretty big break, however. As is the increased cost (well, except for the last repeatable terraforming improvement - that one costs slightly less). Because of this, the amount of land needed to upgrade a tile is not as restrictive as it is in his mod; opening up more tiles, sooner, than in the mod Terraform More.
Finally, and the main reason I made this mod, this mod is/should be version agnostic. Simply plop the folder generated by the zip file in the link below into your GC III mod folder, and everything should be fine. It should work with any and all other mods out there. Though I wouldn't suggest using it with other mods that modify the terraforming system, as the improvements available in the game might be somewhat redundant.
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The six new improvements added by this mod all become available when the base terraforming improvment is unlocked by a faction. The six new improvements also use the exact same icon as the base improvement. Mostly because I did not feel like searching for compatible art or trying to figure out what to use in their place.
Pictures of the descriptions of the six new improvements:
Also, as said at the top of this post, I have added a technology to the Altarian Tech tree that allows them to get the final level of terraforming technologies.
Finally, the link to get the mod:
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0By8Y969dyvLHNDctWGdVX0g2Skk (v1.0)
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0By8Y969dyvLHdDJ4RG93MHA0U1E (v1.1)
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0By8Y969dyvLHVVRVSGNqTlhZZzg (v1.6)
To install, click on the link above, unzip the file downloaded, and then put the unzipped folder into your GC III mod directory, along side whatever other mods one might have.
There is a README attached that goes over most of what is included above, as well as a few other comments and observations.
Also, as noted in the README, credit is given to both Deathwynd for inspiring me to make a mod that uses planetary improvements that are both game version and mod agnostic as well as Sorentoft for his idea of upping the LandPercentageMin as a way of slowing the growth of the class of planets.
UPDATE (9/15/15): Updated to allow factions based on the Yor Tech Tree to have access to Enhanced Soil Upgrader.
UPDATE (9/16/15): Corrected Link.
UPDATE (2/18/16): Updated to allow factions based on the Torian Tech Tree to have access to Enhanced Soil Upgrader.
The game (always has) only reads and incorporates the xml files on starting a new game. All xml data is stored with your save, so any new mods are not reflected in your previous saves.
I swear I remember doing this without starting a new game, but it's been 2 years so *shrug*. Might have been GC2 I guess.
I'm happy it's working for you.
7Z is a new zip program. That was my issue..
7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio. You can find it here.
WinRar should be able to handle 7zip files.
Crusade's new resource system now allows you to increase the amount of a resource used from 1 to any larger amount with a simple edit to the file provide by Publius of NV.
Yes, but they sort of rarely use them. For example, say a planet is class 10 but has 15 tiles terraformable with the lowest of the mod's terraforming techs. A good AI would quickly build a tile, terraform one, and so on, provided the manufacturing is OK, until it quickly reaches class 25. But its behavior seems hard-coded in the game, expecting only a few tiles maximum out of terraforming techs.
In other words, it may well build up the 10 tiles, upgrade as much as possible, and THEN terraform one, upgrade it to the max, before moving on to the next. This puts the AI at a huge disadvantage compared with players who can visually plan the leap from say class 10 to class 25 and build accordingly.
Thus, until they update the code, this mod gives a huge advantage to the player.
Another thing I would like to see is increased building cost for each subsequent use of the same terraforming tech. Sort of makes sense that the more a planet gets built on, the more expensive it gets to add even more buildings. It would also make it less obvious to just spam 20 tiles and get a god planet.
just tried v2.8 and this mod is not working. Any one have a fix for this mod?
It still works for me playing 2.8.
Are playing Crusade or the base game? If Crusade, try the version of the mod I posted in reply #43 on page 2 of this thread. Remember that you have to start a new game for it to work.
I am playing Crusade and I just installed the version you showed me about to fire it up now.
Thanks
No luck. I have tried v1.6 and the two you linked in reply #43 with no luck. I am running GC3 crusade v2.8 and all content.
Any ideas why this mod will not load? I have deleted and reinstalled GC3. nothing I do seams to get this mod to work. I get no error messages with this mod.
Ok I figured it out. I deleted all mods but this one and it worked. I guess this is no longer compatible with planet diversity and more anomalies mod. I normally run all 3 until v2.8.
I run multiple mods with this mod. I found that if you put all "game" files in one "game" folder, all the "text" files in one "text" folder, etc. in the "mods" folder that I got rid of any problems with mods not working together. Hopefully this will help you.
As far as I can tell nothing about 2.8 should affect mods. <shrugs>
3.0 and Intrigue doesn't seem to change anything to affect this mod, so I assume it still work. One way to find out
*Still work, but it doesn't consume any of the resource since it state itself as +1, not -1. You don't get the resource btw, so you just pay construction cost for it only.
**Figured it out. You need to change <BonusType>Flat</BonusType> to <BonusType>OneTime</BonusType> this will make it consume said resource.
There's a version of this mod that works fine with Crusade and Intrigue linked to from post #43 on page 2 in this thread.
Retribution seems to have borked this mod It was working just fine before Retribution, but now I don't see the repeatable soil upgrades anywhere
I just bought the newest expansion and can't get it to work either.
Anyone with modding knowledge plan on updating this mod at all?
Like a couple of others, I can't seem to get any mods to appear in game.
Can anyone help?
If no mods are working at all, try the opt-in update available in the betas tab. Mods were broken in the first release.
I just got home from a six week trip and haven't had time to look into this in any depth, but I did fire up the opt-in and view the tech tree for my favorite custom race and I do see at least some of the enhanced terraforming techs.
This mod works fine with Retribution as long as you play carbon-based civs. The synthetic and silicon civs currently have broken tech trees for colonization and terraforming. Personally, I gave up waiting for Stardock to get their act together and modded the master tech file by removing the preclusions for Xeno Adaption and Xeno Biology so I could play my custom synthetic race.
Thanks for confirming that. I'm currently playing as the Korath and am seeing the mod-added techs. Do you happen to know if the devs intend to fix the synthetic and silicon tech trees?
No idea!
I think the current tech tree for colonization and terraforming might need major reworking to accommodate non-carbon races.
It took me quite awhile to find a workable. but lousy, fix to allow my synthetic race to get advanced colonization and terraforming techs.
I think this MOD is now broken with 4.0.I have tried to get it to work but no luck. Used the cheats to get the tech to upgrade a tile. Bought the soil upgrade and there is nothing showing on the next turn for upgrading more tiles.
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