@S-Man: OK, I understand about the Paladin/GM thing you did. It does add some strategic decisions into play about whether (or if) to replace your Paladins.

With the Wonders, I've played a few games with v3 (not a lot, maybe four or five) and unless I'm getting REALLY lucky (unlucky?) the AI doesn't build a lot of them. In My last game, for example, I built Petra near the end of the Renaissance era and Angkor Wat a bit into the Industrial. Gandhi (AI opponent) didn't get around to building the Great Mosque of Djenne until the Renaissance era either. I'm nearing the Modern era and nobody has built the Masoleum of Malwhatever yet, despire it being a quest for a few city-states. Note however that in that same game, I had serious competition for the Great Library -- not that common in My games.

--V

BTW, if you're still looking to add classes, might I suggest something sea-based? I know that the Shaman already starts with the ability to embark, and you've added water abilities to the later dragon classes. But perhaps some sort of magical ship or creature? Perhaps something similar to the Trireme, slightly slower, lower combat value, but with some extra abilities to make up for it. Maybe attacking land-based units, or the ability to enter (but not end the turn in) ocean tiles? Or even a weak ranged attack. (Personally, I find it frustrating sometimes that I have to wait so long to get ranged naval vessels unless playing ... is it Byzantium that gets those fire-spewing boat units?)

--V

@V - TBH, I never used the "Gun Mage" much in testing. It was suggested by an early collaborator, so I was at the "OK, why not...." part of the design phase. Any alternate name would be fine with me, as I never was able to come up with anything "magey" about it. "Gunslinger?" Naw. Not enough pistol models available, unfortunately.

Will try to make some time this week to test the Wonders - will run a few 500+ turn game simulations then check each Civ's Wonder count. If they're fairly evenly distributed, I don't think there's a problem. If they're not, then I can tweak the FA building flavors and see if that gets us back to something more normal. I suppose if I were truly thorough, I'd run a few V2 games to get a better picture of the baseline changes in V3. Oh, where is the time....? ;)

I like the idea of beefing up the Sea Domain, but am rather limited by the number of units available. Basically, I'm limited to things here:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/categories/civ5-units.128/

There are 592 units (many with colorization permutations) available and most of them are not sea based. I can also mine models from working Steam mods.

So, it's not impossible to find enough models spread through the timeline, but it will take some creativity. I know "Pirates" are hot, so including them and perhaps the 2 Airships from the Steampunk scenario - will include 3 members of a class. If I keep up with current convention, I'd need 3 more units, either very early and/or very late in the time line. Of the top of my head, I suppose I could put together a class that looks like this:

1. Sea Dogs (modified Viking longboat, no prereq/Ancient)
2. Buccaneers (modified trireme, prereq: Optics/Classical
3. Pirates (modified cog, prereq: Compass/Medieval)
4. Corsairs (modified Frigate, prereq: Navigation/Renaissance)
5. Sky Pirates (early Steampunk Airship, prereq: Steam Power/Industrial)
6. Moonlighters (late Steampunk Airship - triplane carrier, prereq: Combined Arms/Atomic)

Some of the ship models (#1-4) will probably come from this mod:

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/544150006534637607/7869934ADA1964529F39BD449226EED33D87C942/

Would still need some suggestions on capabilities (i.e. Promotions) - If it's a naval ranged class, then perhaps extra range/sight, Bombardment, Indirect fire?

If it's a naval melee class, then something like: Coastal Raider (1, 2, or 3), Heal HP if kill enemy unit? Capture defeated enemy?

Or a mixed-class (some units ranged/some melee) that can use shared promotions like Exploration (+1 move/sight)? Supply? Can enter rival territory?

Maybe #1, 5, & 6 could be ranged, and 2-4 could be melee? Or something like that. Could also reuse the Kraken and Leviathan models from the Barbarians and give them the function of #1 & #2. Perhaps. Not sure if they have ranged attack animations, but they probably do (coming from the City attack).

Appreciate any thoughts you have on the subject. This kind of spitballing helps me quite a bit in figuring out what to do and often how to best get it done.

A couple of these models look cool, too, for the early ships....

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=912149804

Quick note here from earlier. By Gun Mage, did you mean a Gun Lancer?
More anime style, but that would be a person in heavy armour wielding a massive 3-8 round cannon with a large bayonet fixed to it as well, most of the time with a broad shield fixed to the other arm.
Can commonly be seen in the "Monster Hunters Freedom Unite" games.

@Ninja - that might have been in the mind of the person who suggested it to me. I looked quite a while for a decent model until I settled on the Mongolian Musketeer model. Looked kind of exotic, "magey" - so that's why I chose him. I thought a lot about how to adjust his promotions to give it some/any kind of magical flair, but really didn't come up with anything satisfactory. That's basically true for a lot of the units in the mod. The goal is to keep the mod as compatible as can be, then ultimately releasing an LUA-based version that really kicks up the magical capabilities of the units, at the expense of compatibility. Well, that's the plan anyways...

A version that works with the smoky skies scenario mod would be amazing and make the full leap to a magepunk world.

Supply should be a basic part of any ship, magical or not; I always thought it silly that naval units couldn't heal outside friendly territory. Did Columbus have to sail back to Portugal to fix his ships if they were damaged in the Caribbean? I use the "Naval Healing Mod" to correct that. (Does not affect non-basic naval units, sadly.)

If those names end up being the ones you use, then probably a capture on kill, heal on kill, and/or earn gold on kill would be appropriate. "Killing" being a common theme there. "Moonlighters" made Me chuckle though ... We have a biker club here in TX by that name. Ride cool! Since they can't be upgraded, having varying melee and ranged capabilities would be doable, with no need to worry about shared promotions.

I'm also using a mod called "ls civilization set i" that includes a civ known as the Haida. They have a particularly interesting melee naval unit that can not only attack other ships but can attack land units on a coastal tile. They also have the ability to pick up ancient ruins on coastal tiles, which I think just makes sense. ("Oh, we're on a boat. There's some ruins over there that bear investigating but ... we're on a boat. We can't land or swim or send a dinghy because ... we're on a boat.") I glanced at the files in that mod and it does include some lua, but I'm not sure if that's required for the naval stuff.

As for the models, that's not really My glass of bourbon, sorry. I remember when "Dungeons of Daggorath" was cutting-edge computer graphics.

Just throwing out some ideas here. Catch any you favour.

--V

@Poptard - in theory, I agree things like you suggest could spice up the mod nicely. As I understand most of the "Steampunk" philosophy, it would require a lengthy expansion of the eras Industrial and later - like the SSSS mod did - to give it the flavor you like. This almost certainly breaks any other mod that expects/assumes the normal Tech Tree exists, like this mod does...

As one of the core design criteria of this mod is to maximize compatibility with other mods, there is no easy way to add the steampunk ethos. The more feedback I get from players is a bit surprising to me - how many other mods they play simultaneously - sometimes the numbers are in the dozens. It would really limit the success of this mod to break the normal Tech Tree to add in steampunkiness, unfortunately.

Having said all that, you've got me wondering.... ;) How would it sound to add a type of "Expansion" mod that would harmonize some the elements of the SSSS mod with this one? So players who didn't want steampunk or steampunk features break a higher priority mod didn't need to use it? I'm thinking about adding a subset of the new techs from that mod and introducing some of those units to provide the gaming experience you're describing. It's a lot better, compatibility-wise, to add a few techs but not remove any from the existing game. This may limit perhaps 3-5 new techs per era, but that should be enough to provide the flair you're looking for.

Gets me thinking about other types of "detours" that could be implemented in an optional expansion format. I was looking for ideas on where to take the mod next and I'm starting to see some real possibilities here...

@vondraco - man, you're a wealth of ideas! The recovering HP through killing/plundering definitely sounds like the way to go. "Moonlighter" is definitely a passe term I haven't heard used in normal conversation to describe crooks in many a decade. I liked the term overall, as it describes a late-era unit that should be reaching for the skies...

I looked at the Haida mod and it does have some interesting features, heavily reliant on LUA to implement. It might be interesting to add some kind of "scalping" attack (what the code calls it) to the non-compatibility version of the mod later on. WHoward has a mod that lets a naval unit "carry" a land based unit, which uses a slightly different design than the Haida mod, but they're both fairly similar in their impact to compatibility.

Both mods use LUA to implement the capability, but I don't see much that should impact compatibility with other mods. OTOH, I've often seen mods that cannot possibly impact other mods but still do. Civ V code is buggy, and I've seen several instances where a tiny, no-way-in-heck-could-impact-another-mod change that causes the game to crash - and for absolutely no reason that I can determine. But it still does. That's the primary reason I've been fairly dogmatic about avoiding any LUA for this mod.

Currently, I'm trying to decide what to work on next. I have several maps I want to add to my "Napoleon at War" mod, am quite interested in adding the Pirate class to this mod, or add the "Steampunk" expansion with the Pirate class included there. Or add Pirates here, then heavily modify them with the Steampunk expansion later. Also have improvements to add to the "Combat Power Projection System" mod as well. Never enough hours in the day....

Greetings - if anyone's out there... ;)

Am starting on V4 right now. Here's the current work plan:

1. Add the Corsair class (along the lines discussed in post #48 above).

2. New Terrain Improvement: Wizard's Tower - built by expending the last 3 Magus class units (Alchemist, Thaumaturgist, Psionicist) instead of Academies. Adds 50% defense, damages adjacent enemy units 20 HP/turn, adds +3 Science, +1 Culture.

3. New TI - Necromancer's Tower: Adds 35% defense, damages enemy units +35 HP/turn. Built by expending the last 4 Necro units (Conjuror, Summoner, Exorcist, and Necro).

4. New TI - corrupted fields. Sort of like nuclear fallout. Damages enemy units in the same or adjacent tile 25 HP/turn. Built by first 2 Necro units (Illusionist, Medium) and all of the Drako class units.

5. Misc. fixes - Drako promotion descriptions, BOTS prereq building, Cenobitic text, etc.

Hoping to have this wrapped up this week. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. Thanks!

Corsair class is completed/unit tested - I actually like they way they turned out. Class photo:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1207599791

You can't see it from the pic, but the Moonlighter is carrying a new "Skyjacker" Fighter, which fits in between the Triplane and the Fighter. Unlike most Fantasy Army units, it upgrades to the Jet Fighter and can earn normal promotions.

Now working on Terrain Improvements - hope to have them done in the next day or so. After that, about a day's worth of misc. fixes. At that point, I'll run 10-20 test games of 500+ turns using Live Tuner. If everything looks good, I'll publish immediately.

Update (20171122): 2 of 3 Terrain Improvements completed. After much effort, I've fixed the broken Civilopedia! Am working on adding/improving this content, which may slow me down a day or so, but the overall mod quality will be much better afterwards....

Update (20171123): Completed 6 x 800+ turn games. No CTD's, so the mod looks pretty stable. Only real issue I'm examining is the fact the AI simply doesn't built the new Terrain Improvements. Am exploring methods to fix this, but so far nothing substantial. Hate to leave them in the current state as it represents an advantage (albeit small one) to the human player. If I can't fix it by Saturday, I'll lower the TI stats to reduce the advantage and release V4. BTW, the new Corsair units are quite fun to use. Beefs up the early to mid- naval game quite a bit.

Update (20171127): Decided now that the Civilopedia is fixed, I really ought to populate it, as most of the units/building had stubs for Civilopedia entries. All those are completed, so at least for now the HELP function will actually be some, uh, help... Running a few more 500+ turn tests today to make sure the mod is stable, and will release if all is well. Hopefully later today.

V4 Published!

Am starting to work on V5 this week. Hoping to add a bunch of fixes and a few new units. So far, here is the Version 5 Punchlist:

- Add unit upgrade feature that allows all of the FA units to upgrade
- Add "Blighted Fields" terrain feature? It works like "fallout." Was supposed to happen to any tile a Drako unit was killed in, but that will take a bit of effort...
- Populate Civilopedia
- Add more details to the unit/building tooltips
- Possible rename all models to ensure unique naming. Helps prevent conflicts/bizarre behavior with other mods. Time-consuming and painful, but should help compatibility
- Finally fix the Medicine Man and Hermit models
- Text/fix Great General spawn - if it causes other FA units to appear.
- Check on FA promotions - how they transfer to captured FA units
- Retest IGE compatibility. Have never seen any problems, but other players have reported issues

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: OK, after much consideration, I believe it's time to break the mod into smaller pieces. The current FA mod is a 35MB behemoth that is taking 5 minutes to build on a fairly good machine. So...

I have broke the mod into 3 different mods - items #2 & 3 have been published separately:

1. Fantasy Army (the basic mod that adds the playable FA units)

2. Fantasy Army: Wandering Monster Expansion. Moves the Barb monster units out to a separate mod. Will also add more monsters to help cover latter Eras

3. Fantasy Army: Arcane Allies Expansion. Moves adds these "allies" to the game. They will periodically spawn Era-appropriate units to aid your cause:

-- Assassins
-- Dark Elves
-- Goblins
-- Hill Dwarves
-- Mountain Dwarves (siege specialists)
-- Orcs
-- Quendi Elves
-- Templars

Each of these new mods are playable without needing any of the other 2. This makes it much easier for players who don't want any Barb monsters or Allies, but still want the basic FA mod. Or perhaps someone wants to add the Wandering Monsters to their own mod environment. Or magical allies...

The changes will make it much easier to maintain the code and increase checks to help prevent runtime errors.