Modding Help

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hi all,

I mostly play really short games. With a wife and three kids, I just don't always have tome to play a massive, week-long game.

The problem with short games is the huge expanse that is the GC2 Tech Tree. I understand that 30+ turns for Uber Shields mk Vi is great when you play a 1000 turn game. However, most tiny games last, what, 100 turns.

So, here is an idea I was kicking around: What if we could simplify the tech tree?

Now, I have a rough idea of how I'd want a simplified tree to look. But here are some questions.

Is it even possible to mod the tree?

Is it possible to get the AI to follow the new tree?

Where would I even start?
modding
3,816 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yes it's totally possible, and yes the AI will follow. Check in the folder galciv2/data/english/ for a bunch of XML files, TechTree.xml is what your pretty much looking for, but since it's so massive, and it's a XML file with lots of data, good luck reading through that.

Not impossible, but a PIA without a good tool to give you easy navigation of that tree so you can easily mod the attributes..
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sure you can mod the tech tree.
If you still want all of the components, upgrades, bonuses, et al to be availible in game, you'll also need to alter the "Tech_Requirements" feild for those items in the GC2Types, PlanetImprovements, InvTactics, and "StarbaseModules" files to conform to you new tech tree. (everything is under %GalCiv2 install director%/Data/English/ )

For instance, instead of having "Basic," "extended," "Advanced," and "Ultra" life support each with their own tech.
Open up TechTree.xml and scroll down to the life support techs (life support are right in a row like most sequential techs). And lets remove "Ultra"
Then to still be able to use the "Ultra Life Support" module, you'll need to opne "GC2Types.xml" and scroll down to "UltraSupport" and change the "Tech_Requirement" to a tech that can still be researched in your amended tech tree. So change it from "Ultra Life Support" to "Advanced Life Support". Now when you research "Advanced Life Support" you'll get both the Advanced and the Ultra life support modules.

I think, the AI will research techs based on their "AIValue" attribute in the TechTree.xml. For the AI to recognize the new value of the tech (researching "Titanium armors" that gives all titanium armor modules is a lot more valuable than researching one Titanium tech for one type of titanium armor), you'll need to alter the AIValue to represent the value of what the new tech offers.
That value combined with the inherint tech attributes for category and specialization allow the AI to make research descisions just as if they were in the original tech tree. I think the categories give the different AIs (warmonger, economic, expansionist, whatever) the ability to give prefernce to certain types of techs.

You'll spend some time tweaking the costs and values, and managing pre-reqs in your trimmed down tree and then organizing the various components and bonuses to remain in the game, but it's not difficult once you get the swing of the xml format.
Hope that sends you in the right direction.
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