I plan to add additional posts to this thread and start the ball rolling for this Mod. I have copied these from the Mod Approval Process and will outline how I plan to provide information to the community so that we can make a decision on this mod.
Mod Approval Process Wrote:Once a mod is submitted for approval (by the submittor starting a thread in the approval forum), the community should use a rigorous standard to judge the mod:
Most importantly, does the mod give the player any edge over not having it? Graphics mods would probably pass this standard easily, but it's important to note that terrain mods could possibly make it a lot easier to see the squares at the "edge" of the fog, based on the tile blending -- that would be enough to exclude it.
The general principle is that the mod should not give the player information he should not otherwise have -- the foreign affairs advisor mod that included the "gold available for trade" would explicitly fail this test.
I will post a number of screen shots from the same game comparing vanilla CIV4 to BlueMarble enabled CIV4. These will concentrate on the fog borders but will also show resources, ocean / sea, etc. Please let me know if you have any suggestions as to what other screen shots you would like to see.
Mod Approval Process Wrote:Secondly, is the mod useful? Does it benefit enough players in some way, and is it a benefit to the RB community that players use it? Blue Marble would almost certainly also pass this check, since many players[1] would say it makes the terrain a lot prettier. Autologger might not pass this test, actually, since there is quite a bit of opposition to its use as the "bulk" of reports.
Not much to do here - guess we just look at how many people post in this thread to gauge the interest.
Mod Approval Process Wrote:Finally, does the mod bring something new? If we already approve ($DEITY help us) ResourcesAsNFLIcons 1.1, we don't also need ResourcesAsNHLIcons 0.98c.
Ditto
In the same vain - is there any interest in a CIVSCALE approval thread? This program does two things ... 1) change various scaling items (cloud depth, city sizes, unit sizes, etc and 2) change the interface colour and transparancy. Do we need to have a different approval process for each? For me, I expect that the second one would get approved fairly easily while the first one might be more difficult.
Okay, so here's the first step to getting Blue Marble approved.
I would imagine we should have a committe of at least 7 or so from this community, and several of them should be able to take apart a mod to see how it ticks b/c as was noted: let's not trust those modders
I, myself, can't delve into the code or analyze much of anything else, but I can play the game and post relevent screenshots and would be willing to engage in this whole process. So, I am nominating myself as a committee member. If my experience adn perspective is not considered worthwhile, i will step aside, but for now ~ i'm the chairmen of the board
just kidding.
anyway, i'm going to download the Blue Marble terrain set tonight, set up 2 civ folders (one with each) and begin capturing screenies to notate any differences in bleed-over and unforeseen tile knowledge. If other people are interested, they should do the same, but we really would need someone to break down the mod and make sure it doesn't affect anything put the terrain graphics.
That being done, the only hurdle i see the bleed-over problem ~ if there is one, that is. Anybody else??
Here's Sirian's thoughts from later in the thread:
Originally Posted by Sirian
Since the mod review and recommendation process is ultimately aimed at gathering, processing and analyzing data on mods to be summarized for me to make the final call, the decisions will be made according to pattern number two, per above.
APPROVAL PROCESS
What I need from "the committee":
* Is a mod "Graphical"? (Affecting appearance).
* Is a mod "Utilitarian"? (Affecting player's interface).
* Is a mod "Rebalancing"? (Affecting game rules).
* Which components are modified? (World Builder, XML, Python, C++)
* Which files are affected?
* If Python or C++ are involved, the mod needs to be certified free of trojans.
* VISUAL EVIDENCE showing and explaining what the mods actually do.
* A simple "aye" or "nay" from each committee member as to their personal recommendation on whether or not to approve a given mod. (Explanations may follow but are not required.)
Graphical-only mods would be approved for all uses (or not approved).
Mods with any rebalancing elements are off the table except for specific events (codifying a given event's variant rules in to the game itself.) The exception might be if I see a pressing need to override core game rules (including possible bugs or exploits yet to be discovered) to preserve the quality of our tournament; however, in that case I will write the mod myself and try to get it tested before imposing it on the rest of you. ... Here's hoping THAT is never necessary.
Utilitarian mods are the tough calls. Stuff like Civ3 Mapstat falls in to this category. Mods that are primarily graphical in nature can turn in to utilitarian mods, by design or by accident, so that's the main hurdle they face. It is my intent to approve all graphical mods that are shown to me to have no utilitarian or rebalancing effects. (I don't care what your game looks like. I only care how it plays. However, some graphics can affect gameplay, so that is where I start to care about those.)
Most utilitarian mods will not be approved, but we'll take them case by case -- if "the committee", which does not yet exist, does the leg work of investigating.
As for the committee's process, that is up to its members. I don't care how you turn up the data or reach your recommendations. Whatever you come up will work better than what I would imagine. However, the data has to meet all the requirements I listed or I'll simply send it back as unripe.
All decisions will be made on thorough evidence carefully weighed, and then they will be final.
Beta mods will not be considered. Only mature, polished (finished) mods need apply. Post-approval, the committee will have to re-review (in total) a mod that has been updated. All mod updates are disallowed unless approved.
The flip side of that quote is "fools never differ". Count me in as someone who will dig into the mod. I will happily post a list of all affected files between vanilla CIV4 and BM-enabled CIV4.
Edit: Here it is - a text file showing the files included in the Blue Marble mod. They are all DDS files (graphical) that replace the files contained in the packed (*.fpk) files. From here, we need in game screen shots of all the replaced files. Question: Do we need to show 'grid on' and 'grid off' screen shots - they are actually different graphic files (no wonder it takes so long to turn the grid on - a complete reload of all the graphics).
Ruff_Hi Wrote:Question: Do we need to show 'grid on' and 'grid off' screen shots - they are actually different graphic files (no wonder it takes so long to turn the grid on - a complete reload of all the graphics).
i would say, 'yes' ~ let's get every instance we can of it.
also, we should put on all the overlays in turn to make sure there is no difference in the info revealed.
pholkhero Wrote:i would say, 'yes' ~ let's get every instance we can of it.
also, we should put on all the overlays in turn to make sure there is no difference in the info revealed.
Are you suggesting that we present a screen shot of all different tiles (grass, tundra, hills, etc) with all different improvements (cottage, mine, road, railroad, etc) fully revealed, bordering the fog and just in the fog?
Sounds like a job for worldbuilder. Have you had any experience with that?
I've had some experience with it ~ i could whip up some maps tonight when i get home. I'm envisioning a 10x10 tile set of one terrain. Then, each row or column could have a specific improvement on it...just road, just RR, cottage, farm, resources, etc, and then only reveal a portion of it so that we can see what's revealed and hidden by the fog.
I also think that we should have a bunch of random snapshots so that we can try and determine if Blue Marble reveals more than the Vanilla, which it very well could b/c of the bleed-over with tiles.
You can knock that up in the WB in not a lot of time, then just open in the gmae with and without BM for comparison. The only real time consuming bit is that you'll need to cover every possible combination of base terrain, hills, FP, improvement, cultural border, etc.
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pholkhero Wrote:I've had some experience with it ~ i could whip up some maps tonight when i get home. I'm envisioning a 10x10 tile set of one terrain. Then, each row or column could have a specific improvement on it...just road, just RR, cottage, farm, resources, etc, and then only reveal a portion of it so that we can see what's revealed and hidden by the fog.
I also think that we should have a bunch of random snapshots so that we can try and determine if Blue Marble reveals more than the Vanilla, which it very well could b/c of the bleed-over with tiles.
Agreed on the general approach except I would go 20x3 then we put a scout at one end and just walk him into the fog - screen shot every step.
I don't think the bleed-over can physically happen. From my take on it, each tile is associated with a particular terrain type and it pulls the terrain type for that tile. On the other hand, maybe it is an issue - they (CIV4) *might* some sort of blending algorithm in place - I'll do some testing to see.
BeefontheBone Wrote:You can knock that up in the WB in not a lot of time, then just open in the gmae with and without BM for comparison. The only real time consuming bit is that you'll need to cover every possible combination of base terrain, hills, FP, improvement, cultural border, etc.
Sorry for being stupid - FP = ?? forbidden palace?
