Usfox984

A new game and so much more in this third edition of the Stardock Community Newsletter.

• Do what you want with these but if you use it in any mod or another game you need to make it clear Walt Disney/Lucas Film and Lucas Arts and Paramount Pictures own the rights to their respective property.
• A Total Conversion Mod in development by John Grammaticus of Phoenix Studios, the mod is scheduled to feature 11 Major playable races, including the Federation, Klingon Empire, Romulans and Dominion, with canon and fanon ships spanning the entire known history of Star Trek drawing inspiration from multiple sources to produce one all encompassing mod.

Let’s bring another sci-fi universe to life, this time in the form of Star Trek. The Star Trek mod will see you playing as one of 25 civilizations from the show, each led by some of your favorite characters from the series. Technologies have also been altered along with other gameplay mechanics to match the Star Trek theme.

In this, the third edition of the community newsletter, we have highlights on a new release, game updates and a hot new mod.

As a reminder, if you have any comments or would like to see something included in a future edition you can leave it in the comments below or as a direct message on discord.

The Horizon

The Video Game Machine!

We have announced a new game: The Video Game Machine

What is The Video Game Machine (imagine an echo each time)? Well, simply put it is a game for making other games. Fun idea huh? Of course, there have been a few games like it before, but this one is a PC-first title and supports multiple different 8-bit inspired genres.

With The Video Game Machine you will be able to create your own levels, scenarios, add dialogue, create triggers, change the rules and even go a step further (for the really technical) and edit the XML files directly. You can then share your game with others who own The Video Game Machine and see who has the most diabolical mind amongst your friends.

In VGM you will be able to make a game, play that game and then share it with others! All without needing to know anything about programming, bitmaps, tilesets or driver incompatibilities.

The Founder Program is live now, you can sign up and expect to get your hands on the game as soon as the 29th of May. By doing so you will also be able to help us direct the development of the game, including what future genres we add and other features that we may or may not have thought of yet.

Ages of the Federation

The biggest piece of news coming from the community today is the release of Ages of the Federation. A total conversion mod for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

This mod is from the same minds behind the very successful Armada 3 mod. Always the fans of Star Trek they have put everything they learned about Sins into creating some of the most impressive ships brought to life in the Iron Engine yet. In fact, you might need to wait a bit as the game pauses to load in textures when zooming all the way in on a single ship.

Not just a pretty face, the AOTF mod also includes a few twists in the gameplay removing it from stock Sins including:

• A new antimatter mechanic.
• Unique damage model.
• A focus on asymmetric faction progression.

Siege of Centauri Updates 5 & 6

Whilst we are gearing up for a big refresh of Siege of Centauri the team has been hard at work pushing out feature-filled updates for early access defenders in the Beta 1 phase. Our last two big updates have added exciting new features including:

• Chronoshift - A new bullet time like mechanic for slowing down the game during critical moments.
• Reworked progression system. Tower/orbital unlocks are no longer tied to score. Instead they are unlocked by completing missions.
• Releasing new missions including Dule, Ascent and Gaol.
• Outposts are now in the game, these are buildings with no military value, but they give a big score bonus if they survive the mission.
• New music and sound effects.

This is not counting loads of new balancing, UI improvements, bugfixes and more.

Galactic Civilizations III 3.7 Update

After almost two months of feedback and work, we are proud to have launched the big v3.7 update to Galactic Civilizations III.

This patch is now free to download for all owners. Don't own Galactic Civilizations III yet? You can buy it from Steam, GOG or direct.

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The Forge

HaomaiCL's Workshop

Today we are highlighting the work of HaomaiCL on the steam workshop for Star Control: Origins.

A couple of specific ships we would like to point out include the U.E.S. Alexander

Along with the more recent Provectus.

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The Uplink

#3 - Stellar Parallax

In today's interview with spoke with some of the guys of the Stellar Parallax team, first is Hobbs with the text portion of the interview, second Max (GowronGaming) in the audio portion.

Q: Tell us a little about yourself and how you got into modding Sins of a Solar Empire?

H:

Hello I’m Hobbs and I’m a member of the Stellar Parallax band of modding misfits. I’m currently working on Ages of the Federation: The Four Years War and have also done some bits and bobs on the team’s other mod Star Trek Armada 3.

Back in college I studied a diploma in Video Game design and have always enjoyed the idea and process of making games. However, I was (and still am) pretty awful when it comes to getting my head around coding and all that stuff so I guess that’s how I ended up as a graphic designer.

As a massive science fiction fan and avid strategy gamer I’ve been enjoying playing Sins of a Solar Empire since the Entrenchment days. Some very long nights playing that with mates when I probably should have been studying I’ll tell you that much!

I joined Stellar Parallax just before the release of The Final Frontier where I add a few models here and there and working on some other projects the team had. I’ve also worked on some art for the Nemesis and Uprising versions too.

However, since joining the team I’ve been pretty much exclusively working on Ages of the Federation which I would consider my baby. I’m pretty much responsible for the 2D art side of things including designing the new menus and interfaces as well as iconography and other elements like that, which ironically has involved a lot of code! In terms of the 3D side a lot of the Romulan ships are my models as well as some of the neutrals too so that’s fun.

Q: What inspires/motivates you to create?

H:

I’m pretty unashamedly a perfectionist so I’m always pushing myself pretty hard to make sure everything I put out there is the best that I can do. After all, if I’m not happy with it chances are someone else will moan at me about it so it’s best to do it right the first time right?

Along with that I have a maaaasive passion for the source material which I’m modding and it’s nice to be around a group of people who share that insane level I guess fanaticism when it comes to Trek and science fiction in general.

But the most important thing when you’re doing something as a hobby is to just have fun with it. If modding felt like a job or a chore I would definitely not spend so much of my spare time tinkering away at making buttons or research icons or you name it!

Q: Which tools can you not do without?

H:

It might sound corny but nothing beats a great group of knowledgeable weirdos both within our team to have fun and collaborate with, but also in the community to chat to and bounce ideas off of. There’s also a great sense of friendship between modding teams within the Sins community so it’s always good to know whatever obstacle I’ve come across, there’s probably others who’re in the same boat who can offer some advice.

I have in the past worked on a mod where a lack of this collaborative and fun atmosphere really takes the fun out of what you’re trying to make. After all nobody wants their hobby to be full of confrontation and bickering all the time.

Q: Any special request for the future of modding in games? (Sins or otherwise)

H:

I think plenty of tools and support from the game developers and publishers is a must to get a game to really develop outside of the box. There’s plenty of games which have been released which have started out originally as modifications for existing titles and I think there’s a lot of creative individuals out there who like us like to find a creative outlet and make something fun and unexpected.

I also think that a lack of support or even when companies go as far as shutting down mods or making their game in a certain way to make mods next to impossible to make are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to creative a deep and long living community and fanbase.

Q: What challenges have you had to overcome, creatively, technically or otherwise?

H:

There are a lot of hard-coded components to the Sins engine which we don’t have access to be able to mod which is probably our most common stumbling block. Things like AI behaviours or ways in which menus work can be quite specifically set so you lean to be quite creative in new ways to trick the game into behaving how you’d like it to which makes for some really fun and interesting challenges.

Civ 4 Star Trek Mod

A current example which springs to mind is that we wanted to try and move shipyards over to the Tactical structure menu instead of the Logistic structure menu. Unfortunately, due to some of the way the AI is coded to behave, we didn’t realise this ended up resulting in the AI never building shipyards. Ever.

Q: What is your all time favourite spaceship design and why?

H:

Wow that’s a tough one. Only one? Ugh there’s so many to choose from… I think I’m going to have to split this down into two choices or my head will explode.

My favourite non-Trek ship would have to be Starbug from Red Dwarf. Such a cool looking ship and I love the models shots of it landing on a planet or moon and the legs depressing and the dust being blown up from the landing rockets. Really cool colour too which makes it a bit more unique.

I guess Trek-wise it would be the Excelsior. Star Trek VI is one of my all-time favourite films and it features quite prominently in that one. I like the scale of it in that era and how it’s the pinnacle of Federation technology.

If you ask my tomorrow my choices will probably change again!

Q: Is there anything you would like to plug?

H:

I’d just love everyone who hasn’t had a chance to head over to ModDB and give the mod a download and let us know what you think on our Discord!

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Respawn

Enhanced 4X Mod Playthrough by Blaan Sarge

Ages of the Federation Post Release Shenanigans

Thank you! Please check your email for a confirmation link. Once confirmed, you can look forward to receiving exclusive specials and announcements direct from Stardock.

Civilization games have been around for quite some time. And while there are newer releases, Civ 4 is credited as the turning point that eventually made the series so successful.

Civilization IV took what was good about the first three games and made everything much more accessible to newcomers.

If you feel like going back to the roots of what paved the way to modern titles, Civ 4 is definitely a good place to start.

And while you’re at it, you might want to check out some of these mods. They’re sure to help make your Civ 4 experience a bit more interesting.

15. Ethnically Diverse Units

As this title suggests, Ethnical Diverse Units aims to add some diversity to unit appearances in Civ 4, to better match the factions they represent.

As the modder himself explains, he found it odd that there was only one unit in the Malian civilization that appeared to be of African descent.

Install this bad boy and you’ll get tons of units, but all of them just introduce cosmetic changes to add variety to the current unit pool.

You’ll find African Horsemen, Indian Archers, and Greek Swordsmen among the new unit models that come with this mod.

14. Varietas Delectat

Varietas Delectat takes inspiration from other graphical mods to give units a major visual upgrade in Civ 4.

But this mod takes it even further, adding tons of new civilization-specific units to better suit each of the playable factions in the game.

You’ll now have additions like Spanish medieval units, Japanese samurai, Russian infantry, and even fighter jets, among many others.

13. Dacubz145’s Units

If you’re looking for more than cosmetic unit changes for Civ 4, you might want to check out Dacubz145’s extensive list of unit mods for the game.

The list has now come to 84 completely new units, where you’ll find anything from police cars and hummers, to tanks and airplanes.

Some of the models are even country-specific and represent vehicles used across different historical wars.

So if you’re looking for some WWII tanks or ships to play around with, you’re going to love this one.

12. Avatar: The Last Airbender World Map

Now I’d say one of the more creative entries on this list is this custom map from NamesAreUseless.

The map is a recreation of the popular Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

As in the show, you’ll be able to play as one of four factions: Air Nomads, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, or Water Tribes.

Each faction has been assigned a leader taken from the series as well.

If you’re a fan of the show you should definitely give this a try. It’s quite a crossover!

11. CIV Gold!

CIV Gold! is one of the largest mods out there.

It gives tons of new content to explore, mostly in the form of new civilizations to play as.

The mod adds at least 30 new civilizations and 24 new leaderheads to the mix.

It actually combines some of the most popular civilization mods together, but improves on things a bit to make everything fit together well.

Some of the new civilizations you’ll have access to include Belgium, Serbia, and the Philippines.

You’ll even have some of the more well-known leaders like Kim Jong Il, Alexander the Great, Philip II, and President Reagan. Imagine Reagan in Civ 4, what a time to be alive.

10. Dune Wars

While there are tons of smaller mods you can end up spending hours playing with, there are also a number of options when it comes to overhauls for Civ4.

Galactic Civilizations 3 Cheat Mods

If you’re looking for a completely new experience of the game, or want to play specific scenarios, you might want to take a look at mods like this one.

Dune Wars is actually based on the popular science-fiction novel Dune, which sees you fighting for control of the planet of the same name.

The mod features nine playable factions, each with unique abilities, and of course the famous sandworms you’ll have to battle across the desert.

9. Fallout: Tame The Wastes

Fallout: Tame The Wastes brings another popular video game universe into Civ 4.

That’s right, I’m talking about the post-apocalyptic wastelands of the Fallout series.

Tame The Wastes features 10 playable factions from the Fallout games, including The New Reno Crime Families, The New Vegas Strip, and The Enclave.

Pretty much everything has been touched up here to give you a complete Fallout experience.

The mod also adds a new UI, economic system, tech trees, and units. So this should keep you busy for quite a while.

8. Caveman2Cosmos

Caveman2Cosmos is another huge mod, which actually combines the work of over 100 modders to create one of the most expansive overhauls for the game.

Really, you’ll wanna check this out.

The title Caveman2Cosmos actually comes from the fact that it covers everything from discovering fire in the Prehistoric Ages, to successfully launching rockets into outer space during the Galactic Era.

The mod adds in loads of new content, from new units to tech trees and even terrain.

Absolutely a must-try mod in my book.

7. Star Trek

Let’s bring another sci-fi universe to life, this time in the form of Star Trek.

The Star Trek mod will see you playing as one of 25 civilizations from the show, each led by some of your favorite characters from the series.

Technologies have also been altered along with other gameplay mechanics to match the Star Trek theme.

The mod even features scenarios like Deep Space Nine and Xindi Attack, letting you play out some of the most significant events from the series.

Stark Trek fans, rejoice!

6. Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization

Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization is one of the most popular overhaul mods for CIv 4, and gives you an interesting premise right off the bat.

Galactic Civilizations 3 Wiki

The team explains that the mod aims to transform your game into an “Earth Simulator”.

Instead of adding tons of new units and features, Rhye’s and Fall focuses on building an exciting alternate reality through random event triggers throughout the campaign.

The mod also features an adaptive AI, a plague mechanic, and unique win conditions for each civilization.

5. Fall From Heaven II

Fall from Heaven is one other popular Civilization IV mod, this time putting a dark fantasy twist on the otherwise realism-based game.

The setting places you just towards the end of the age of ice, and those left behind from the once-great empires are struggling to survive & rebuild in a new world.

The mod features magic (of course that’s expected in a fantasy world) where different units are able to cast spells in battle.

There are also a couple of interesting changes to gameplay, including a buff given to veteran units, unit upgrading, and unique heroes.

4. Neoteric World

Neoteric World takes a completely different approach to modding, trying to stay within the realism and historical accuracy as much as possible.

This mod can also be defined by simplicity rather than overwhelming players with tons of new units and mechanics, only focusing on two specific eras of the game.

Neoteric World expands on both the modern and future eras of the game, where the expanded future era is even optional to play.

Tech trees have been reworked for both eras, as well as unit upgrade paths – which allow you to pretty much upgrade WWI tanks all the way up to modern ones.

It also includes 14 new civilizations and over 50 new events to make your next playthrough all the more exciting.

3. Planetfall

If you’re looking for an experience somewhere between realism and fantasy, Planetfall might be the mod for you.

We’re taken much farther into the future, as a group of colonists are about to leave Earth to find a home elsewhere.

The year is 2060 and Earth is no longer habitable, leaving them no choice but to explore other options.

Planetfall takes inspiration directly from Sid Meier’s space-themed game Alpha Centauri, aiming to bring the space exploration theme to CivI4.

Many consider it to be the sequel to SMAC that we never got, so this one is definitely worth checking out.

2. Realism: Invictus

If you enjoy things that are more along the lines of historical accuracy, Realism: Invictus is the answer you’re looking for.

The mod is a community effort that combines different mods to create the most realistic Civ 4 experience possible.

Galactic Civilizations 3 Nexus

The mod makes many changes here and there, so that things in-game just make more sense, touching on almost everything from buildings to units.

Included are over 140 new techs across all eras, 160 new leaders, and at least 3000 new units – all based on careful research and testing to make sure balance is maintained.

Seriously, this mod is absolutely massive. You’ll be busy for weeks.

1. Earth 2010

Probably one of the most interesting concepts I’ve come across in modding, Earth 2010 actually aims at letting you play through a simulation of a more current state of the world, rather than events of the past.

Though the mod is set a little over 10 years ago, it’s still an interesting concept to be able to play a game of Civ 4 with modern tech and leaders.

The mod features 35 playable factions, including all G20 members.

Oh, and nuclear power is also a thing here.

So you’re probably going to be much more careful when it comes to diplomatic relations. I hope.

Galactic Civilizations 3 Strategy Guide