Dune Wars 1.5.5 Changelog
Religion system
* Added religion definitions from the religion design thread, posts 37-38. This changes all the religion buildings, starting techs, and unit definitions.
* Added religion civilopedia definitions to cover the material below.
* Relgion spread effects added:
+ Tleilaxu Supremacy religion appears automatically in any Tleilaxu city, and it is automatically removed if they lose the city. The Tleilaxu capital is automatically its holy city.
+ If a city is conquered by a player whose state religion is Mahdi, the Mahdi religion automatically spreads to that city.
+ If a religion spreads to a city, and Imperial religion is already there, then Imperial is removed.
+ If Qizarate religion spreads to a city, all other religions are removed from the city.
* The following civilization/religion combos are forbidden; the civ cannot found or convert to the religion:
+ Fremen cannot found/convert to: Imperial, Landsraad, Tleilaxu
+ Bene Gesserit cannot found/convert to: Landsraad, Tech, Tleilaxu
+ Corrino cannot found/convert to: Mahdi, Qiz, Tleilaxu
+ Atreides, Harkonnen, Ix, Ordos, Ecaz cannot found/convert to: Tleilaxu
+ Tleilaxu: cannot found/convert to any religion except Tleilaxu
Changes by deliverator
* New unit art! All the thopters are now winged units matching the scout thopter
* New main menu with animated planet and moons
* New version of the Arrakis mapscript, with new map options: Land Percentage, Grain, Noise, Donut Fatness and Minimum Inland Sea Size
* New leaderheads: Executrix (Ordos), Lady Fenring (Bene Gesserit), Princess Wensicia (Corrino); moved Alia to Atreides
* Revised scout thopter, now appears at proper altitude and scale in pedia and lower left viewport on main screen
* New background for air units in civilopedia viewport
* Added homeworld planet graphics for Wallach IX and Ix, added descriptive text
* Renamed eras with stages of life in Dune terminology
* New religion sounds
Other changes
* Version 2.05 of homeworld screen by koma13, with heighliner animation. Caution: slightly experimental, clicking on this animation while it runs may hang your machine.
* Several unexpected improvements carried irrigation: Wind Trap and Insect Farm; several unexpected improvements required irrigation: Desert Plantation and Insect Farm. (AHR34)
* A plot may get a terraform upgrade if it has fresh water and the owner is following the Arrakis Paradise civic. The chance of each plot upgrading is now 1% + (0.2% * #catchbasins owned) + (0.5% * #reservoirs owned)
* Game speed now affects rate of spice decay, terraform upgrade and Atreides unit production (KO11)
* Arrakis Transformation technology now requires Desert Industry instead of Sand Farms, which effectively moves it much deeper into the tech tree and makes the terraforming victory harder.
* Desalination now requires Desert Industry tech instead of Water Transportation (AHR35)
* Cottages no longer allowed on salt. (They were allowed in any sink terrain.)
* Changes to Mentat unit. It does not do anything new yet, but there are promotions limited to mentats, and each mentat has one randomly selected promotion. See the mentat mechanic thread for the future plan.
Bug fixes
* Removed mastery victory. There are several implementation problems with this; it prevents the victory condition screen from appearing due to a python exception, and prevents other victory conditions from being achieved. Many first-time players have run into this. Understanding the reason for the exception and the prevention is hard; removing the victory condition is much easier.
* Fixed problem where all the interface text was missing for a non-English installation language. (Missing language tags in several non-DW xml text files)
* Fixed problem with force shield turning huge, when Oracle of Hajra is built. Used different building graphic (shrine of ki instead of enlil).
* Fixed problem occuring for one player but not others, with a python alert appearing for the homeworld screen: "File MercenaryUtils, line 190, in isInvalidEra: AttributeError: NoneType object has no attribute getEra". Changed "range(4)" in MercenaryUtils.py to "range(3)" in two places.
* Fixed problem where espionage actions were allowed for units loaded in transports
* Fixed problem where Imperial Militia, House Corrino UU, could not be built
I assume there's only one planet per game, I haven't played Civ 4 but this made me want to get it. If you could expand to more planets, I'd say you should extend the timeframes to pre-machine crusades.
The planet is part of the Homeworld screen. When you discover a particular technology in the game, you are reconnected with your House's homeworld and can pay the Spacing Guild to ship reinforcements to Arrakis. Every homeworld looks different, but that is just a cosmetic change. However, an overall aim of the mod is to make each faction play quite differently - different units, different special abilities, etc.
The timeframe is mostly restricted to the first three Frank Herbert novels, but we do pull in some material from the prequels and the Westwood games.
Civ 4 is a good investment as there are loads of great mods for it.
Try not to steal models from other mods/games... I mean come on.. Thunderhawk and Marauder with bird wings?
Other than that, the mod does look interesting.
Conversions from DOW and other games are not unusual in the Civ modding community these days. I know it is obvious that they're from DOW, but we'll either reskin them or replace them for a more Dunish feel soon.