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Blake00

Hey guys,

I asked this in a few other places and in some private convos with Civ3 gurus but haven't had much luck.

Does anyone know if there is a Mars Scenario for Civilization 3 out there somewhere?

I haven't had any luck finding one which surprises me since there's some awesome Mars colonization scenarios for Civ2, ToT, Civ4, Civ5, and they'll probably even be one for Civ6 sooner or later lol.

The only work I could find was Balthasar's amazing Mars terrain & map pack however running around Mars with half naked primitive warriors breaks immersion and does such gorgeous terrain an injustice so it would be really great to have a proper scifi mars scenario to play.

[Image: dusar_6d9-png.452851]

When I posted about this over at CivFinatics Balthasar himself posted and offered to make a scenario that uses his map however sadly he has recently passed away. frown

So I figure if there's no Civ3 mars scenario out there then maybe if I can get my hands on some other decent Civ3 scifi scenarios (pity there isn't an Alpha Centauri themed scenario for Civ3 as that would be perfect!) out there then maybe I could combine some of their stuff (with author's permission) with Balthasar's terrain & maps to make a simple but fun sandbox mars colonization scenario. I say simple as I'm a Civ2 modder not a Civ3 modder so I lack the skills to make some fancy scenario with story elements. However I've mucked around a bit with Civ3 mod files so I've got an okay grasp of moving files around, changing terrains and editing text files etc. Figured I'd put some Balthasar tribute stuff into the scenario too to pay my respects and also tip the hat to the Balthasar's Mars Scenario that could have been.

These are the Civ3 scifi scenarios I've gathered from helpers (but not tested yet) so far..

Alien Attack 1.7
Bigger Better Worlds
Dune
Escape of Zombie Island 2 - Remake
Fallout v1.13
H.G. Well's War of the worlds
Space Opera (probably too spacey though, need land based scifi stuff not space ships)
Stargate - The Battle of Antarctica
Stargate SG-1 - The Battle at Dakara Beta
X-COM - Alpha-Stadium

Anyone know of some other good ones?

.

Blake00 · February 27th, 2020, 08:08

Interesting update on this topic just posted at CivFinatics.. there was indeed a mars scenario for Civ3 being made back in the day 15yrs ago however sadly it's creator 'Smoking Mirror' never finished it. His last post talked about moving house and that was it.. he was gooooone.. frown

He and his helpers had fleshed out a LOT of stuff and some it looked awesome. Such a shame! Some of the downloads still work so I've grabbed what I could!

Units (recovered):
[Image: military.gif]

Leaders (NOT recovered):
[Image: leaders2.gif]

GeneralKilCavalry · February 27th, 2020, 10:27

So I looked thru my old mods and I mostly have history-themed mods, but I do have a Star Wars mod (or two? I don’t know if they are different versions or actually different). I also have some abandoned LOTR mod (not Lotm).

Anyhow, I’ll try uploading my mod collections over spring break to google drive.

I also remember someone sharing a ton of mods on mail.ru, let me try and find that link:

GeneralKilCavalry

For example, here's the warhammer mod:
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/CFuf/DA9mqk5xV/

And I've attached some old russian mars mod below. I don't know how good it is, but there does seem to be some art in it?

http://www.civ-blog.ru/download/

Here's a blog with potentially functional download links. Make sure to use adblock and an anti-virus... And google translate.

If there's anything interesting you find on it, I can work something out specifically, maybe contact the website admins?

Then there is the russian version of the LOTR mod, and even though many of the graphics are the same, there are definitely some changes, and they have more civs than LOTM
http://files.civfanatics.ru/mods/civ3/arda/
Unfortunately, just like in the olden days, you have to download a ton of separate files...

Some more random stuff
https://yadi.sk/d/_bcByC9z5y6kfQ

It just keeps going, I've pmed you.

Edit: I don't think the mars mod runs (crashes on end turn) or is very playable in the first place, but there is art that is salvageable)

Blake00 · February 28th, 2020, 04:46

Wow! Thanks heaps for this! So there really is a Mars scenario out there.. its just Russian and unplayable haha!

Are you running it on a English copy of Civ3? I ask as I looked at its pedia and config files and they're all jibberish as my english notepad can't read russian.. I haven't tried yet but I'm guessing bad things will happen if I try to run it in my english Civ3. Your edit comment supports this fear haha.

But yes this is another excellent resource to add to the collection. Thank you very much.

I didn't even know there was a big english LOTR scenario for Civ3 let alone a Russian one haha. Do you know where the English one is? I can only see some small and simple LOTR ones at CivFinatics downloads nowhere near as big as this russian one.

GeneralKilCavalry

(February 28th, 2020, 04:46)Blake00 Wrote: Wow! Thanks heaps for this! So there really is a Mars scenario out there.. its just Russian and unplayable haha!

Are you running it on a English copy of Civ3? I ask as I looked at its pedia and config files and they're all jibberish as my english notepad can't read russian.. I haven't tried yet but I'm guessing bad things will happen if I try to run it in my english Civ3. Your edit comment supports this fear haha.

But yes this is another excellent resource to add to the collection. Thank you very much.

I didn't even know there was a big english LOTR scenario for Civ3 let alone a Russian one haha. Do you know where the English one is? I can only see some small and simple LOTR ones at CivFinatics downloads nowhere near as big as this russian one.

I’m running the English version (it broke after hitting end turn):

“you need to change the default language used by Windows for non-Unicode programs to match the one used by the application you want to run” This would fix the problem I believe, and it is not some sort of permanent change.

Otherwise, try putting into notepad ++ and messing around with the encoding standards used. If you REALLY need some foreign lanagauge files ever, you can write a simple script to add a certain numerical value to each character in a certain range to get the foreign language ones (say your file is mostly composed of U-241 to U-274, then just add whatever it takes to get the Cyrillic Unicode values.)

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/m...ds.252286/

This is the Lotm scenario, it’s pretty well-designed and fun to play. Its civpedia is kinda bad if I recall, though.

Another mod that might have something futuristic is the fallout 4 mod I also have around 8GB of atomic gamer files I downloaded, I believe most of them should be on the internet archive as well.

GeneralKilCavalry

Going home now, I’ll update the post with the list of mods I have in an hour.

Edit:
here you go
[Image: mjpDm8y.png]

GeneralKilCavalry

Furthermore, here's a whole list of civ 2 mods I have:

Idk what they are or what they do, but if any of these sound promising...

You can get them here I believe
https://archive.org/download/AtomicGamer_civfanatics

Here's the trek mod
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/7yb7/DD7mUMudZ

Here's the space opera mod
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/2Ucy/mV85K8pex/

These might be useful for you, but you may have come across these already.

Blake00

This is amazing thank you so much! I'm downloading the LOTR mod, the atomic backup, and the 2 space mods now.

Ooooohh yes I'd love a look at those Civ2 scenarios. Presumably they'll all tiny so I'll PM you a link to an upload area with about 2.5gig free you can stick them on if you're willing! smile

EDIT: Oh wait.. thats from the atomic pack isn't it.. so I have all them now thanks to that other link you gave me.

Urgh that translator stuff sounds a bit beyond my skill set.. but at least we can load the mod and look at it on turn one.. and I can harvest things of interest from it if needed.

Blake00

Regarding Smoking Mirror's sadly unfinished scenario above I discovered he had another thread where he posted work in progress shots and that he did some of his own terrain too (although I think I prefer Balthasar's posted above, plus Balthasar actually made a map whereas I don't think Smoking mirror got that far).

[Image: marsterrain1.gif]

(February 28th, 2020, 09:16)GeneralKilCavalry Wrote:
(February 28th, 2020, 04:46)Blake00 Wrote: Wow! Thanks heaps for this! So there really is a Mars scenario out there.. its just Russian and unplayable haha!

Are you running it on a English copy of Civ3? I ask as I looked at its pedia and config files and they're all jibberish as my english notepad can't read russian.. I haven't tried yet but I'm guessing bad things will happen if I try to run it in my english Civ3. Your edit comment supports this fear haha.

But yes this is another excellent resource to add to the collection. Thank you very much.

I didn't even know there was a big english LOTR scenario for Civ3 let alone a Russian one haha. Do you know where the English one is? I can only see some small and simple LOTR ones at CivFinatics downloads nowhere near as big as this russian one.

I’m running the English version (it broke after hitting end turn):

“you need to change the default language used by Windows for non-Unicode programs to match the one used by the application you want to run” This would fix the problem I believe, and it is not some sort of permanent change.

Otherwise, try putting into notepad ++ and messing around with the encoding standards used. If you REALLY need some foreign lanagauge files ever, you can write a simple script to add a certain numerical value to each character in a certain range to get the foreign language ones (say your file is mostly composed of U-241 to U-274, then just add whatever it takes to get the Cyrillic Unicode values.)

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/m...ds.252286/

This is the Lotm scenario, it’s pretty well-designed and fun to play. Its civpedia is kinda bad if I recall, though.

Another mod that might have something futuristic is the fallout 4 mod I also have around 8GB of atomic gamer files I downloaded, I believe most of them should be on the internet archive as well.

What is this Fallout 4 mod for Civ3 you mention? Is it one of these ones?

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/f...t-13841886

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/f...on.199196/

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/d...od.652989/

Finally got around to trying out that Russian Mars mod. Strangely it works fine on my English copy of Civ3 without any modification to its files.. I played a whole bunch of turns and no crashes. However sadly the terrain is no match for Balthasar or Smoking Mirror's work as it looks terrible lol! It's all bright oranges, yellows, reds and pinks lol. However yes as you say it's got some okay units.

Since it seems to be the only Mars scenario for Civ3 in existence though I've preserved it at CFC here:
https://www.civfanatics.com/users/downlo...v1.0_RU.7z

My eyes.. my eyes!! lol

[Image: upload_2020-5-25_1-32-24-png.557927]

That Russian civ blog site you sent me had a nice picture of it too but no download which is the other reason I thought I'd better preserve it at CFC.
http://www.civ-blog.ru/civilization-3/mo...%80%d1%81/

[Image: mars-jpg.557930]

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