[BTS MOD] Realms of Kylorin

[Lutefisk Mafia]

Realms of Kylorin
Release 1
for BTS 3.19

by Lutefisk Mafia
(Paul Bakken)

First of all, a huge thanks to the Fall from Heaven team! Without the use of the Age of Ice BTS mod as a core, I would never have finished this mod.

The Realms of Kylorin is mostly my attempt to port Sudoku games into Civ4.

As I was playing Age of Ice one day, listening to the music, the lyrics about dreams sparked an idea: What if I could create a side-story mod that takes place during the same time as the Age of Ice scenario – but have it take place in a dream realm created by Mulcarn to imprison Kylorin's consciousness?

Realms of Kylorin is the result.

The premise is that Kylorin's mind is trapped in the Dream Realms, which are an abstracted series of 3x3 “nations.” To break the spell and escape from Mulcarn's dream prison, Kylorin must consolidate the Realms into one Empire. He accomplishes this by riding around the map and creating improvements on all of the empty tiles in each Realm.

The rules of Sudoku apply: each 3x3 realm must contain one of each of the nine possible improvements. Moreover, no particular instance of an improvement can be directly in line (East, West, North or South) with any other instance of the same type of improvement. Each scenario starts with a few tiles already developed to give the player hints on how to complete the puzzle. These “starter” tiles are permanent and cannot be changed.

I have included a starter pack of scenarios for the mod. Each WB scenario is a separate Sudoku style puzzle. The naming convention on these is simple: RoK_DIFFICULTY_NUMBER

“RoK” is just an identify for Realms of Kylorin specific WB files.
“DIFFICULTY” can be EASY, NORM, or HARD
“NUMBER” just gives a unique designation to individual WB saves within a difficulty category.

For example:

RoK_EASY_001
RoK_HARD_023


I had fun making this mod. I hope you enjoy it, too!


Some pictures of the RoK_EASY_001 WB map:




http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/6482/rok0010000.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/rok0010000.jpg/)






http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/5541/rok0020000.jpg (http://img161.imageshack.us/i/rok0020000.jpg/)




And the .zip file:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=ed141503b53935eb0c814df2efeadc50e04e75f6 e8ebb871

Simply unzip the file into your "Mods" folder, and then load the mod from the BTS "Advanced screen.

Patch "a" available below -- it should also unzip into the BTS "Mods" folder:

[Lutefisk Mafia]

"Patch a" Release Information:

I decided to do a patch instead of full release -- better to download KBs than MBs!

Patch "a" contains these changes:

1. Implemented improvement hotkeys as suggested by PieceOfMind. The function keys F1 through F9 now place the improvements. F10 clears the tile. F11 still does global zoom in and out. F12 still accesses Civilopedia.
2. Got rid of all of the popup stats that appear at the end of the game. (Thanks to General Tso for the pointer on this one!)
3. Removed the rest of the advisor screens and buttons -- they had little value in this mod, anyway!
4. Victory text now correctly refers to Epona as Kylorin's wife, not just an ally. (Good catch TC01!)
5. Fallout is still persistent at the end of a turn. In the meantime, if you really want Fallout to disappear at the end of turns, edit your FeatureInfos.xml file under the heading of FEATURE_FALLOUT. Change the line that reads:

<iDisappearance>0</iDisappearance>
to

<iDisappearance>10000</iDisappearance>

Still working on for future releases:

1. Possible addition of improvement number tracker -- will provide an on-screen tracker of how many of each improvement type are currently on the map.
2. May implement a new difficulty level called "EVIL" for those of you who just aren't challenged enough. These are the Sudoku games that provide only 17 hints while maintaining an unique solution. Be afraid, be very afraid.
3. Add-on packs of levels!

[Grey Fox]

Cool idea. Though I find Sudoku to be a bit easy, how do you find the replayability value of the mod is while you've playtested it?

[Lutefisk Mafia]

Cool idea. Though I find Sudoku to be a bit easy, how do you find the replayability value of the mod is while you've playtested it?

Well, each individual WB save file is only really playable once -- just like a paper and pencil Sudoku game.

But I planned for that. I included a "Blank" map as a part of the package. By opening this up in WB, one can input any unsolved paper and pencil Sudoku game into a new map and save it as a WB scenario.

If this mod gains a following at all, I plan to do some conversions myself and release them as add-ons. Also, as long as people adhere to the naming conventions that I set up for WB files, anyone can make up an expansion pack of maps for the mod that will work fine.

Converting is easy:

1. Get a paper and pencil Sudoku game that you haven't solved yet.

2. Fire up Realms of Kylorin and load the RoK_BLANK WB scenario.

3. Pick a type of improvement to assign to each traditional Sudoku number. For example, I use: 1 = Town, 2 = Fort, 3 = Windmill, 4 = Snow Rice Farm, 5 = Dye Plantation, 6 = Forest, 7 = Stone Quarry, 8 = Horse Pasture, 9 = Cattle Pasture.

4. Transfer the initially filled out numbers from the Sudoku game into the map as the appropriate improvement. Note that some improvements have more than one element. The Farm, Plantation, Quarry, and Pastures require both a bonus and an improvement.

5. Once all of the "starter" spot are filled, you must change the terrain for each of those tiles to "Permanent" instead of the default "Grasslands." This designation will prevent the player from accidentally erasing the improvements on that tile.

6. Save the map as a WB scenario file, using the naming convention described in the main Realms of Kylorin thread.

According to Wikipedia, there are over 5 billion unique Sudoku puzzles. That should provide for some re-playability. :)