StarCraft MOD for Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword

Starcraft ?1998, 2002, 2003 Blizzard Entertainment. All rights reserved. StarCraft, Brood War and Blizzard Entertainment are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment in the U.S. and/or other countries.
"Civcraft: SC" is not affiliated with Blizzard Entertainment in any way. This project is a non-profit, fan-made project.

The goal of this mod is to provide a strategy game similar to Starcraft and its expansion pack, "Brood War", yet completely set in the turn-based realm. All units, spells, and strategy will be included, from the Terran's floating buildings to the resource harvesting to the deadly Psionic Storms and Broodling spawning.

The secondary goal of this mod is to really explore the full depth of power the XML, Python, and SDK package gives modders of Civ4 game. Even in the early stages of its development, Civcraft: SC holds very few parallels to the Civ4 game. Religion, Civics, and other Civ4 mainstays have been removed in order to concentrate more on the strategic movement of units. With many different types of units, strategy will be more than simply "get units that counter the other persons units, with better promotions, and more of them". Drop siege tanks at your enemy's mineral lines to cut off their resources, tech quickly to Dark Templar to try to catch an enemy off-guard who hasn't developed the proper anti-cloaking defenses, or move your units just right to defeat that enemy Reaver without being dealt much damage in return.

Although a ways off, the release of Version 1.0 will contain every strategic game play element that Starcraft has, from cloaking to lurker attacks to the almighty nukes. Because the game deviates from the typical Civ4-style game play so much, simply tweaking the AI to abide by the new rules is almost out of the question, and thus most AI code will have to be rewritten. However, the project is designed to be a multiplayer game first and foremost, until the AI can be rewritten, which will happen after the game play elements are in place. After version 1.0 is released, the only changes that will be made aside from the AI and possible race balancing will be bug fixes.

This thread will be the main interface for players of the mod. The development thread, where you can sign up for beta testing, find other ways to help the project, or possibly join up the upcoming Civcraft: WC project (Warcraft mod) can be found here.

About Combat

The most notable change that will happen will be to the combat system. All the subtle highlights of Starcraft's combat are, or will be, in Civcraft: SC...

* All units and buildings have a set amount of HP, and the Protoss' units and buildings additionally have a set amount of Shields as well.
* Each unit has a movement (how many plots it may move a turn) and attack (how many attacks it may make a turn) rating, where each attack also counts as a move. Each unit also has set damage that it does for each one of its attacks.
* Attack is not "simultaneous", like Civ4. When the enemy attacks during their turn, your unit will simply takes the amount of damage the attacker will deal, and not fire back. You will have your opportunity to attack your enemy back during your turn. This means that proper scouting to know where your enemy is at all times will be important, and the opportunity to deal massive damage using surprise attacks and hit-and-runs will be even greater!
* Some unit attacks are explosive or concussive, meaning their attacks will deal less against certain size units. Knowing what units you're opponent has will give you a decisive advantage, since you can build counter-units that will be dealt less damage every blow!
* Some units deal "splash damage", where aside from the normal damage dealt to the enemy unit, "splash" (or "area of effect") damage is dealt to units inside the same plot, and sometimes to units in surrounding plots!
* A pie-menu graphical interface will allow you to select specific units out of a stack to attack.

Thus, the myriad of different unit types are given their full advantages and disadvantageous. While the Zergling may have VERY little HP, they are very quick and can attack many times per turn, aside from being insanely cheap and quick to make. While, the costly Battlecruiser might get fewer attacks every turn and be much slower, the attacks it does do are powerful, and it has a mammoth amount of hit points. The Reaver is the slowest land unit, but it can fire its mighty scarabs a long range for massive splash damage, especially to the enemy's workers!

About Resource Collection

Unlike Civ4, the Civcraft: SC mod will make workers do the resource collecting. There is no cultural boundaries, and the workers harvesting will be ACTUAL worker units, with each race having their unique worker (SCV, Drone, or Probe).

There are two resources to harvest...

Minerals:
Minerals are typically found in patches of 8-10 deposits in packed together on the maps. Almost everythi