Indexing the Network Node factions

[Green1]

Wesnoth is also under continuous development, too. SMAX factions are highly unlikely to become obsolete unless a patch maker like Yitzi does something to fundamentally change the way the game reads factions, which is unlikely.

I am thinking more like a Lazy Newb Pack like dwarf fort has.... It installs everything for you!

It would have
- somewhat tested factions. No text, no art, lame? Not included. Matters not age. Has to be at least BU-level art and fit the genre.
- a graphical ALPHAX editor for the functions that really should be in an options menu!
- the latest stable Yitzi patch that HAS INSTALLER AND INCLUDES EVERYTHING YOU NEED WITHOUT SEARCHING!!! (I am going to catch stuff for that, I know.) Basically... Yitzi? Patch? Better game? Click here.... Not, get version 2.y ... but oh, you need a file 0.y kind of stuff.
- PRAX separate from Yitzi's, not included.
- ability to enable or disable components if one breaks.

[bvanevery]

Could be a rational target.  "One package" might work until the assets get large enough that the size of the download is at issue.  Or the asynchronicity of updates is an issue, how to get the "latest greatest" of something.  That's why people use packaging systems, to allow the asynchronicity.  They may come at the cost of deployment complexity.

[Buster's Uncle]

...I would support such a thing...

[Green1]

Well, I am thinking maybe 7 to 10 total factions to start. Maybe even that is too much.

Factions themselves don't take up too much as long as there are not DOZENS which is overkill and only the most no life (or enlightened hardcore) would play all of them

Fortunately, I do have recommendations.

- (FIXED) Antimind - but needs to be pumped up slightly!(Also needs a minor bug fix missing from conversion from SMAC to SMAX... ALIEN_FACTION_TREATY entries missing)
- (FIXED) Ete's Anihilators (need to remove HQ from all bases.. I think it causes a bug when trying to rescue a faction leader probe mission and random, disappearing factions or at least used to--- replace with more +EFFICIENCY)
- Jarlwolf's Crimson Comrades (okay as is for human faction)

those off the top of my head.. but it's merely taste..

Any recommendations you have?

[Buster's Uncle]

Agreed about just the seven other factions slot available.  it'd still be quite a goody set - you have a bias for monsters, though...

[Green1]

Agreed about just the seven other factions slot available.  it'd still be quite a goody set - you have a bias for monsters, though...

Well.. they are supposed to be...

What threat would Montezuma have if he was not coming to you early and messing your plans up in Civ 4? What would Ghandi had been but an also-ran AI in early Civ if he did not go ALL NUKES after being all peace-loving? These personalities must be backed by force..

[bvanevery]

Do you know of any games with mod packaging systems in wide use, other than Wesnoth?  Whether open source or commercial.  I'm wondering where one would go to school on best practices.  Skyrim seems to have the biggest modding community, last I looked.  However I didn't get deeply into it, because their modding looked like it was cookie cutter template driven, not programming driven.

I know that Civ IV was moddable with Python and that they had a SDK.  They dropped the Python like a hot potato and went to Lua for Civ V.  I'm not sure whether they had a SDK for that.  I know in any event people howled and many stuck with Civ IV.  Don't know what Civ VI has done.  Yes I could research it myself but wouldn't mind a slight short brain dump from someone who already understands.  Preferring to use spare brain cells for actual modding work at the moment, not logistical overheads.

[bvanevery]

Judging by http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Modding_(Civ6) it looks like Civ VI is a Lua + XML + Steam + inherent game support modding ecology.  That doesn't actually help much for best practices, other than considering Lua as a scripting language for the undertaking.  Retrofitting a game that doesn't have mod support, to a website that isn't Steam, is its own beast.

The Nexus Mod Manager is free and open source under a GPL license.  However I'm willing to guess its features would revolve around Nexus Mods, and that doesn't help drive traffic to AC2.  Also they have no AC community there.  They do have 60 mods for Civ VI.

[Green1]

Nexus Mods is for those people who don't buy stuff from Steam.

I am still kinda mad because there are some awesome mods for Age of Wonders 3 a lot of the remaining community uses. But the majority are only on Steam. I bought mine from GoG. But, I digress.

I should probably find time to "fix" Antimind then make sure some of the factions I remember can still be downloaded. Maybe in a day or two.

[Buster's Uncle]

Please?

[MysticWind]

Got a few questions about NN that I didn't want to make a new thread for.

1. Where did the archive in the OP come from? It's a great resource, but I don't think it contains every faction that was posted to that site.

2. I seem to remember that Apolyton used to host a NetworkNode faction archive. Is it the same one? Does anyone know where it is on that site? Their revamp broke a ton of links, so I might have to check with any remaining webmasters for these downloads.

3. Has anyone tried to scrape the Wayback Machine's archives of the original site pages? For instance, this one mentions factions that aren't present on the AC2 custom factions wiki:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040212012112/http://www.networknode.org/delta.html

[Buster's Uncle]

ISTR that Maniac originally posted the NN file that I placed in downloads.  I can't speak to the rest.

---

Hmmm.  I have a good deal of the files -I think I spent a few days scratching through Wayback about eight years ago- to do a NN recreation/archive, if only I knew my way around java/flash, or something like that...

[MysticWind]

Did some light indexing as follows: Found the original Flash menu interface for NetworkNode.org in this archive. Downloaded it and went down list of images to correspond with faction. Most are on the AC2 wiki.

Alpha
The Anarchists
The Gebazzu
The Path
The Rangers of Chiron
Replicants
The Syndicate
The Freelancers

Beta
The Atlanteans
NeoBorg
Terran League
Agri-Culture
The Artisans
The Ypunag
The Cult of Isis

Gamma
The Centauri Federation
Peacekeeping Assembly
Planet Health Services
The New World Activists
Jeoddra
Perfect Society
Empath

Delta
AntiMind
Droideka
Generic
The Imperialists
The Marauders
The Dark Spies
The Tech Triade

Epsilon
Aardom Federation / The Aardomites
Collective
The Elite
Genesis / The Genesis Project
The Juridic / Planet’s Law
Chiron Conservation Force
?

Zeta [Progenitor Civil War]

Eta
Vanguard of the New World
Bree
The Confederation
Gen-X
Morgan Merchants???
Brave New World
The Saints

Theta
Children’s Alliance
Assembly of the Synthetic
Manifold Seekers
Hellborn
Exiles’ Sanctuary
Dreams of Earth
Neveral Order

Iota [Seaworld]
Legion of Aquarius
Bringers of the Deluge
Full Fathom Five
Hydra Institute
Multimakers
O.E.C.
Triton Sect

Kappa
The Androgynous Community
Bards of Chiron
Guardians of Morality
Gemini Empire
Ishubu United
The Mech Prospect
The Showbiz Enterprises

Lambda [The Second Mission]
The Rensallir Corporation
Jorgenstad
Delgusia Inc.
CerraGen
Obrioshi
The Briach Estate
Serabollio

Mu
Manifold Chamber of Secrets
Animorphs ()
Worshippers of Entropy
Unicon
Strangers
Plato’s Republic / Platonians
Yeerk Empire

Nu
The Return to Earth

I leafed through Eta's factionpack28-08-2013 a few times to correlate the factions. Still not sure which one is the Dr. Evil one. Also the Animorphs one might be wrong. This should be all of the NN.org factions except for the themed sets that I haven't elaborated upon yet.

Sources:
https://web.archive.org/web/20040215082236/http://networknode.org/election_poll.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20040202004601/http://networknode.org:80/news.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20040212012140/http://networknode.org:80/ac.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20030901163302/http://networknode.org:80/ac_archive.html

[Buster's Uncle]

I THINK I've got everything, or near, that I'd need to recreate the site.  It's in Flash, which just as well be Mandarin, but I think there's a fairly easy workaround...

[MysticWind]

Flash is deprecated on modern computers anyway. Maybe you can revive the pre-Flash version of NN.org?