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Hello. i Love this game, and love mods. i have recently learned to mod and plan to hopefully release something i have started working on. I hope to get some advice/suggestions from you.

The mod being created, "The Terran Legacy" is a completly new look on galciv2. In the game, we see humanity and other races around the galaxy. World peace on Earth and humanity. Millions if not billions involved in wars of 1 planet. Crossing huge distances in no time at all. We'll, is this mod things started a little differently.

In 2100, The countries on Earth have Peace. Hyperdrive is not invented. in fact, no other planet is colonized yet. the plans to do so are being started, with countries planning to send there own ship to places in the solar system. in 2107 World War 5, yes, 5, not 3, begins. In 2124, various countries launch ships, and only 1 keeps earth. Basicly, countries we know today have there own planet. Three "races" have been changed to human countries:

The terran alliance as the American Republic

The Drengin Empire as the Russian Union

The... somebody(i really have to start memorizing my own changes) as the English Monarchy

Each settles on its own planet. no out of solar system travel. Other bases will be hard to come by, and taken by conquering other planets or taking asteriod bases. (i have an idea to make them). Traveling to other planets will not be easy. engines will large, and life support systems to. planets will be far away from each other as in real life. However, some have the pleasure of having moons. Earth has 2 bases, Earth and the Moon. Jupiter with Moons like europa and Titan. Pluto with charon, plus close to the Kuiper belt.

A small few mile wide asteriod will not have 5 billion people living on it. Instead, colony ships will take a long time to build and carry only afew hundred.

The main mod takes place in the 23rd century. once again, everybody is at peace. but war could break out at any time. i have afew questions about how to do all of this:

Texutres, thats how i plan to do this. a yellow star would look like earth. a planet earth textured like a space station will act like the planet. The moon as another planet. Can this work? The same thing, an invisable star, no textures, with an asteriod as a planet.

How do i change starbases? my idea is to have a super ship with each new module adding abit more to the ship. the final one would be the engines, and a complete ship.

This one is more about stardock. I hope to make a new intro, i have some video experience. I found the movie files in a DAT format, how do i change them to AvI, and is it legal to do so? if it is, i could easily put the stardock logo in front of it. how do i convert AVI or WMV into DAT? for the game intro?

How do i make single player campigns, new ships and maps?

and about the countries, for you people, whitch ones are more focused on space? ideas for major/minor countries?

thanks for the help!