Sparks, Steel, and Steam is my attempt to put together a compatible 'partial conversion'. Personally, I always find 'total conversion' mods like Nights a bit daunting - I want a fresh experience, but I don't want to have to relearn the entire game. Here, I'm trying to find my personal sweet spot for a combo that forces me to rethink my strategies and make new decisions, while staying fundamentally Civ V.


The core of the collection are 4 mods; two which rewrite the tech tree, and two which add new mechanics. Around them, I have a collection of less critical mods, which shift the gameplay experience without completely defining it.

The tech tree is rewritten by two mods: 'Prehistoric Era' and 'Age Of Coal And Iron'.

Prehistoric Era (PE) adds an entire earlier era to the tech-tree, starting the player with the rather limited (but very cheap) Autocthon, and gradually building you up through cavemen and shamen to the main tech tree. It gives the clever player an opportunity to expand early, but doing so is a risk: you can't see resources to begin with, and must expand with the danger that you're settling in the wrong places. Although it adds a single era, the ramifications of PE on the tech tree run up to the beginning of the Medeival era.

After that, you get a few eras of the game you know and are used to. And then, just when you're about to hit the Industrial Era, history takes another turn and Everything goes Steampunk. The Age of Coal and Iron (ACI) changes the other end of the tech tree, and brings your game to another, very different theatre of war.

The other core mods are 'Barbarians Evolved' (BE), and 'City State Diplomacy' (CSD). Essentially, they attempt to counter the slight easyness of the current PE mod. PE gives you cheap, easily-fielded units; BE counters that with an implacable, dangerous enemy. PE, played right, gives you insane quantities of early-game cash; CSD stops you from simply buying your way to victory. Which is not to say that these are not worthy mods in themselves (as indeed are even the non-core mods in this collection), but their key purpose here is almost as a balancer.


Please note: These mods are still highly recommended! The top ones in particular are not just optionals!

• Unlimited Barbarian XP Mod: I've yet to determine if this is functional with BE, but gameplay wise it's critical to keeping the Barbarians from your door.
  
• Promotions Expansion Pack: this synergises extremely well with the Unlimited Barbarian XP mod, and adds some more strategy to combat choices when fighting the barbarian hordes.
  
• 3rd/4th Unique Component: Every mod collection should include these. They greatly add to strategy and replayability by making each civ feel more unique to play.
  
• Emigration: I haven't yet fully tested how well this works, balance-wise, but I find it an interesting mechanic that adds to that partial conversion feeling.
  
• Shuffle Plus; Simply put, it keeps every game fresh.
  
• Workable Mountains: I've put this in because it makes settling a mountain early on a better bet, while you cannot see resources. It incentivises and rewards settling more defensible locations.
  
• Mint Includes Copper: Less important, but it's a minor quality of life upgrade that makes an underused building more useful.

• More Pantheons / More Luxuries: While these are very fine mods, I don't believe they are compatible with PE, and in any case they complicate further the already chancy pre-resource settling. Sad, though, as they're great mods.
  
• InfoAddict: I haven't comprehensively checked this, yet, but I'm pretty sure it conflicts with something.