Will the Civ 6 modding community be the quickest ever to establish itself?

[Rob (R8XFT)]

As Civilization series fan since Civ 1 (on DOS no less!) it has seemed that with each successive Civilization release, a new batch of modders have emerged over time (usually getting going after the first expansion pack has been released), with the modding community from the previous iteration staying put with only a handful moving to the new release.

This has meant that modding never really gets established with the Vanilla version of the game - so far! I believe that with Civ 6 a lot of experienced modders will at least try their hand at modding Civ 6 and that we'll hit the ground running with a good selection of early mods available by Christmas.

Thoughts?

 

[calcul8or]

Been playing since Civ III, and Civ V is the first one I started modding. For me, I need to play the game enough to get a feel for it, what I'd like to change or add, and so on. I'm not sure when I'll dip my toe in the modding waters.

I do agree that the modding community will likely jump in quickly on VI - many have already indicated intentions to do so. I hope the camaraderie of the Civ V modding community carries over to the VI modding community (which it likely will, since I expect there to be many of the same people involved).

 

[Ryika]

Beyond Earth has already had a striving Modding Community right from the start, with many people migrating to that game and a lot of good Mods being created rather quickly and the modding forums being active to figure out how stuff works. Unfortunately things died down pretty quickly after it became clear that the game is... not suited for Players who are interested in depth, let's use that as an euphemism. And that it has some really annoying problems that modders have to deal with.

I have no doubt that large parts of the Modding Community will swap to Civ VI instantly, some of the better-known names have already said so in the "What Mods will you be creating?"-thread and the poll shows quite some activity.

I'd say the modders who want to migrate are there, let's hope the game turns out to be good.

 

[LeeS]

It really depends on how fast the modding tools are made available, and how fast a modding manual of some kind is pushed out (hint, hint, Firaxis).

If it wasn't for the fact that I have to eat and pay the bills I'd be willing to create such a manual (wink, wink, Firaxis) but then there's the whole eating thing because 1st I'd need a copy of the game and second I'd have to spend pretty much 50 hours a week between now and game-release figuring out how the game works and how to relate how modding works into a decent manual even if I had my little hands on the game and the modding tools already.

 

[JFD]

It really depends on how fast the modding tools are made available, and how fast a modding manual of some kind is pushed out (hint, hint, Firaxis).

If it wasn't for the fact that I have to eat and pay the bills I'd be willing to create such a manual (wink, wink, Firaxis) but then there's the whole eating thing because 1st I'd need a copy of the game and second I'd have to spend pretty much 50 hours a week between now and game-release figuring out how the game works and how to relate how modding works into a decent manual even if I had my little hands on the game and the modding tools already.

I would trust no one other than yourself for the job, fwiw *hint, hint, Firaxis.*

 

[Ryika]

While we're being mischievous anyway, I think it would be a good idea to give people that have created some popular mods some sort of beta-access to the game. You know... so we can play before everyb- ...so we can prepare some mods, that once the game is released everybody can have modded fun instantly!

 

[lordrj15]

Think I might stick around to ensure that at least several iterations of the Isle of Man are released.

Thinking about doing a British Isles civ pack though.

 

[LeeS]

I would trust no one other than yourself for the job, fwiw ...

*blushings*

 

[Firebug]

Firaxis senpai notice us.

 

[sukritact]

It'll likely depend on the quality of the game and the quality of the tools given to us modders. I'll definitely be dropping civ 5 in favor of civ 6 if both it and it's modding capabilities are satisfactory.

Rob, you've been here before civ 5. What do you think stopped the civ 3 and civ 4 communities transitioning over?

 

[ldvhl]

IV probably didn't transition to V as much because of the IV die-hards who thought V was the work of the devil.

 

[Acken]

I'm skeptic people thinking V is trash will have a lasting interest in VI... we'll see. Anyway, I would bet on the game structure to not be too different that a lot of the skills learned while modding civ5 will translate over. Civ6 looks more like a refined version of Civ5 than a revolution.

I personally would have to work on my LuA... I doubt we'll have access to the dll right away.

 

[sukritact]

While we're being mischievous anyway, I think it would be a good idea to give people that have created some popular mods some sort of beta-access to the game. You know... so we can play before everyb- ...so we can prepare some mods, that once the game is released everybody can have modded fun instantly!

*throws money at screen*

I personally would have to work on my LuA... I doubt we'll have access to the dll right away.

I agree, and personally I think it's for the best. Better we get used to the base game before overhauling the whole thing with the more complex DLL mods. You can already achieve a lot of astonishing things with just Lua.

IV probably didn't transition to V as much because of the IV die-hards who thought V was the work of the devil.

There wasn't this sort of excited environment with the Civ 4 modders when Civ V was announced? What happened? I mean, everyone in the Civ 5 environment seems to be nervously excited (or outright ecstatic)

 

[ldvhl]

There wasn't this sort of excited environment with the Civ 4 modders when Civ V was announced? What happened? I mean, everyone in the Civ 5 environment seems to be nervously excited (or outright ecstatic)

VI is a lot more similar to V than V was to IV, and there were a lot of vocal grumps in the community who refused to move on to V.

 

[agonistes]

Rob, you've been here before civ 5. What do you think stopped the civ 3 and civ 4 communities transitioning over?

Obviously I'm not Rob, but I mod Civ III quite a bit. For me, the reason is the simplicity for Civ 3. Its just much easier to mod for someone at my ability level.

In all fairness, though, I didn't spend much time attempting to mod IV and V. I took a look, and felt it would take too much time to learn.

And the lack of stacks in Civ V. Carpet Armies is very annoying.

 

[ldvhl]

Carpet Armies is very annoying.

CoDs are much more rare than they're made out to be. The in-game economy can't really support them.

 

[Acken]

I agree, and personally I think it's for the best. Better we get used to the base game before overhauling the whole thing with the more complex DLL mods. You can already achieve a lot of astonishing things with just Lua.

Well the dll allows a lot of insight into the game.

Lua is great for certain things like making new civs etc but if you want to mod the AI or some broken mechanics you need the dll.

That said of course I won't really care for a 6months delay but civbe never got its dll source released afaik and iirc it took 2 yars for civ5. This is what worries me.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

It'll likely depend on the quality of the game and the quality of the tools given to us modders. I'll definitely be dropping civ 5 in favor of civ 6 if both it and it's modding capabilities are satisfactory.

Rob, you've been here before civ 5. What do you think stopped the civ 3 and civ 4 communities transitioning over?

I was more a part of the Civ III modding community, but never really got going with Civ 4. Prior to Civ 4's announcement, the very strong Civ III modding community (which is still thriving) wanted, basically, an upgrade to Civ III, but it was an entirely different take on it. The fact that the units would have to be created completely differently and that existing tools could not be used was enough to count out a lot of talented unit artists. The LH creators liked the fact they could create what they wanted from scratch in Civ III, but it was a case of trying to mould an existing LH from the game using a new program, so it wasn't liked. Initially there were a lot of Gandhi and Caesar lookalikes, though those dedicated to Civ 4 came out with some really interesting LHs in the end.

I think there was a similar culture shock with Civ V for Civ IV players.

From what we know of Civ VI, it looks like it's a variation of Civ V in some ways and we think that the tools we use in Civ V might be usable again in Civ VI. We'll see when more is revealed of course!

 

[Quintillus]

I think some of it has to do with each game having successively higher requirements as well. When I first got Civ4, it ran poorly on my hardware compared to Civ3, specifically in requiring more RAM than I had to really run well. Although far from the only factor, it was a contributing factor in why I switched back. If Civ6's requirements are similar to Civ5's, this would be less of an issue than in the past.

The fact that historically expansions have been required to really build out the game also contributes, and in some cases - Civ3 in particular, I don't remember for IV/V - expansions were required to really build out the modding tools as well. Firaxis could certainly positively impact Civ6 modding by ensuring strong modding tools are available from day 1, and as you say, that at least a decent amount of modders' skills are transferable.

Differing opinions on the game mechanics also will cause some to stay with their current preferred version, which is fine, and Firaxis would be hard pressed to make a new game that everyone would prefer. But if they make tools/documentation available day 1, make sure as many skills as reasonably possible are transferable, and don't increase the system requirements too much, they can at least minimize the amount of people who stay on previous versions for reasons other than gameplay preferences.

 

[Firebug]

What i'm getting from all this chat is that modders hate change and are very stubborn people.