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Title: Barbarian Tribes (playable barbarian civs)
Type: ModPack
File Version: v6
Requirements: Free DLC Mongol
File Entry URL: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=15943
Author Name: rf900
What's new in this version?: New: Added Specialized Barbarian Units by Lord Shadow, so you can play with a modded tech tree, reduced buildings and specific units. Also benefit from a lot of warfare traits an early advantages to crush the rival civs.
Post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=397951

This mod will try to alter normal gameplay by giving the player control of a special civ. This civ has been changed to represent a barbarian civilization, forget about culture, you will never go to space, diplomacy only to delay the conquer... A lot of roleplay is involved to make it work, you should act merciless, pillage everything, raze cities and try to rule the world as soon as possible before the civilizations grow in power and technology.

Preview image:

 
Title: Dutch Republic, a Trade Empire.
Type: Additional Civilization
File Version: v 3
Requirements: none
File Entry URL: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=15953
Author Name: Lord Alderaan
What's new in this version?:
Leader - William I, Prince of Orange
Trade Empire - Each Luxury Resource provides +2 :c5gold: Gold when worked by a city.
East Indiaman - Caravel with +2 :c5moves: Movement and +3 :c5rangedstrength: Ranged Attack.
Polder - Windmill with +3 :c5food: Food and +1 :c5gold: Maintenance.

Preview images:

or

or simply
 
Is adding the file to the database here manditory?

I'd assume people would grab mods from the ingame mod browser simply because it is more convenient. So what is the reason to also upload it here?
 
Also, is it desireable or undesirable for Civfanatics to add this to the downloads database? I'd like to keep it in one place to make updates easier, but if theres a helpful reason to do that I will.
Is adding the file to the database here manditory?

I'd assume people would grab mods from the ingame mod browser simply because it is more convenient. So what is the reason to also upload it here?
It's desirable, but not mandatory. Consider it an off-site back up, if nothing else. All publicly accessible databases sooner or later experience crashes, corruptions, dos attacks, and damage by hackers.

Moderator Action: As a reminder, these types of posts do not belong in this thread. It is strictly for posting of items for announcement. There are other threads where the questions are more likely to be answered & where they are more likely to be seen by others who need the answers as well.
 
Moderator Action: The new announcement is posted.


  • Link broken? Check that you followed the guidelines in the OP. Let me know if it's my mistake rather than yours. If it's mine I'll correct it. If it's yours double check your post more carefully next time around.
  • No picture in the preview? Check that you followed the guidelines in the OP. Let me know if it's my mistake rather than yours. If it's mine I'll correct it. If it's yours double check your post more carefully next time around.
  • At least one entry did not follow the format at all. Check that you followed the guidelines in the OP. From now on such entries won't be included unless they are corrected prior to the start of preparing the announcement. After that if they are corrected & placed in a new post they will be included in the next round.
 
Those who feel I'm being arbitrary with the guidelines may appreciate another person's perspective:
So happy Christmas everyone! What a lot of good cheer there is going on here.

Well, since I have done the same work, I'll add a few comments.

People really don't appreciate how incredibly long it takes to make these announcements. When I did them I would often put it off for far too long, because doing it required having a free day to devote to a tiresome task. Of course, the longer I put it off, the more intimidating the task, because there were yet more files to announce. And the more I would put it off. I'm sure we've all experienced something like that.

It takes so long for two main reasons. The first is that simply assembling the text takes a long time and is tedious. You have to follow all of these links, copy and paste the URLs, get the file name and author name right, and categorise them. This is sometimes rendered harder not only by the contracted URLs that Blue Monkey talked about but by the fact that some authors give links to "library" threads containing many files (sometimes direct to the relevant post in that thread, sometimes just to the thread itself, forcing me to hunt through it) and some give links to threads devoted to a single file; some use showthread URLs and others use showpost URLs; some give links to forum threads, some to database pages, and some to the direct download from the database pages. I tried, and usually failed, to standardise these when compiling them into the announcement. Also, being an obsessive proof-reader, I worked hard to ensure that all files, authors, and comments were displayed in a consistent style, and that they were listed in a consistent order. Within category, I listed everything in the order in which it appeared in this thread - apart from different files by the same author, which were listed together, but within author they were again listed in chronological order. That takes time to do, and it also involves making more decisions: do unit packs, for example, get listed as single entries, or do all the units get their own entries? What about a "pack" of just two units? What about old, lost files that have been rescued and re-uploaded? This is why I fairly quickly abandoned the practice, which I initially followed, of adding comments of my own to each file. That just doubled the time.

The second reason it takes a long time is that the images take ages as well. First, like URLs, authors often don't provide these in an easily accessible way, let alone one that is consistent between everyone. Some are in BMP format, some in JPEG, and some in PNG. That's a trivial inconsistency. More problematic is the fact that some files, such as units and buildings, typically have a standard form, but not everyone follows it. Some people provide extra-large-size versions of the pedia icons. Some people provide not pedia icons at all, but enormous and very artistic renderings of the models they used with different backgrounds. Some people provide not icons but shots from within Poser of the model against a purple background. Some people provide frames from the animation. Some people provide large composite images displaying lots of units or buildings at once, which again can come in all sorts of formats (white pedia-style background, purple flic-style background, etc.). Some give composite images showing different files for single objects (e.g. images showing the large and small pedia icons next to each other), or add borders to their images, or explanatory text. With all of these I have to decide what to do with it - use it as it is, resize it, reshape it, cut bits out of it, or whatever. And some people don't provide static previews at all, which means I have to download the file itself, unzip it, locate the pedia image, and convert it. This takes time.

Even once the images have all been hunted down and put into something resembling the right format, it is still a long and difficult process to arrange them into a preview image. Usually there is not enough room for all of them, so I have to decide what is going in and what is being left out - with the proviso that the image has to look good, has to give a good sense of the range of files on offer, and has to be as fair as possible to everyone so that the work of as many different authors as possible is represented, and shown in as good a light as possible. Images that are "standard"-sized or shaped, such as standard pedia icons, are not hard to arrange in a tiling fashion, especially as they are fairly small. Larger ones such as wonder splashes are harder but are nice to get in as they usually look so impressive. Most problematic are any in-game shots, usually those showing terrain or cities, because the provided images are usually large and need to be cut down - but how much, to what size and shape, and where do they go in the image? I eventually developed the method of getting around some of this by shrinking some images down extra-small just to get them in, but again I had to be careful not to seem to be singling anyone's work out for that treatment. (And people still complained...)

Now I understand that when you've created something you want to see it up there with everything else. We are all creators here and we are all proud of what we've done, and if it seems that your work is not being properly acknowledged then that can be upsetting. But people do need to understand that making these announcements is really time-consuming, and while it may be fun to do for the first one or two, the novelty wears off very quickly. I remember people complaining about various aspects of how I'd done it, and I suggested that if they wanted to do one themselves I'd be very happy for them to do so, and nothing more would be heard on the subject. I found making these announcements by far the most tedious and annoying aspect of moderating and also the most thankless (well, perhaps with one or two exceptions which I won't discuss here). If Blue Monkey has particular guidelines that he wants creators to follow to streamline the process, then that's not only reasonable, it's entirely to everyone's benefit. It means he gets the tedious job done more quickly and pleasantly, and it means that announcements get posted more quickly and frequently, which in turn means that everyone has more of a chance of having their work displayed more often and more prominently. So please don't view this as an antagonistic issue or a conflict, but as a cooperative matter where different people have different roles and are there to help one another out.
 
Title: PlayWithMe
Type: Modpack
File Version: 5
Requirements: none
File Entry URL: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=16227
Thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=400420
Author Name: alpaca
What's new in this version?:
  • Compatible with patch 1.0.1.141
  • Great Scientists now provide a number of beakers that depends on the number of techs you have researched
  • Great Merchants and Great Engineers boosted
  • Great Person improvements improved
  • Road and Railroads now provide +1 gold to any tile they're built on; railroads provide +1 production if combined with a hammer improvement
  • Workers cannot be captured
  • Some science building balance
 
Title: Food Economy - Tradable Bonus Resources
Type: ModPack
File Version: 1.0
Requirements: -
File Entry URL: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=16258
Author Name: Deep_Blue
Mod Thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=405052
What's new in this version?:
  • Food Resources give +1 :c5food: Food in each city that has a granary.
  • Food bonus is not on resource tile but is an empire wide bonus: An empire with 10 cities with granary will receive total +10 food from 1 wheat.
  • Bonus resources are made tradable which adds strategic importance to them.

Preview:
 

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Title: Have Fun - Cheat Engine
Type: Other
File Version: 1.0
Requirements: -
File Entry URL: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=16353
Author Name: Deep_Blue
Mod Thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=407562
What's new in this version?:
  • Take Control of any AI civ including city states.
  • Reveal Map
  • Edit any Player in the Game:
    • Add Gold, Culture, free Resources and free units.
    • Adopt any Policy
    • Learn any Technology
    • Change city population
    • Add/Remove buildings in cities
 
Title: History in the Making II
File Version: 1.0
Author Name: Grave
Type: Total Conversion Modpack
File Entry URL: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=16360
Mod Thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=407768

About: History in the Making II (HiTM2) is a complete conversion style modpack. It carries on the traditon of it's Civilization IV predecessor by adding a little bit of everything, while trying not to change too many core elements of the game "just for the sake of change". HiTM2 is my version of how Civilization V should be!
 

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