Civ is heavilly marketed on its modability and the wide range of mods available for past games (all created for free by fans). Perhaps there should be a sense of entitlement. Not towards the modders, but towards the devs and publisher. This game has been marketed as being even more modable than Civ4. So nothing should stand in the way of the users gaining access to mods; and nothing should limit modders from distributing their mods... not even DLC or pre-release special edition material.
I think you read wrongly that quote you replied to. Or I read your reply wrong.
Either way I don't understand your reply in context to that quote.
You said that you feel entitled to use an extra bonus feature you purchase from Firaxis/2K in a fan-created mod.
You are entitled to no such thing.
If I make a mod that doesn't have Babylon, then it doesn't have Babylon - even if you bought the Deluxe edition.
You aren't entitled to any content in fan mods at all. If you buy the deluxe Babylon, you're entitled to use that in the base game. That's it.
You may end up eating your words.
How are you to know the best mod for civ5 will not be based on the deluxe edition?
I think I am far less likely to need to eat words than those spouting doom and gloom, and declaring that modding will be fractured because they happened to provide some bonus content.
It is entirely possible that Babylon/maps will be the only bonus content released.
It is entirely possible that the Bablyon/maps will be in the same kind of XML as any other content, and so could be copy-pasted into any mod at will.
It is entirely possible that the Babylon/maps will be distributed free in a patch or in the first expansion.
The whining about the Deluxe edition is bizarre. If you accept the premise that it can be nice to have a deluxe edition for more money, then said deluxe edition has to either
a) have only useless content, which would make people complain or
b) have some interesting content, which still seems to be making people complain
If they had never made a 19th civ and a few maps, people would still be perfectly happy with the core game. Its bizarre that then the existence of something extra makes people less happy with what they'll get
And I'll stand by my statement; the only way that people will create mods intended for wide distribution is if the mod is compatible. 95% of people are not going to get the Deluxe edition. So the only way smart modders will include deluxe content in their mod is if they do so in a way that is still compatible with the base game.
So in either case; no problem.
There's either no compatability issue, or there's a small issue but modders still code for the main game.