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Sep 13, 2010, 07:50 PM
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#1 | |
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The White Wizard
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Short Civilization 5 file structure overview
Now that Steam has Preloaded Civ5, we can see the folder structure, but not the contents of the files. The files seem to be cyphered, to be unlocked in roughly 1 week, but we can learn a lot from the setup.
XML. There is a lot of recognizable xml files. In "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v\Assets\Gameplay\XML" XML Folders:
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is your XML folder breakdown, just like Civ4. Many of the files are the same. Units, UnitClasses, Buildings, BuildingClasses are all there. Techs are there. Leaders seem to be split into a file for each one. There is a new AI Folder. BasicInfos is full of new and old files. GameInfo holds a lot of older files, but a lot of new ones too. One thing modders should note is that leaders are broken down by file, instead of in one large file like in Civ4. Also, Barbarians seem to be a player, just like in Civ4 (albeit a hidden, unplayable player). One mystery I have noticed is that there don't seem to be any Schema files anymore. Lua. Modders will also notice the absence of python, and the introduction of lua files. The lua is split into two folders,: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v\Assets\Gameplay\Lua" and "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v\Assets\UI" SDK. There is no apparent SDK folder, but the CvGameCoreDLLFinal Release.dll seems to be ~2.5mb, which is half the size of the BTS DLL. That makes me suspect that the Civ5 SDK is a lot smaller, and a lot of content was cut (Selectiongroups, I'm looking at you), and it is also possibly more compressed. I'm curious about what more is revealed in the coming days. The goods news is that your Civ4 XML skills should directly translate over. 
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"A Witty Saying Proves Nothing" -Voltaire Civilization 4 Mods: Rise of Mankind - A New Dawn 1.75 Civilization 5 Mods: Active City Defense, Tech Diffusion Minecraft Mods: Spout & Spoutcraft Lead Developer Last edited by The_J; Oct 08, 2010 at 06:17 PM. |
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Sep 21, 2010, 03:57 PM
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#2 |
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Say No 2 Net Validations
  
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Moderator Action: Coppied from the speculation thread.
Which files are missing? Ekmek said something about that some XMLs are in the .fpk, is this right? Which one? |
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Sep 21, 2010, 04:50 PM
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#3 | |
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Warlord
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Ajaccio,Corsica,france (Europe)
Posts: 185
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I'm surprised you can't see file content as i can see it all
I only get the demo because i live in France,but IMO it works the same as the actual game Quote:
Last edited by Jaythekiller; Sep 21, 2010 at 04:58 PM. |
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Sep 21, 2010, 05:36 PM
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#4 | |
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Say No 2 Net Validations
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Quote:
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Sep 21, 2010, 05:40 PM
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#5 | |
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Warlord
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Ajaccio,Corsica,france (Europe)
Posts: 185
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Quote:
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Sep 21, 2010, 10:48 PM
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#6 |
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Deity
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Afforess: Not sure if you looked inside of the XML files, but we are in more of what I used to call a "real XML" format now.
Having the Schema files was a HUGE boon to making it easy to pick up the XML and modify things on a whim without really knowing what you were doing. You learn what a specific tag keyword meant, and you fiddled with the numbers to make things happen. Now, the Schema bits are contained within the same file as the data bits. Pretty sure in all cases they are listed first. This isn't TOO big of a change, as long as you had ever opened a schema before and you know what to ignore now. The biggest change is that this time around, instead of the XML being read directly to the DLL, the XML is being loaded into SQL tables. So you'll see lots of Table and Column elements which are completely new compared to Civ4. This is something you'll have to learn to work with if you start adding new fields to your mod, how to ensure they are tabled properly and have the right rules on what values are allowed. Pretty sure for most files this comes between the Schema and Data portions. As I recall things (haven't played with it too much, sadly RL is bumping me for a merry ride), there is no longer any requirement to include EVERY item in a list, as the table is initially populated with basic data. There is no longer a limit of having 1 "chunk" per item. I can specify the warrior's strength at the top of the file, then later in the middle specify his movement, and again at the bottom specify his defense. Each time that it finds a "warrior chunk" of data, it grabs what is there and updates the proper entries in the table. No more bothersome overwriting (ie - it is native perfectly modular).
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Fall from Heaven: - Random Stories and Fragments - Trivia Thread - The Complete FfH Manual - Lore Compendium - The Erebus Project - #erebus - The Mega Story General Information: Mod Details, World Information Resource, Easter Eggs, Quick-Guide, Empyrean/Esus & Guilds Information, The Other Religions, Mana Chart, Religous ThemesSpecific Details: FfH Wikia, FfH Wiki, FF Wiki, World Spells, FoL Guide, Council of Esus Guide, Magic Comparison, Potential Fix for MAF issues |
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Sep 21, 2010, 10:53 PM
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#7 |
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Eat, Sleep, Mod
Join Date: May 2008
Location: CA, USA
Posts: 1,182
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After 10 minutes of playing or so I went hunting for the folders.
 I eventually found them under steam in the programs folder (I have the demo since Amazon will be delivering it Wednesday or Thursday), then I found all the other XML and Lua files and finally came to the FPK and FXSB compressed folders. I'm curious as to why my PAK program used in Civ 4 is unable to decompress the FPK folders for Civ 5, either I need a new program for Civ 5 or they're protected since they're part of the demo. Nevertheless, I believe the FXSB folders are new and am curious if the compressor/decompressor will be part of the mod tools package arriving at the aforementioned date or will I have to download something else for those? I really want to pry my fingers into the model/XML archives to get a nice jumpstart on figuring out how to go about making models/mods. EDIT: It seems after trying to open a DDS image with Gimp 2.6 I received an error stating that it can not be opened... I may have to get a newer version of Gimp with a newer version of the DDS converter for Gimp.
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"The sweet taste of victory is a flavor that never runs bland" - Civ Fuehrer Last edited by Civ Fuehrer; Sep 21, 2010 at 10:58 PM. |
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Sep 21, 2010, 11:13 PM
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#8 |
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Deity
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 6,481
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The FPK and DDS files use a propriety compression matrix. No available program will be able to open them....... except Nexus (which is in the SDK).
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http://www.brrgames.com |
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Sep 21, 2010, 11:15 PM
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#9 |
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Eat, Sleep, Mod
Join Date: May 2008
Location: CA, USA
Posts: 1,182
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Thought so... Well in that case might as well go back to playing. I've never felt so sad and happy at the same time like this.
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"The sweet taste of victory is a flavor that never runs bland" - Civ Fuehrer |
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Sep 22, 2010, 05:19 AM
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#11 |
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Complicated Complication
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: In your moms basement
Posts: 150
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Hi,
Can somebody tell me where the art assets are located, specifically I'm attempting to find the resource icons, the apples and hammers as I'd like to change them to something else that I have in mind. I think I've looked through most if not all of the Assets folder of the installation of the game folder but failed to find those two files. Thanks,
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When your tired of games of destruction, come to CityBuilderGames to discuss games of Construction! -- Now part of the MyGameForums.com family of websites. My Complication has a Complication! |
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Sep 22, 2010, 12:06 PM
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#12 | |
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Eat, Sleep, Mod
Join Date: May 2008
Location: CA, USA
Posts: 1,182
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Quote:
@City Builder The icons and actual artwork are all contained within the FPK and FXSB folders which cannot be opened by any currently released program. We will need to wait for Firaxis/2K to release the SDK with Nexus to unpack them and change them or you could ask one of the people who were beta players that have access to the tools now to make it.
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"The sweet taste of victory is a flavor that never runs bland" - Civ Fuehrer |
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Sep 22, 2010, 01:33 PM
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#13 |
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Deity
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YieldIconManager.lua/xml ought to contain everything you need to modify the yield icons on the tiles.
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Fall from Heaven: - Random Stories and Fragments - Trivia Thread - The Complete FfH Manual - Lore Compendium - The Erebus Project - #erebus - The Mega Story General Information: Mod Details, World Information Resource, Easter Eggs, Quick-Guide, Empyrean/Esus & Guilds Information, The Other Religions, Mana Chart, Religous ThemesSpecific Details: FfH Wikia, FfH Wiki, FF Wiki, World Spells, FoL Guide, Council of Esus Guide, Magic Comparison, Potential Fix for MAF issues |
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Sep 23, 2010, 10:03 AM
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#14 |
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Deity
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 2,060
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xienwolf, it seems to me that it should be possible to create a whole new table with a single xml file (with it's own "schema" at the top). The dll won't know about it, of course, but your Lua code could interact with it. These values would be reloaded from xml file when game reloads (so any values changed by Lua would be reset to xml file values). Does this sound correct?
Dang it! I'm still stuck on understanding how to remember values between game saves. If I use Lua to create a new column in an existing table, or a whole new table that doesn't have a corresponding xml file, will those new entities be present in the gamesave file? Or will they just evaporate? It would be nice if there was some sort of tag associated with any table that provided two options: 1) always reload this table from xml at game start/game reload, or 2) save this table in gamesave file (only load from xml file at beginning of a new game). Last edited by Pazyryk; Sep 23, 2010 at 08:22 PM. |
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Sep 24, 2010, 08:42 AM
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#15 | |
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Deity
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Quote:
One catch that I think may not quite be mentioned is that you can't use a NEW XML file to do this, as the DLL needs to be told to load the XML file. But you can use any existing XML file to create a new group of SQL data. You can indeed also create a new SQL data table from only LUA, and nothing will ever change that, short of the SQL database being deleted by the computer owner. Again, I might not be correct about XML always being loaded fresh into the SQL upon loading Civ from desktop, it could be a cache validation system where only modified XML files are reloaded if the SQL database already exists.
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Fall from Heaven: - Random Stories and Fragments - Trivia Thread - The Complete FfH Manual - Lore Compendium - The Erebus Project - #erebus - The Mega Story General Information: Mod Details, World Information Resource, Easter Eggs, Quick-Guide, Empyrean/Esus & Guilds Information, The Other Religions, Mana Chart, Religous ThemesSpecific Details: FfH Wikia, FfH Wiki, FF Wiki, World Spells, FoL Guide, Council of Esus Guide, Magic Comparison, Potential Fix for MAF issues |
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Sep 24, 2010, 11:21 AM
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#16 |
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Emperor
Join Date: May 2010
Location: The United States
Posts: 1,165
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Very nice work to categorize all that, Afforess.
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Sep 24, 2010, 11:26 AM
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#17 |
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Deity
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 2,060
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Thanks xienwolf! Just one more piece of my question that you didn't address (probably because you don't know yet):
Do any of these info tables go into the gamesave so they are reloaded from game-specific (possibly altered) game values rather than xml file or cache? If not, is there any kind of memory system that can be manipulated by Lua that will be in the gamesave. (In Civ4, I would create an invisible/inaccessible unit and load it up with promotions that acted as gameinfo booleans. It's a pretty nasty solution and I'm hoping I don't have to do this in Civ5.) |
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Sep 24, 2010, 11:33 AM
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#18 |
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Deity
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Ah, so that it is shareable by distributing the gamesave type of thing.... You are right, I don't think I know the answer to that one. I would imagine it may unfortunately be "no"
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Fall from Heaven: - Random Stories and Fragments - Trivia Thread - The Complete FfH Manual - Lore Compendium - The Erebus Project - #erebus - The Mega Story General Information: Mod Details, World Information Resource, Easter Eggs, Quick-Guide, Empyrean/Esus & Guilds Information, The Other Religions, Mana Chart, Religous ThemesSpecific Details: FfH Wikia, FfH Wiki, FF Wiki, World Spells, FoL Guide, Council of Esus Guide, Magic Comparison, Potential Fix for MAF issues |
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Sep 24, 2010, 12:25 PM
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#19 |
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Deity
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 2,060
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Rats. Well, let's hope it's there and we don't know how yet. It's such a basic need and it makes many things possible: events, quests, more sophisticated AI modding (memory of specific events), better optimized Lua functions (don't have to check every turn for things that are fixed at game start, like location of special map features). I hope that some proficient C++ modder will think about making a generic "gamesave memory" mod early after we get access to dll.
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Sep 26, 2010, 05:43 PM
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#20 |
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Warlord
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Beijing, China
Posts: 211
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I wish the SDK will come early.
BTW. I'm glad to see that the SDK works with the runtime of VC90/VS2008. It's my current develope environment. |
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